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kaigouPer my post on secrets to author gender, now revealed! I realized that I didn't give any mention to the biggest impact on our perception of height/weight ratios: film.
Many, many years ago, before Fred Grandy moved away from Hollywood and became a Senator, I recall watching an interview with him about his role on Love Boat. (What's really bizarre is only finding out today that not only did he graduate from Harvard, he's fluent in English, French, and Arabic, and he played the doofus purser on Love Boat? What the hell? But anyway.) He made a comment during the interview to the effect that before filming started for the next season, he'd need to lose 15 pounds; he explained to the astonished interviewer that television/movie cameras 'add' roughly 10-15 pounds to your frame.
Which I sort of filed away in my head as "wow, that's weird" (while my mother sat flabbergasted in the background), and it wasn't until I started doing photography with CP that the comment popped back into my head and started rolling around. I'm mentioning it here because it may have some bearing on our perceptions of good/bad weight/height ratio etc.
This is not only highly simplified, and probably somewhat unscientific, but I also can't find anything much out there on just what phenomenon might cause the perception that a person is wider/larger than reality. I did find some reluctant allowances in interviews that oh, back in the old days (when cameras weren't all that awesome), there might've been 'barrel distortion' caused by badly-ground lenses on film cameras. But, of course, that's not true now, not at all.
Except that I can watch an actress on television and she looks like a normal, healthy, size eight, maybe: more slender than most I know, but not bizarrely so. Then I look at "candid shots" taken backstage and the poor actress looks positively skeletal. Or the alternate version, like the fandom going on and on about the actress who played Tara on BtVS -- that she was too fat, she should lose weight, blah blah blah. In fact, in each episode, she did look -- well, 'chunky' might be the word, or thick-waisted. Yet in regular portraiture sessions, she was clearly petite and quite slim... just not as slim as her costars, all of whom -- in those same off-film photographs -- looked gaunt.
I think it has something to do with a combination of perspective distortion, which is a factor related to the distance of the camera to the object being filmed. The other half may be the depth of field, which tends to get set (for TV/movies) at a baseline aperture, and usually a rather large one at that -- if you watch the average television show, the majority of the frame is in focus. There'll be some out-of-focus range at the nearest and the farthest away, but the actual stretch of 'in focus' is quite large compared to portraiture (which is most flattering if within a range of specific aperture & depth of field).
Here's a handy image from Wiki to make you think.
According to the description:
All I'm saying is that I think there is something to the possibility that what we're seeing onscreen -- and the numbers of height/weight that we're given as comparison -- may lack any accurate basis in reality. That is, sure, Angelina Jolie looks like a healthy, buxom, muscular Lara Croft, but in person? She really is a freakish stick. So you see the person on camera, or on television -- the camera-lens by which you 'see' 90% of any actors/role models, I bet -- and then you find out the actress is 5'6" and 110lbs. I can see quite easily why some authors -- especially those unfamiliar with, or unable or unwilling to interogate friends who might be familiar with, a real-person height/weight ratio. You say, "my character looks like so-and-so in such-and-such film, and that person is 5'10" and 130 and looks really good, so that's what my character is."
Again, general laziness is to blame, at least for the authors. But on our parts, we can at least be aware that whether or not it's true that "the camera adds 15 pounds" or I'm just experiencing some kind of mental hallucinatory trip when viewing one type of image versus another type, it might still be a good rule of thumb.
Find out that actor's or actress' weight, if your story requires it and you can get the stats and want to use that as decent baseline. Just add fifteen pounds, first.
Dunno. Anyone else have input/experience/ideas on the camera's 'eye'?
ETA 3/27: visual explanation
Our depth perception allows us to see an object in 3-D, but -- and this is just my theory, and may be utterly hogwash -- but what I think is going on is that a film camera has enough depth-of-field and is far enough away that it gives 'sharpness' to the edges (the shaded parts in the top two blocks) while our eyes would see those edges as being 'farther away'. The camera flattens the image, in a similar manner to a telephoto lens, if not quite that exaggerated, and thus you see 'more' of the object. It's not quite a barrel distortion so much as the camera overriding our usual perception of, and dismissal of, the 'side view' parts as not being part of the 'front view'.
When you look at the left picture, you know it's 3-D thanks to the shading, but you also know the 'shadow' indicates the object's depth and not its actual width. I think the film-camera removes this blurriness and thus makes the depth look like it's part of the width (the picture on the right). That's my theory, at least.
Many, many years ago, before Fred Grandy moved away from Hollywood and became a Senator, I recall watching an interview with him about his role on Love Boat. (What's really bizarre is only finding out today that not only did he graduate from Harvard, he's fluent in English, French, and Arabic, and he played the doofus purser on Love Boat? What the hell? But anyway.) He made a comment during the interview to the effect that before filming started for the next season, he'd need to lose 15 pounds; he explained to the astonished interviewer that television/movie cameras 'add' roughly 10-15 pounds to your frame.
Which I sort of filed away in my head as "wow, that's weird" (while my mother sat flabbergasted in the background), and it wasn't until I started doing photography with CP that the comment popped back into my head and started rolling around. I'm mentioning it here because it may have some bearing on our perceptions of good/bad weight/height ratio etc.
