It's very easy to fall into thinking that the cinema industries are
pushed along by a hunger for the power and flexibility of new
technology and technical innovation. From where we sit in a binary pool
of software and digital hardware and RED ONE cameras and solid-state
recording and so on, you could be forgiven for thinking that the film
industry is the foremost embracer of new technology.
The truth however is that the film industry has most often been
painfully slow to accept new technology, extremely slow to change or
adapt or engage with new opportunities and oftentimes deliberately
resistant to evolution and 'better' ways of working. Indeed it might be
said that it has an overt preference for the status quo.
This interesting interview below explores this conundrum whereby, on
one hand, 'cinema-is-technology' and does not exist without technology
and yet on the other, the industry has consistently rejected, avoided
and rallied against technological change.
What does a Director do? It's a question in infinite loop, being both endlessly broad and yet decidedly specific. Arguably, what the Director does is VISUALIZE. Everything else they do is simply the execution and implementation of what they have VISUALIZED. The director envisions what doesn't yet exist and guides people to help them deliver that vision in their head.
In this context the fundamental tool of the Director is the Storyboard. Whilst they may employ a professional Storyboard artist or work with the DoP to construct the Storyboards, the SB's are none the less the very heart of what it is to DIRECT. The SB's are the first Shoot and the first Cut.
This article, entitled 'Coen Brothers Movies: Drawing Storyboards', is an excellent look at the work of a storyboard artist and the relationship with the director. It includes SB cells from No country for old men.
I wrote a little while back a 2-part article on on DIY Colour Grading (read Pt1 HERE and Pt2 HERE). In these writings I overviewed a number of the software-only low-cost solutions for manipulating colour and some of the key considerations. This included Adobe Kuler, an online application for 'colour profiling' that really should be the indie filmmaker's best friend.
In the latest episode of RedGiant TV, Stu Machwitz presents a detailed look at using Colorista and MagicBullet Looks to emulate a number of specific grades from big budget films at the cinemas right now - Transformers2 and Terminator4 among others. In the solid 3min video Stu goes over the process of grading for a specific look at how to use Kuler to create a colour swatch profile of a scene you wish to emulate.
The video is very commendable colour grading class delivered in 30mins and should be compulsory viewing for every indoe filmmaker. As I wrote at the end of my article - "Just as we shouldn't hesitate to pick up a camera and shoot we similarly shouldn't hesitate to pick up a computer and grade."
At the heart of all discussions of cinema style, form and, indeed,
cinema as an art; is Mise en Scene. It seems such a simple thing...
The
fundamental tool at the filmmakers disposal is their ability to
selectively and specifically populate the frame with visible things; to
place into the frame what is important, to leave out what is not and to
arrange those contents in such a way as to produce understanding and
comprehension on the part of the viewer.
As such, it seemed an
obvious stride for theatrical ideas of being on-stage to step over to
the new illuminated moving image and for the camera viewfinders frame
to take on the same micro-universe as the proscenium arch. Hence the
term, derived from the French, Mise en scene meaning, rather literally,
to place on the stage or put into the scene. As such Mise en Scene
is decidedly a verb - or as they taught us in primary school - a
'doing' word, an action.
However, despite referring as it does -
in literal terms - to a proactive undertaking by a filmmaker, the term
is most widely used in scholarly examination of cinema as a means of
post-creation analysis; an analysis that is very often exceedingly
broad in its judgment of artistic merit, cultural position, and
sociological attitude rather specific artistic style and filmmaking
craft. For filmmakers Mise en scene is a verb, a process; but for
cinema studies it has been hijacked and corralled into service as a
passive and openly re-interpreted noun.
David Bordwell has been
one of the few high profile scholars to engage with the specifics film
style aesthetics linked with the artistic problem-solving of
filmmakers, and he comments that:
Critics and scholars find
it more natural to talk about a characters psychological development,
about how the plot resolves its conflicts and problems, or about the
films philosophical or cultural or political significance. (2005,
p33)
Leveraging a literary vocabulary and a cultural-studies
analytical structure in favour of an artistic or aesthetic one,
contemporary cinema studies have mistakenly assumed the understanding
of one leads directly and irrefutably to the other. More arrogantly,
such cultural critiques assume to be able to explain all developments
in cinema through prisms of sociology and culture. scholars do seem to
expect that a broad cultural perspective ought to yield insights into
how films work. (Bordwell, D 2005, p242) Bordwell goes on to say, more
tersely, in the essay Film and the Historical Return, I find it hard
to imagine a convincing sociological explanation for why film stock was
standardized at a width of 35mm. (2005)
Its this linkage
between the analysis of cinemas forms and the comprehension of its
processes (and moreover its technology) of creation that is
inescapable. And yet this link is one often, at best, downplayed or, at
worst, dismissed. In revisiting the seminal work of Andre Bazin, Donato
Torato has cited Bazins perspective that cinema is:
only
consequently technical the idea precedes the invention and hence is
superior to the technical means used to achieve it. " (Bazin, A 1967
cited in Torato, D 2003)
And yet whilst Bazins humanist
perspective (commensurate, we might say, with Eisensteins assertion
that imagination is more important than knowledge) touches our instinct
to celebrate human ingenuity over mere technology, the assertion is
also highly problematic for understanding cinematic process. The idea
of technology as the formal follower of creative desire is one fraught
with exceptions. A great many of the technical advances in moving image
production preceded blindly the aesthetics and visual creative
opportunities they spawned. Take for example the interlaced-image of
traditional television and video. Rather than discreet individual
frames shown in progression and producing the persistence of vision
fundamental to our perception of a moving-image, an interlaced image
delivers alternate fields of horizontal lines; odd and even. The result
is half as much visual information in each visual increment but
displayed twice as often. The technological impetus for interlacing was
primarily to provide an electronic match in the TV set with the
standard oscillations of the domestic power-grid. In much of the world
electricity is delivered to the home at 50hertz 50 oscillations per
second. As such PAL television operates at 50 interlaced fields per
second resulting in an effective 25 frames per second. In North America
(and other countries such as Japan) the power grid operates at 60hertz
and so NTSC television signals are carried as 60 interlaced fields or
30 frames per second . Both these methods introduced a uniquely
distinct visual aesthetic for the moving image which moved
significantly away from that of established celluloid film. The
resulting aesthetic of higher frame rates and interlacing was one that
quickly took on cultural significance with the TV-look being
popularly associated and read by viewers as intrinsically connected to
ideas of documentary, verbatim, reportage and authenticity. The TV
aesthetic subsequently become a creative tool at the disposal of
filmmakers.
