What Makes A Hollywood Blockbuster? Science Has The Answer
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 12:28
in Mathematics & Economics
What makes Hollywood blockbuster? Scientists writing in Psychological Science may have the answer. Using the sophisticated tools of modern perception research to deconstruct 70 years of film, shot by shot, researchers at Cornell University say that successful movies follow a particular mathematical pattern. The team of psychologists measured the duration of every shot in every scene of 150 of the most popular films released from 1935 to 2005. The films represented five major genres—action, adventure, animation, comedy and drama. Using a complex mathematical formula, they translated these sequences of shot lengths into "waves" for each film. read more