This is not only highly simplified, and probably somewhat unscientific, but I also can't find anything much out there on just what phenomenon might cause the perception that a person is wider/larger than reality. I did find some reluctant allowances in interviews that oh, back in the old days (when cameras weren't all that awesome), there might've been 'barrel distortion' caused by badly-ground lenses on film cameras. But, of course, that's not true now, not at all.
Except that I can watch an actress on television and she looks like a normal, healthy, size eight, maybe: more slender than most I know, but not bizarrely so. Then I look at "candid shots" taken backstage and the poor actress looks positively skeletal. Or the alternate version, like the fandom going on and on about the actress who played Tara on BtVS -- that she was too fat, she should lose weight, blah blah blah. In fact, in each episode, she did look -- well, 'chunky' might be the word, or thick-waisted. Yet in regular portraiture sessions, she was clearly petite and quite slim... just not as slim as her costars, all of whom -- in those same off-film photographs -- looked gaunt.
I think it has something to do with a combination of perspective distortion, which is a factor related to the distance of the camera to the object being filmed. The other half may be the depth of field, which tends to get set (for TV/movies) at a baseline aperture, and usually a rather large one at that -- if you watch the average television show, the majority of the frame is in focus. There'll be some out-of-focus range at the nearest and the farthest away, but the actual stretch of 'in focus' is quite large compared to portraiture (which is most flattering if within a range of specific aperture & depth of field).
Here's a handy image from Wiki to make you think.
According to the description:
This simulation shows how adjusting the distance of a camera, while keeping the object in frame, results in vastly differing images. At large values, light rays are nearly parallel, resulting in a "flattened" image. At small values the object, if viewed at an angle, appears foreshortened. At very small values (not shown, as the camera would lie inside the object), light rays are nearly perpendicular, resulting in lines that normally appear perpendicular seeming to converge upon a single point.I'm sure you've seen the popular-enough-to-be-annoying web stock photography where the person looks almost like their nose is into the camera, or they're photographed from above with head massive and feet far away and tiny. That's the use of a wide angle lens, from close-up, twiddled to create that effect. That's one type of purposeful distortion.
All I'm saying is that I think there is something to the possibility that what we're seeing onscreen -- and the numbers of height/weight that we're given as comparison -- may lack any accurate basis in reality. That is, sure, Angelina Jolie looks like a healthy, buxom, muscular Lara Croft, but in person? She really is a freakish stick. So you see the person on camera, or on television -- the camera-lens by which you 'see' 90% of any actors/role models, I bet -- and then you find out the actress is 5'6" and 110lbs. I can see quite easily why some authors -- especially those unfamiliar with, or unable or unwilling to interogate friends who might be familiar with, a real-person height/weight ratio. You say, "my character looks like so-and-so in such-and-such film, and that person is 5'10" and 130 and looks really good, so that's what my character is."
Again, general laziness is to blame, at least for the authors. But on our parts, we can at least be aware that whether or not it's true that "the camera adds 15 pounds" or I'm just experiencing some kind of mental hallucinatory trip when viewing one type of image versus another type, it might still be a good rule of thumb.
Find out that actor's or actress' weight, if your story requires it and you can get the stats and want to use that as decent baseline. Just add fifteen pounds, first.
Dunno. Anyone else have input/experience/ideas on the camera's 'eye'?
ETA 3/27: visual explanation
Our depth perception allows us to see an object in 3-D, but -- and this is just my theory, and may be utterly hogwash -- but what I think is going on is that a film camera has enough depth-of-field and is far enough away that it gives 'sharpness' to the edges (the shaded parts in the top two blocks) while our eyes would see those edges as being 'farther away'. The camera flattens the image, in a similar manner to a telephoto lens, if not quite that exaggerated, and thus you see 'more' of the object. It's not quite a barrel distortion so much as the camera overriding our usual perception of, and dismissal of, the 'side view' parts as not being part of the 'front view'.
When you look at the left picture, you know it's 3-D thanks to the shading, but you also know the 'shadow' indicates the object's depth and not its actual width. I think the film-camera removes this blurriness and thus makes the depth look like it's part of the width (the picture on the right). That's my theory, at least.
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Date: 24 Mar 2008 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Mar 2008 03:20 pm (UTC)I have read, though I have no idea how accurate it is, that it may have something to do with our depth perception since in person we have binocular vision, but a camera does not. It does seem to be true that models and many celebrities have very symmetrical faces, which would make them more photogenic if this were true. Sometimes celebrities, weight issues aside, look better on screen than in person
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Date: 27 Mar 2008 08:52 pm (UTC)Okay, visual added to post!
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Date: 27 Mar 2008 08:34 pm (UTC)I've always hated my own image via snapshots, but when CP took pictures of me with proper allowance for portraiture requirements... hunh. Not just lighting, but all the rest, and it can make a big difference.
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Date: 28 Mar 2008 05:09 pm (UTC)I keep hoping that those studies showing that it's healthier to be slightly overweight (but not obese) will start making an impact, but I think that's an uphill battle -- being thin is a status symbol today because it requires a) good genes and/or b) the time and money to have a personal trainer (or the time and money to go to the gym, for the rest of us).