This pattern of Invention as the Mother of
Necessity, rather than the more commonly quoted inverse, is one that
runs very much counter to Bazins assertion. It would be extremely
difficult to argue that filmmakers prior to the invention of television
and interlaced imagery in the 1950s were proactively seeking such an
aesthetic or the specific cultural resonance and visual language
interlacing delivered. But regardless, once the technology delivered
this new aesthetic possibility. filmmakers have been continually
prompted to exploit it. One may look at feature narrative films such as
Spike Lees Bamboozled which combines 16mm film footage with MiniDV
interlaced video to produce vastly different and contrasting visual
aesthetics. The film centres on a show with a show premise where by a
TV studio show runner and his cast produce a satirical black-face
minstrel show. The scenes of the TV show-within-the-show itself are
shot 16mm and thus present a familiar narrative film aesthetic to the
audience. However all scenes that depict the shows making and the
real people who play the characters in the show-within-a-show are
shot with MiniDV. As a result the visual language of these sequences
draws upon a cultural connection to interlaced imagery within the
audience and their association with TV news, reporting, factual
depiction and documentary rather than the glossy beauty of celluloid
film.
Such an example, whereby a technological advance with a
purely practical or external impetuous, becomes the sire of a new
creative direction in cinema aesthetics is certainly not an isolated
case. Indeed the very arguments and aesthetic championing of Bazin
himself becomes paradoxical in this light. For Bazin the construct of
Deep-Focus cinematography, whereby subjects at different distances from
the camera lens could be held in consistent focus, was a dialectical
step forward in the history of film language (Bazin 1967 cited in
Monarco 1981, p330) And yet the deep-focus Bazin was so enamored by was
a direct result of molecular chemistry. The development of faster film
stocks with larger grain, and subsequently higher ISO ratings able to
react faster to light, meant that camera lens apertures could be
contracted without under-exposing. Smaller aperture results in deeper
depth-of-field, sharp focus from foreground the background. From a
chemical process deep-focus photography was born and glorious examples
such as that in Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) stood for Bazin as the
epitome of film-art.
It is possible that Bazin would argue
that the idea and creative desire for deep-focus pre-existed its
technical invention and the development of faster film stocks was
simply the fulfillment of the idea that allowed that idea to be
realized. However it is more likely that deep-focus was a side effect
of a separate techno-creative impetus; one with a greater practical and
economic imperative, particularly for the Hollywood studio system -
Lighting. With slow film stocks enormous amounts of light (and lighting
equipment) are required; the push for faster film stocks may been seen
as more directly connected with economics scale efficiency of
production than any creative desire. The unavoidable side-effect
however was that once filmmakers needed less light they were by-proxy
given choice - choose to actually use less light or use the same amount
of light and close down the aperture of the camera. The result with the
later being deep-focus; perhaps not at all what the studios intended.
Certainly
there is a greater set of economic and market intricacies influencing
the development of cinema production, and the business models that
drive it, then these simple examples. However, in any case, asserting,
as Bazin does, that cinema is only consequently technical seems at
best problematic and not holistically useful in any attempt to more
fully understand cinema aesthetics or the relationship between cinema
experience and the cinema process.
--
Bordwell, D., 2005. Figures traced in light: on cinematic staging, Berkley: University of California press.
Bordwell,
D., 2005. Film and the Historical Return. David Bordwell's website on
cinema. Available at: http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/return.php
[Accessed June 8, 2009].
Totaro, D., 2003. Andre bazin
Revisited. André Bazin: Part 1, Film Style Theory in its Historical
Context. Available at:
http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/bazin_intro.html [Accessed
June 8, 2009].
Monarco, J., 1981. How to read a film, New York: Oxford University Press.
There's a substantial history of camera technology being released to
the public before the technology of post-production has caught up. HDV
springs as an obvious example where the long-GOP structure was
fantastically efficient for image acquisition and recording but
presented considerable issues for non-linear editing systems
traditionally reliant on individual frames and not groups-of-pictures.
AVCHD presents the same issue where shooting is easy but timeline
performance is less than stellar. And Sony's XDCAMEX is a great balance
of quality and efficiency but it's wrapping in an Mp4 format initially
gave many NLE's considerable trouble.
And of course at the top
of this heap is the RED ONE camera. No doubt a paradigm shift in
digital cinema - 4k resolution, RAW metadata and all kinds of digital
flexibility and power - but wrestling with a brand new format, uncommon
resolutions (particularly the RED unique 3k) the new headspace of RAW
workflow and tapeless ingest, has made post-production of RED far from
simple. All the major NLE developers have moved to accommodate the
RED's unique format but to date few filmmakers would attest that any of
the available editing options are as good as they could or should be.
This idea was floated in a recent Studio Daily conversation which discussed the current state and future directions of Apple, Avid and Adobe. The perspective that Apple is a public company focused on maximum profits for shareholders means that sooner or later some bean-counter at Apple will take a look at the company accounts and realise that the ProApps division takes a lot of resources but represents a tiny slither of the company revenue. When compared to iPhones, iPods, iMacs and iTunes, the turnover connected to ProApps like FCP is absurdly small.... hence the old joke that Final Cut Studio needs a giant dongle in the form of a Mac to run.
At the same time as this video appeared a blog post by Scott Simmons explored Apple's approach to suppourting non-Quicktime formats. These two together prompted me to reflect upon an article i had written in the past entitled "Final Cut 6. Where did all the Newness go?"
To my mind Apple, sadly, have a BIG PROBLEM... And its a problem they have had before and not seemed to learned the lesson.
When FCP6 was released (in the guise of FCS2) It contained NOT A SINGLE 'NEW' THING. Not one. Everything in FCP6, that was an improvement from FCP5, was simply a catch-up to what every other NLE had had months or even years before.
ProRes was a copy of DNxHD and Cineform. Multi-format timeline was something everyone else had been enjoying for a very long time. 24bit 96k audio was standard everywhere but FCP. Multi-cam was nothing new, the list goes on. There was no innovation or market leadership in FCP6 as there had been in previous versions - namely 2 and 3. FCP6 was merely playing catchup to the 8-ball.
I said then that Apple needed to desperately get in front of the ball and release an FCP7 very quickly... They failed. FCP7 is far far too long coming. By the time it does get here I'll be not at all surprised if it delivers nothing but catchup again. In fact i fail to see how unless Apple truly come out with a from-scractch re-write of FCP into something mind-blowing, that FCP7 can be anything but a disappointment.
