Taking Screenshots

[Mark Nornes]

On Tuesday, May 13, 2003, at 06:52  AM, Stephen Cremin wrote:

> And not only are frame grabs more likely to come under "fair use" law, 
> but they are what you're going to want for an academic project.  After 
> all, promotional stills are just that ... shots to help sell the film, 
> not an accurate reflection of the films' cinematic qualities, 
> language, etc.

Basically, frame grabs are treated like the quotation of a sentence of 
prose. It's such a small part of a work that it does not threaten the 
copyright holder.

Stephen also raises an excellent point. However, I'd add that frame 
grabs using computers are still no substitution for photographic 
reproductions. The resolution is incomparable, and the cropping that 
you get on video makes it difficult to guarantee it's an accurate 
representation of the frame.

There was a great discussion of all of this in Cinema Journal a few 
years back, with Bordwell contributing his two cents and advice on how 
to do it. His use of frame enlargements, especially in the Ozu book, is 
exemplary.

Markus