Welcome to Cut Up! A video series where I talk about specific scenes in movies and cut them up or turn a rom com into a math equation.
This time we’re talking about “While You Were Sleeping”. A very popular romantic comedy that has many fans who love it. I am not one of those people, but I was never the target demographic for this so that’s fine.
I watched this thing for my fiance. She loves the movie and loves watching me get upset at movies like this even more because then we just end up talking and making fun of it together. Some of you probably do this.
Thanks to me not caring about what was going on I mostly just focused on the cool shots of Chicago and I started to notice… there are a lot of them. So many in fact that I started to wonder how much of “While You Were Sleeping” is just shots of Chicago?
So, I scrubbed through the whole movie, pulling out every shot of Chicago. If you would like to see these shots and see the full breakdown check out the video above. If you want just the cold hard numbers continue reading.
With an exact 1 hour and 40 minute runtime from opening credits to the start of the ending credits that gives us a nice round 100 minutes of runtime. After scrubbing through the full movie I was able to find exactly 5 minutes and 44 seconds of shots of Chicago in this film. That means “While You Were Sleeping” is 5.73% shots of Chicago. Let’s just round up and call it 6%.
While You Were Sleeping
Chicago screen time: 5 minutes and 44 seconds
Runtime: 100 minutes
While You Were Sleeping is 6% Chicago
That seems like a high percentage of the film, but I didn’t really have anything to judge it against. So I decided to find out how much sleeping is in “While you were Sleeping?” Does the amount of sleeping exceed the amount of establishing Chicago shots?
So, I then cut out all the sleeping parts and found there are roughly 2 minutes and 46 seconds of sleeping. I rounded up for the Chicago shots so i’ll do the same here. That means 2.76% of “While You Were Sleeping” is sleeping. Rounding up again to 3% means it’s half of the amount of Chicago shots.
While You Were Sleeping
Sleeping screen time: 2 minutes and 46 seconds
Runtime: 100 minutes
While You Were Sleeping is 3% sleeping
So now I have a better perspective of the Chicago shots, but what about compared to other movies? Does Chicago show up more in this movie than famous pop culture characters in other movies?
Beetlejuice
Michael Keaton screen time: 17 minutes of screen time
Runtime: 92 minutes
Beetlejuice is 18% Michael Keaton
Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins screen time: 16 minutes
Runtime: 118 minutes
Silence of the Lambs is 14% Anthony Hopkins
Shakespeare in Love
Judi Dench screen time: 10 minutes
Runtime: 123 minutes
Shakespeare in Love is 8% Judi Dench
The Incredibles
Edna Mode screen time: 5 minutes
Runtime: 115 minutes
The Incredibles is 4% Edna Mode
Harry Potter Films
Draco Malfoy screen time: 31 minutes
Runtime: 1180 minutes
The Harry Potter films are 2.6% Draco Malfoy
I don’t know what to do with this information. It seems interesting though! Let me know if there is a movie that you would like me to do a Cut Up on. Check out the video above for a full breakdown and something extra. You can see if the walk Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman take in the movie is realistic or impossible.
Filed under:
Movie Reviews, Video