What do we hope for in FCP7/FCS3...? - A real-time engine that can actually scale decoding resolution. - Actual 4k 4096px support - Project files able to be fully exchanged with Motion/Colour/DVDSP - GPU acceleration (used for much more than page-twirl transitions) - Surround sound audio - Greatly improved audio tools in general (this is a VERY long list that starts with the ability to playback a bloody MP3 files without RENDERING!!!!) - Metadata management - And of course 'real' native format suppourt rather than compulsory re-wrapping to MOV.
And yet even though all these in FCP7 would be a lovely improvement over FCP6, every one of these is Already available in FCP's competitors - namely Premiere, Vegas and Avid. And moreover, have been for a LONG time.
There's only so long Apple can continue to bring very late delivery of NLE features that its competitors take for granted before it starts losing market share and industry respect. Unless Apple pull some of the guys off the damned iPhone and start putting some real resources into ProApps development then they'll be perpetually behind the market. Each new version of FCP only able to deliver what everyone else already has. I find myself asking where did Apple the innovator went?
I hope that im wrong. i hope that FCP7 doesnt just catchup but goes way past where the others are at with FCS3. I hope they deliver integration Better than Adobe's. I hope they deliver audio tools better than those in Vegas. I hope they deliver project management better than Avid. But the shift from where FCP is right now to this fantasy is so Huge that i just dont think it's possible. And that's a real shame.
At the film school where I teach students learn FCS first and the Adobe CS and are then free to choose whatever apps and workflow suits them and their projects... Needless to say, FCS isnt popular in the latter part of the course....
The space of transparency - motion graphics, visual fx and compositing
Motion graphic compositing... It is neither Animation nor Special Effects.
Whilst any clean definition is problematic we may say, for ease of argument, that Animation is concerned with 'giving life to'. Where as Motion Graphics is more broadly about the 'setting in motion' of visual elements; a decidedly much broader act of cinema creation.
Likewise in regard to Special Effects I would make, as Lev Manovich does in his article 'After Effects or Velvet Revolution', a clear distinction between the visual/special effects of large budget cinema (which may indeed use compositing and layers) and motion graphic compositing as an art unto itself.
Manovich rightly defines these 'special' effects (think, Godzilla, King Kong, Independence day, Star Wars, bullet time effects in The Matrix and so on) as being the construction of an illusion space. This is fundamentally different to the motion graphics composit which bares no hallmarks of illusion in the sense of an intent to deceive the viewers perceptions.
In simple terms special-effects seek to be unidentifiable as effects. Where as motion graphic compositing by contrast wears its constructed non-natural modes on its sleeve making no pretence at 'hiding the edges'.
John Jackman, speaking from a technical production level, applies a broad brush to defining compositing as an umbrella term we use to cover a number of different technologies that allow the creation of a new image from multiple unrelated elements. (2007, p5)
Despite the purely practical and technical nature of Jackmans book on Chromakey effects, his definition alludes to something much more significant to the conceptual aesthetics of compositing and what the process of fusing cinematic layers may pertain for our understanding of the cinema language.
His use of the words multiple unrelated elements drives us to consider the implication of imagery that would otherwise not coexist spatially and dynamically, combined into a layered, but none the less holistic, perception.
Layers and the Common Denominator
For all the tools, techniques and technicalities that permit compositing there is a single fundamental that allows for compositing to exist Transparency. Without the ability to render parts, selections or gradations of an image transparent to subsequent layers beneath, compositing is not possible. It becomes simple collage with a range of fundamentally different aesthetics.
The act of deliberately investing an image with transparency (both in terms of selective portions of the image as well as levels of opacity) by default, invites into the visual indexicallity of that image the visual properties of other images. Subsequently (and rather obviously) transparency is what makes layers possible. A see-through section of one image positioned over another allows for the lower image layer to contribute to the greater image whole.
The range of what might be called motion graphic compositing is enormous but the creation and exploitation of Layered Transparency, known in computer graphic terms as the Alpha Channel - a mask for the Red Green Blue channels of the image, is fundamental to all forms and processes.
The other distinction, as Manovich points out, central to compositing; that which makes it unique from simple collage, is "the new ability to combine together multiple levels of imagery with varying degrees of transparency"
Manovich comments that the lack of transparency limited the number of image sources, and so to possibilities, of arrangement in traditional cinema construction environments.
But I would argue this further and more broadly. Collage, by virtue of a finite spatiality, where there is a saturation point of imagery, there is an inherent hierarchy in the images used. Collage obviously allows for 'Layers' but without levels of transparency those layers take on positions of hierarchical privilege. One image over another, opaquely obscuring it, creates dominance.
Similarly, Collage aesthetics are effectively linear in that by this opaque hierarchical obscuring and hard-edge placement, they dictate a non-temporal but none the less segmented and progressional manner of experience.
However when alpha-channel transparency is introduced dominance and visual hierarchy are supplanted with a much more open spatiality of composition. The composer of a motion graphic sequence is not inherently working in a linear manner and because transparency makes for variation, flexibility and visual elemental uncertainty, there are no inherent biases or hierachical structures. An identifiable sense of where one element ends and the next begins is largely dispensed with.
Third meanings
two film pieces of any kind, placed together, inevitably combine into a new concept, a new quality, arising out of the juxtaposition. (Eisenstein, 1947. p4)
This quote from Sergi Eisenstein is the foundation of montage cinema; the principle of the third-meaning that arises when two images are sequenced together; context and meaning built from arrangement of images in order rather than the indexical meaning inherent in the image itself, statically.
This idea of blending multiple images in a layered fashion is certainly nothing new nor unique to the digital realm; rather the art of compositing has a long history through cinema.
But what the digital age and, in particular the software environment, has done however is create universal suffrage for media types. Within the compositing software paradigm there is no privilege for one media type over another. Photo, video, 2d, 3d, real and virtual, text and sound all universally co-exist without hierarchy.
When we use compositing to bring together these otherwise unrelated media and fuse them into singularity through layers we invoke new relationships between image, the viewer and visual representation.
That said, it is still fair to ask is motion graphic compositing simply Moving Image Collage?
Juxtaposition, as a concept, is fundamental to collage as a composition - that disparate elements that naturally have no place to coexist, are placed in a forced association to forge new meanings by proximity.
The very premise of collage through juxtaposition is to make the viewer acutely aware of the unnaturalness of the association of disparate elements in order to create meanings.
