Audience response to cinematic transition techniques in Death of a Salesman

Business Communication

The topic will be how we can systematically look at how audiences respond to specific cinematic techniques.

Who will be your colleagues when you are in a work environment?

Colleagues will be fellow students in this program. I will need to form a team of film students to run the research I want to run. I want to test viewer reactions to two different kinds of segueway. I propose filming a scene from Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman," using two different kinds of segueay: visual fade, and audio overlay. For the visual fade, the scene would fade away. For a visual overlay, the viewers would hear people speaking in the next scene for a second or so before they saw the action, a technique used often in the third Harry Potter film.

What do your colleagues know about your subject?

They are well versed in basic film techniques and know how to use the film techniques to be studied.

What do they have to gain from the information you present?

They will have an opportunity to participate in a film production project. Since it will be a team project, they will help decide how we proceed and help write the results. This should be a project that will advance all participants' expertise in their chosen field.

How does what your colleagues have to gain from your subject relate to what they need to work productively?

It will encourage them to think about the film techniques they use from a variety of viewpoints. Although it can't be guaranteed, if we do this project well, it may well be publishable. This would be a valuable thing for the participants to have on their resumes when they graduate.