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July 2001, Week 3

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Fri, 20 Jul 2001 20:13:25 +0200
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>I'm trying to help a Polish colleague who needs to know the number of cuts
>in Kane. Has anyone counted them? Anywhere?

Actually, I have gone through the film doing a shot-by-shot breakdown.
I have counted 614 shots (counting the opening and end title 'cards').

However, the film sports some complicated montage sequences involving a lot of
dissolves and superimpositions. I have counted one shot for each new image that
appears in these sequences, rather than counting the whole montage as one shot.
Sometimes it is hard to tell the images apart.

The film is a marvellous mixture of fast editing and long takes. It contains 21
shots that last more than one minute, which I suspect is a fairly unusual high
number for Hollywood films, or any kind of film, at that time. The average shot
length I have calculated as approx. 12.2 seconds, which is more like normal. The
newsreel section early in the film has a high cut frequency, which is pulling
the average shot length down.

Of course, this is my own personal findings and small inaccuracies could have
crept in.

Dag Sødtholt

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