But in motion graphic compositing the unique production/creation 'space' the software environment constructs is one where the very essence of juxtaposition is lost as all media elements possess a natural, non hierarchical status of coexistence - they all stand of equal rank and equal importance on a stage where animation, illustration, typography and photography do not play second fiddle to video or film as a prime media.
These 'unnatural' interplays have no innate strangeness. The association is perfectly 'normal' despite the individual language tenets each may individually bring to bare.
Motion graphic compositing is therefore arguably not concerned with making meaning through juxtaposition but more simply meaning derived from throwing open the colour palette of visual language possibilities to work cohesively in a unified space.
Singularity
The significance of this is in comparison and contrast to other artforms that similarly use multiple coexisting elements; photo montage for example or painterly artworks comprised of multiple paintings assembled into a conglomerate of discreet images to form an impression of a whole.
The core distinction is that in non-computer photography, painting and drawing, a parameter of transparency is simply absent, largely not possible or functional by the nature of physical mediums such as paper and canvas.
By contrast digital transparency allows for a palpable sense of the infinite; that the individual parts relinquish their individuality and become integrated contributors to a spatial rather than framic composition - a limitless whole.
Moreover that the viewer, whilst most often under no illusion as to the apparatus of the image fantasy, is none the less unprompted to see the components of the composit as anything but a singular form.
Collage vs Montage vs Composit ?
So, to understand more fully how compositing might present new modes of cinematic language, we need to perhaps articulate the key terms...
Collage = individual elements identifiable individually but seen simultaneously (juxtaposition by adjacent proximity)
Montage = individual elements identifiable individually but also seen individually (juxtaposition by temporal sequence)
Composit = individual elements that are neither necasarilly identifiable individually nor seen individually and which are perceived both sequentially and simultaneously (juxtaposition constructed in time and arrangement but as a singularity of space)
In this context we may view transparency as the spatial organizer of Baroque aesthetics in layered and spatially-based cinematic form.
Transparency becomes the conduit to allow the form to exist.
Without transparency we have a finite saturation of image information.
But with transparency we have an infinite spectrum of blending possibilities for image co-existence and the frames that define individual image elements rendered dissolved.
Object vs Subject
Compositing, in essence, centres on a purity of visual Objectification - a solitary focus on the object alone and divorced from surrounds, environs, place and context.
Where camera-based cinema might be said to be a process of placing the Subject in spatiality of scenic locale (much of the traditional Mise en scene) the construction of cinematic composits is an antithesis approach whereby the Object is removed from scenic locale and 'objectified' as a solitary component freely able to have a context constructed for it and around it.
By contrast, in traditional cinema the focal element may be seen as a 'subject' because the meanings built for the audience are done so by directly subjecting the element to other framic parameters which imbue the subject with meaning. The element is subjected to the compositional space and frame.
In compositing the focal element is an 'Object' because it is objectified as independent and outside of (even unaffected by) its surrounds rather than subjected to them.
To the Object-Based composit the framing is irrelevant. To the Subject-Based camera shot the framing is paramount.
Between these two we can see very different, even opposing, perceptions of the 'space' from which the images are drawn - Compositing seeks in its genesis to remove spatial/framic composition, Cinema in its genesis seeks to embrace the spatiality of framic composition.
Cinema language
A study by the Media Research Lab at the University of Texas (entitled Surfing all channels) lays out the media consumption of US consumers. Of all the forms that could be defined as cinematic media (ie screen-based audio-visual mediums) it is feature film at the movie theatre that is an extremely distant last in terms of viewer exposure.
According to the study, theatrical box office represents just 12 hours of viewing per person, per year where as total television hours were 1555 per year. Even considering that some proportion of the TV viewing is feature films and home DVD (92 hours per year) may be dominantly feature films, the proportion of cinematic media being consumed is still overwhelmingly NOT from the feature film category.
As such defining common cinematic language narrowly by the trends and aesthetics of theatrical release feature film is simply dysfunctional. Instead we must look to the mainstream language of cinematic forms outside of theatrical release to gain a more consistent and accurate conceptualization of the evolving visual language viewers possess and, indeed, are being consistently trained to read.
The spatial composition of layers employing transparency via the alpha channel, the symbiotic simultaneity of a visual communication that defies the frame and embraces three-dimensionality of composition, is at the heart of contemporary cinematic form.
Whilst feature film still relies predominantly on these tools and aesthetics for the construction of perceptible realities (special effects to make the unreal look real) the broader concept of cinema evokes a much larger aesthetic context; one that seeks density and efficiency of communication through a new spatial language of layers.
The imperative for this examination is to re-consider the modes by which we might understand Directorial Intent. Cinema Studies has long made assumptions about a direct connectedness between how cinema is MADE and how it is WATCHED. A definitive quote from Gibbs highlights this assumption
On set or location, filmmakers do not stage the action and only subsequently think about where the camera is going to be placed in order to record it. (Gibbs, 2002. p54)
What Gibbs seems to be suggesting is that the position of viewership is pre-defined by the filmaker from the outset of the 'composition'.
Evidently Gibbs has never made a film and certainly has never worked with contemporary 3D CGI or motion graphics technology for that is EXACTLY what directors do.
The composition of live-action, let alone 3D and layered projects, is directly a process of defining a spatiality first into which then a camera is inserted. Indeed in the 3D and Layered paradigm the possibilities for that camera insertion are infinite and not constrained by physicality.
Thus, I would contend there is a distinct disconnect whereby the viewer experiences Framed composition, seeing the FRAME as primary. But for the Director the FRAME is actually the last and least significant compositional paradigm. The composition of an architectural rather than photographic SPACE is first and foremost.
Moreover this spatiality is wholly consistent across all screen-based media - animation, motion graphics, 3D, computer gaming all experienced framicaly but are composed spatially.
For the viewer cinema remains the 'moving image' but for the filmmaker it is distinctly 'moving architecture'
As such I believe we are prompted to reconsider how we analyse directorial intent. In studying cinema we must reconsider the assumptions we make about the Auteur and the Mise en scene.
We must recognize that screen is not inverted camera, and the mode of viewing is not directly connected to the mode of making.
___
An audio podcast of this paper is available form my website www.mikejones.net.au: just got to the podcast section.
___
http://www.artofthetitle.com/
http://motionographer.com/
Manovich, L., 2006. AFter Effects or Velvet Revolution Part 2. Available at: http://manovich.net/DOCS/ae_article_part2.doc.
Jackman, J., 2007. Bluescreen compositing: a practical guide for video and moviemaking., Burlington: Focal Press.
Eisenstein, S., 1947. The Film Sense 1969th ed., San Diego: Harcourt Brace.
Ndalianis, A., 2000. Architectures of the senses: Neo-Baroque entertainment spectacles. In Rethinking media change. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Erin Geisler, 2007. Surfing All the Channels. Available at: http://www.utexas.edu/features/2007/media/ [Accessed July 20, 2008].
Gibbs, J., 2002. Mise-En-Scene: film style and interpretation, London: Wallflower Press.
Last year I was interviewed for a major magazine about my perspective on Film Schools and changing Technology. At the time i had not long taken over the role of Head of Technological Arts at the International Film School Sydney and so considering what new technology meant for Film School was at the front of my headspace. So of course I launch into detailed and deliberately provocative answers to the magazine interviewer's questions; passionate and errudite articulations.... which of course was watered to a spare few sentences in the actual article... So rather than let all that blater go to waste I have decided to post the interview here in its full form.
---
1. How do you see existing film schools coping with changing technology?
To be frank, Very Poorly. The evolving nature of cinematic production, the structure of education institutions and the culture of Digital Native students, are all colliding in a set of disjointed agendas and imperatives that leave many film schools struggling for relevance.
Cinema production technologies, and the processes that stem from them, are in dramatic upheaval. After several decades of largely consistent modes of production and delivery, we now have a very different landscape for both making and experiencing cinema one that is multi-platform and scalable rather than unified and singular.
These changes are much more than just new, fast and cheap software and cameras; but are most profoundly seen in the filmmaking process and structure itself. The long established divisions between pre-production, production and post-production have become, in many ways, arbitrary distinctions, almost irrelevant divisions. DOPs continue to shoot with virtual cameras after the set has been struck. Shots are re-lit in post-production. Colour Grading is as much a pre-production process of design as a post-production process of manipulation. A whole film may begin and end inside a computer, never employing a camera at all. The simple, and previously clear, distinctions about when different production roles begin and end has dissolved into a infinitely flexible, project by project, set of options rather than defined set of structures.
Its in this fundamentally different environment that we have a plethora of education institutions teaching filmmaking who are still deeply entrenched in how cinema has Been rather that what it Is, and what it will Become. We have Film Schools whose curriculum is built around structures, processes and systems of cinema assembly that are losing relevance everyday.
And into this we launch Digital Native students, students who do not remember a time before the Mouse and Keyboard and for whom digital rip, burn, mash, upload is engrained into their psyche. These students have laptops perpetually under their arm that are more powerful than the SGI systems of less than 10 years ago. When you speak of an offline process is it any wonder they simply look at you funny? Why would you offline when you can online HD on a laptop? The idea simply does not compute to them. And nor should it! The imperative for pre-existing and rigid structures for cinema production are simply lost on these Digital Native students who come from a fundamentally different mind set to their often Digital Immigrant teachers.
The result of this clash between changing production processes, the outdated perspectives of much film education in the 21st century and the internal logic of the digital culture of students, far too often manifests itself in very poor teaching pedagogy. Too often film schools, in an effort to cope with the techno-cultural onslaught, have supplanted the teaching of real skills and knowledge and craft of filmmaking, with software-specific brand loyalty.
Any institution that teaches software specific functions above, or worse, in place of core creative production processes is fundamentally dis-empowering their students and directly damaging the broader creative industry, making it slavishly adherent to corporate marketing directions rather than the needs and skill demands of production. Schools often fall this way in an effort simply to keep up with the technological change but sadly this leads to education institutions begining to appear more like technology trainers than Film Schools; creating software-users rather than Editors, camera operators rather than Cinematographers.
2. How do you believe film schools should be coping with changing technology in order to attract film students and provide the proper training in all fields the school aims to teach?
This is certainly no simple question and the answer has to be multifaceted. The first is that film schools need to let go of any attachment they have to traditional hierarchies of delivery related to technology.
For far too long cinematic educators, distributors, broadcasters and media-makers themselves have institutionalized a hierarchy of privilege in regard to the delivery of cinematic content - the cinema theatrical release at the top and a pyramidal chain down from there. This has drilled into being an absurd concept that the ultimate destination is projected large screen cinema and everything else is second rate. This maddening perspective ingrains compositional aesthetic choices around one mode despite the fact that the work itself may, and invariably will, ultimately be seen in many modes. Not to mention the fact that it is widely known that big studios treat theatrical release as simply part of the advertising campaign for DVD sales.
This hierarchy of perception must be let go of by the institutions that teach film making. The future of cinema is multi-platform delivery across an unprecedented diversity of delivery platforms - large and small. Thus we need to be instilling in the new generation of film makers the compositional, aesthetic and technical sophistication to be able to create moving image media that engages and exploits this environment and these opportunities rather than ignore or rally against them in an irrelevant air of quality perception. The future is not High Definition, the future is All Definition, where all frame sizes are equally acceptable and viable for both acquisition and delivery in concert with their contexts; from the theatre, to the home theatre, to the game console to the mobile phone.
In concert with this, the other major factor that is profoundly effecting filmmaker culture is the raw efficiency of production that not just allows, but in many ways demands, an holistic and integrated skill set in filmmakers themselves. This is not to say that every filmmaker has to be a expert in every part of filmmaking, there will always be specialists and cinema will always be a collaborative art, but the environment that young filmmakers land in the moment they pick up a camera in the digital age is one where self-sufficiency is the means to a career and the means to fulfilling creative vision.
Sitting by the phone waiting for the agent or studio to call to give you permission to make a film is not only a dying paradigm but a wholly undesirable one to filmmakers embedded in the idea of owning the means of production. In the 21st century owning your own fully professional camera and editing system is as simple as a credit card expense and the means to deliver to a mass global audience is a monthly internet connection cost. This environment has never existed before for filmmakers. Subsequently, a film school that isnt teaching students how to produce, fund, shoot, direct, edit, sound mix and, most importantly, Deliver their own self-devised projects, is one that is fundamentally failing their students.
Film schools can best prepare their students to take advantage of the opportunities the digital age offers by educating them to be well-rounded, holistically thinking and broadly skilled. They should have such a curriculum that endeavours to empower students to understand every aspect of filmmaking rather than the traditional specialization model of departments that function in a silo mentality. This kind of teaching simply creates filmmakers ready for a film making culture that is gone and ill-prepared for what is to come.
The core ideal we aim for at The International Film School Sydney is to create filmmakers for whom technology is transparent. This is not to say that everyone is an expert at everything, but rather that every student that we teach achieves a position where their conceptual understanding of technology is transparent to their creative vision; where What they want to make is never limited or hamstrung by a lack of technical understanding.
3. In what ways do you believe the industry has changed most since your film school was founded?
The International Film School Sydney is a very new school, being only a few years old, so in many ways it was founded and developed to be as in-touch as possible with contemporary thinking about production and, in particular, creative technologies. And yet even in the short time the school has been open there have been significant shifts. Among the most significant to effect the way skills and processes are taught is the simple fact of choice. Whilst there have always been different types of cameras, different types of editing systems for cinema production, the truth is that they were remarkably unified and very consistent. Whilst there were choices between film stock or lenses there is now a far more open slather of options for how to both acquire and process an image than ever before. Every year delivers new recording formats, new camera types, new software tools.
The biggest challenge for a film school is obviously staying up to date and contemporary with technology which can be a major logistic and costly exercise. But beyond costs, the key challenge to the way the industry changed is the focus on workflow options. Even within the International Film School Sydney we have as part of our modest in-house facilities more than six different camera types and between them those cameras can generate more than a fifteen different recording formats. On top of this we have tape, hard drive and solid-state recording media, each with its own acquisition demands and an array of lenses, adapters, monitors and accessory options. And thats before we get into post where we have three different editing systems, three composition/fx tools, three audio production systems, four delivery and encoding tools, various options for colour correction and grading and a host of plug-ins and extensions. And of course within all these a host of different workflow process options; namely digital intermediates, proxy-editing and on-line/offline.
This kind of massive diversity (and the inherent flexibility that goes with it) is at the heart of the contemporary industry and so needs to be at the heart of how and what we teach. To be an effective filmmaker in this landscape means being empowered with the ability to make clear and informed choices about the right tool and process for the project.
4. What unique or otherwise tailored classes are offered by your film school in order to keep up with changes in film production and the technology that accompanies it?
We dont have specific classes as such to deal with technology changes and evolutions, rather we take an holistic approach of integrating the discussion, use and evaluation of technology in every class. The approach we take is that Cinema IS Technology, that it does not and cannot exist without technology. Subsequently there is no such thing as a non-technical filmmaker.
On a simple level we avoid at all costs becoming a technology training school. We aim to teach our students to be EDITORS not Final Cut Pro or Avid USERS; we teach them to be CINEMATOGRAPHERS not Sony or Panasonic CAMERA OPERATORS. We do this by ensuring that we are never teaching just one type or brand of technology, that students are constantly forced to take what they know and apply it in functional ways to a piece of equipment or software they have never used before. Our hope is that our students gain from this the ability to teach themselves which is far and away the most important skill of all.
This embedding of technology covers every facet of what we teach, not just the obvious camera and editing but right through to screenwriting and producing. At many other film schools there is a hard line in the sand between what is considered technical and non-technical, we make no such distinction. As result the first thing all students learn to use is Celtx, an open-source integrated screenwriting and pre-production system. A tool like Celtx goes far beyond just correct formatting of a screenplay to become a complete project management system - from script break down to scheduling. In teaching these dedicated Celtx courses on screenplay formatting, project management, script break-down, digital annotation and review, online collaboration and exchange systems that are built into Celtx, we immediately immerse our students in two crucial understandings about cinema production. The first is simply that idea that technology is not an add-on to cinema, it is what cinema IS at every level and that this technology is a tool that is hugely empowering. The second is that, by teaching our students about how to construct, breakdown and manage a project using a versatile digital tool, we are able to impress on them the power of pragmatism. A great idea is useless if it cant be realised so great cinema comes when great ideas meet effective pragmatism that allows the vision to be made into a tangible cinematic work.
These concepts that we are able to teach with Celtx right from the inception of the course empower students with an ongoing perspective of flexibility and integration in their relationship with technology. But starting with technology as an enabler to writing and producing they are positioned to view technology as a weapon not an obstacle.
5. Does your film school own/offer the use of any specialized moviemaking equipment? If so, please explain which equipment it is that is available to students and why this is significant for a film school.
The International Film School has taken a very specific approach to the technology we have in-house for students to learn on and use for productions. Our focus is on educating independent, self sufficient, proactive filmmakers making unique and individual cinema in all its forms. As such we have chosen our collection of equipment - including both hardware and software, cameras and computers on the idea that there should be nothing in the school that isnt immediately cost effective and accessible to the students themselves to own their own means of production. In practical terms this means we focus on flexible, cost-effective systems rather than the traditional expensive and inaccessible ones. By the time they graduate most of our students already own their own camera and computer setups and are ready to be proactive filmmakers. As such we focus our resources on these same tools of production; the off-the-shelf efficient and flexible tools of the 21st century rather than the expensive and inefficient ones of the 20th.
We actively promote the DIY aesthetic of improvisation and adaptation because it is these skills that are at the heart of filmmaking at any budget. We see no viable rationale for teaching filmmaking on tools that the students themselves couldnt afford to buy and are unlikely even to come in contact with for the first few years of their careers.
What this also allows us to offer our students is a deeply immersive film education that is constantly centred around the facilitation of doing and making Not waiting and watching. The school can field upwards of six simultaneous productions of substantial and effective resources and this equipment, by virtue of its light, efficient portability, is available to students seven days a week for any projects they desire.
Asking REAL questions - the company line and journalist sycophancy
As with most of the creative technology addicts in the world, I have spent the past week pouring over the daily news and announcements from NAB.
As always it's a mixed bag - the exciting mingled with the banal, the profound intermingled with the paltry. But one announcement in particular caught my eye and caused me to ponder whether developers work in a veil of ignorance, oblivious to what other developers are doing? Or whether they feel compelled to hawk their wares in a way that is intended to hoodwink potential customers into thinking their product is totally unique. It seems the overt intent in recent years is not just to convince users that their product is 'better' but that it is in fact Unique and 'World First' and the 'only one of its kind'.
There was the infamous interview Charlie White conducted with head honchos from Apple back when the G5 was first released. In that interview the Apple folks spruked the G5 to Charlie and DMN readers as "the worlds first 64bit desktop". Charlie, well informed journalist that he is, pointed out to the Apple guys that Boxx Technologies had been shipping an AMD64 cpu system for several months prior to the G5s release. The response from the Apple guys was a stammer and stutter. If I may be indulged to quote from the interview article. ___
Rubinstein: (Jon Rubinstein - Senior Vice President of Apple Hardware Engineering) On the hardware side of things, our introduction of
the world's fastest personal computer -- the first 64-bit desktop
machine -- it's just an amazing machine, jointly developed between IBM
and Apple, using IBM's latest technologies, and using all the
engineering prowess from both companies to make this thing happen.
Charlie White:
Now, you're saying it's the first 64-bit desktop machine. But isn't
there an Opteron dual-processor machine? It shipped on June 4th. BOXX
Technologies shipped it. It has an Opteron 244 in it.
Rubinstein:Uh...
Akrout: (Chekib Akrout - Microelectronics Division)It's not a desktop.
Charlie White: That's a desktop unit.
Akrout:It depends on what you call a desktop, now. These... From a full desktop per se, this is the first one. I don't know how you really distinguish the other one as a desktop.
Charlie White: Well, it's a dual processor desktop machine, just like that one.
Akrout:It's not 64, then.
Charlie White: Yes, it's a 64-bit machine with two Opteron chips in it. It started shipping June 4th.
Akrout:That we'll double check, but in my mind, it wasn't.
Now this prompts the question; were Apple totally ignorant of the fact that AMD had not only been developing a 64bit cpu system but that they had been first in the market with it? Or was the imperative from Apple to declare the G5 a 'world first' at all costs, even when it was a lie and fallacy?
As Homer would say "a little from column A and a little from column B"
It was in this vein, though not quite as arrogantly ignorant, that I watched Adobe demonstrate their new software tool 'Story' at NAB.
The suitably verbose video presentation showed off a online enabled software tool for writing, annotating breaking down screenplays and for embedding the script itself as the hub of a pre and post workflow process. The way Adobe spoke about the product you'd think it was an earth-shattering announcement of un-precedented and never before seen 'newness'. And yet there is truly nothing really new about Adobe Story and in what we've seen so far it delivers virtually nothing that isn't already extant in the market in some way.
The key strengths of Story are touted as its online collaboration and its ability to embed and annotate a script with metadata, images, videos and sounds. Need I mention CELTX...? A tool which arguably has the most comprehensive online script and production collaboration tools on the market and supports all kinds of tagging, markup, rich media and report breakdowns? (not to mention being open source, cross platform and the base application is free)
Now its not that I'm not pleased that Adobe is continuing to take an holistic approach to media production - that's good for everyone. Indeed the opportunities Adobe is in a position to exploit through integration with their other post-production tools have enormous potential. But please don't try and sell me crap wrapped in pretty bow and attempt to convince me its brand new, never before seen, crap.
But, that said, I reserve my true ire for the Journalists who cover such releases. Rather than coming to such an interview or press release with a broad knowledge of the industry and a critical investigative demeanor, far too many such Journalists present little more than blithe sycophancy. Displaying starry eyed ignorance of wonder more fitted to a kid in a toy shop; oohing and aahhing over every tidbit as if it were the best thing since sliced bread.
I really shouldn't be surprised when the corporations and developers continue to piss on our legs and tell us its raining because they are simply responding to the vacuous uncritical state of most tech jorunalism reporting their products.
When the Adobe representative started rabbiting on about 'online script collaboration' and 'rich media' the very first questions should have been "so how does Story differ from Celtx?", "how does Story's rich media markup compare with Final Draft?" "How does Story's script editing offer in comparison to Movie Magic?" What workflow management does Story offer over Gridiron Flow?". Certainly there would be answers, possibly good and compelling answers, to these questions. But where such critical and probing questions asked...?
No...
It seems we may pose to the journalists the same question I earlier posed to the developers - are they blindly ignorant of the current market products? Or are they simply sticking to the company line of "declare newness at all times"...?
What I desperately want to see is more Charlie White's - more journos asking real questions.....
I have just returned from Melbourne and the B for Bad Cinema Conference held at Monash University. The idea of Bad Cinema, and indeed the broad judgment of 'badness', is a fascinating theme for a conference and the range of papers and lectures explored ideas of quality and perception in all manner of forms.
The conference overview ran like this:
"B for BAD cinema: aesthetics, politics and cultural value. Over the past decade, paracinema a movement that has grown up around sleazy, excessive, or poorly executed B-movies has seen a counter-cultural valorisation of all forms of cinematic trash or badfilm. In many internet and print sources devoted to the celebration of paracinema, the term B-movie has (in contrast to its earlier studio-era sense) come to mean almost anything: disreputable and unworthy movies, low-budget exploitation movies, straight to TV or video movies, and even big-budget studio movies."
Certainly there were recurring topics - Zombies and b-grade horror films being certainly one - but what was particularly interesting was that there were very few (in fact I witnessed only one) where the presenter was content with declaring a film actually 'Bad' rather than defending its badness as a misguided or misunderstood 'goodness'.
For my part I presented on a topic directly stemming form my current study and writing -
Bad Cinemas Virtual Camera: Gaming, cinema aesthetics and the audacity of immaturity:
Cinema in the 21st century has never struggled so profoundly with the breadth of its definition. With an umbrella as broad as the art of the screen-based moving image the door is left wide open for all manner of media, and mediums, to invade the cinematic canon and turn good cinema, bad. Foremost among these is 3D gaming; the immaturity of gung-ho adolescence trouncing through the china cabinet of mature cinema and cinematography.
Is the aesthetic result of gaming as cinema simply bad-cinema stemming from immature and unsophisticated cinematography and screen language? Does the virtual camera of game aesthetics commit crimes against the mise en scene and relegate gaming to a second rate cinematic art in need of growing up?
Or is there artful genius in the bad cinema and bad cinematography of gaming that threatens to reshape our cinema language with its audacity? Is the bad cinematography of gaming the best thing too happen to cinema?
I recorded the presentation and have it made it availible as an enhanced m4a version with embedded slides from the lecture.
Web building done right - SquareSpace and my new site
The evolution and maturation of the internet has been a rapid one. And its progress is one that i can map personally by my own websites I have built and maintained over the years. My first sites in the late 90's were straight HTML. In the early to mid 00's it was Dreamweaver that ruled and made Web-building closer to Web-design by virtue of drawing upon tools refined by the Desktop Publishing Revolution some decade earlier. But there was another big change that set down in the past 3-4 years - the rise of the CMS (content management system)
Coinciding and tightly linked to the Blogging movement, the CMS took the code away in a much more profound way than Dreamweaver ever could by providing an infrastructure from which a site could be managed and manipulated. I tried a number of these suits on and after much ill-fitting and overly prescriptive paradigms, found myself very happy with Wordpress.
Whilst more dedicated blogging engines such as Blogger and Roller remained narrow in their perspective, Wordpress seemed to offer a very clean slate from which to assemble and manage a site that could easily be a blog but was not restricted to only being a blog. It was pseudo modular, had plenty of addons, was largely very effective and clean - either self hosted or hosted by the WP servers.
But despite arguably being the best of a mediocre bunch, Wordpress was also never quite right. Not truly modular, rather inflexible, sometimes slow if using the Free WP servers, clumbsy to use at times - the web was very much due for something better.
And I think i found it...
SquareSpace is getting much hype of late and having now spent several weeks investigating, running test sites and migrating data, I have nowlaunched a new site on the SquareSpace system. Its the new incarnation of my private webiste www.mikejones.net.au
The system is not amazing for its new-ness or evolituonary step forward; it's amazing for it's simplicyt, well-thought out paradigm and clean elegance in presentation. It strikes me that SquareSpace has borrowed much from all the CMS's that have gone before - not least of all Wordpress - and yet also presents a clean and clear vision of how website building and management can function.
What strikes me most profoundly about the experience of using SquareSpace is the largely object-orientated paradigm it engages. Rather than a distinct and demarcated Front-end and Back-end; the control side of SquareSpace is integrated right into the front-side. Once logged in if you want to move/edit/modfy a section simply click/edit/type/drag right on it as it sits on the page. This may seem highly logical as a kind of in-situ tactility but it's remarkable how un-common this approach.
The connection that seemed immediately obvious to me was between SquareSpace and Sony's Vegas editing system. Vegas is the ONLY NLE on the market that embraces a direct in-situ approach to controls. In the traditional NLE interface, for example, if you want to modfy an effect on a clip you dont access the CLIP itself as it sits in-situ on the timeline but rather you access those controls in a physically and conceptually seperate window on the screen - removed and apart from the clip itself. In Vegas the controls for any given compoent are largely found on/in the compoent itself. To get to an effect on a clip you enter the clip on the timeline. if you want to select right and left channels in an audio file on the timlien you do it on the clip, on the timeline. If you want to add an effect to all clips on a track, you enter the track itself.... and so on. It's this direct object-oroenttated aporach in Vegas that puts the prime importance Not on the source or canvas windows but on the Timeline and the clips themselves. It's a way of working that traditionally expeirenced editors often struggle with but new and more free-thinking editors find wholly logical. SquareSpace takes a similar approach, largely doing away with the front-end/back-end paradigm and cretaing a single front-side access mode that is infinately more efficient, flexible and logical.
SquareSpace is not free - which may turn some people off in this age of the "give me free or give me death" mantra. But SquareSpace smartly bill this as a benefit not an obstacle. A point of differemce. A 'real' system for 'real' and 'serious' users is the implication. More signal, less noise is the result. On SquareSpace there is nothing to 'put-up' with, no adds, no unwanted elements, Just a more complete position of control.
That said, SquareSpace know they are working within a industry structure and economic culture that more readilly finds viable the idea of small amounts of money from lost of people than large amounts of money from a few people. It's worked superbly well for Google, its the cocnept behind the Pro Service add-ons of Celtx and its a smart choice for a web-building platform. Whilst SquareSpace can obviosuly provide a powerful, self-controlled, service for corproate clients they have also positioned their pricing structure where it is highly attractive to Wordpress users who currently pay nothing. Starting at just $8/month which gives you a good size server spave, a decent amount of bandwidth for a perosnal site and a hige raneg of fleixble page modules; the step from a $0 Wordpress acount to a $8 SquareSpace account is really not a big step at all.
What must also be admired is the no-contract, quit anytime, export your data at will offering of SquareSpace with a free 2 week trial to see how you like the system once you've migrated your data to it. A step which is made all the easier since SquareSpace can directly import the XML dumps from system like Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad and Moveable Type.
My new SquareSpace site still needs a little dressing up but with just 2 days work setting up all the new data I now havea site much more effective, efficient and flexible than before.
For indie filmmakers in particular, SquareSpace offers a system that provides excellent suppourt for video embedding in a clean attarctive, well designed environment that wont make you look like just another amateur hack. First impressions count when you're trying to show off a showreel. With the superb quality of HD video on Vimeo as a hosting platform embedded over to SquareSpace, the pair presents a compelling platform for young Directors, DoP's and screen-media artists.
Ian Hunter talks about visual effects on The Dark Knight
Special effects master from New Deal Studios, Ian Hunter, discusses his
work on films such as the Dark Knight, Spiderman, the X-Files and X-Men
at the International Film School Sydney. Ian talks in detail about the
process of visual effects production, relationships with directors and
producers as well as some fascinating insights into the productions he
has worked on. Ian in particular offers an informed and holistic
perspective on relationship between digital and physical effects.
Re-thinking story? Where is the Dramatist? Go ask the Editor.
Every filmmaker should consider themselves a Dramatist. Not a writer or story-teller or script analyst or any other useless term, but a Dramatist - someone who understands and can construct Drama - human engagement with experience, narrative and catharsis. Too often this is watered down into just 'story'. A colleague of mine, an extensively experienced screenwriter and movie project developer, declares ad-nuseum that the filmmakers job is NOT AT ALL to tell a story but rather take the viewer on a journey through the story. The distinction I believe is profound.
What invariably arises out of such exertions and declarations is discussion of what Story is and how it is or should be structured? At this point 'Aristotle' rears his head - 3-act structure - various 'methods' - Hero's journey and so on. Only a fool rejects these - 4000 years of performative works of drama cannot be so easily dismissed, let alone the past century of cinema - more dramatically satisfying then any other form that has gone before.
But once any artform develops a cannon of work people begin to view that body of work collectively and analytically and start to see patterns. And from those patterns they form conclusions and assumptions. Of itself, to this point, that?s a-ok. But the art of the dramatist can quickly fall in a hole when such patterns begin to be referred to as 'rules', formulas, set-in-stone-defy-at-your-peril parameters.
Am i the only one who wonders why so many of the so-called Gurus of screenwriting structure Do Not have impressive CV's as produced screenwriters? With the glorious exception of William Goldman - it makes me wonder why, if these guys do know all the answers as to 'how to write a screenplay that sells', they're doing a whole lot more preaching than practicing? Or do they just know that there's a whole lot more money to be made from preaching than actually practicing? Or, more cynically, is the preaching a way to make up for a lack of talent? (ie "if i talk loud enough about Aristotle and dramatic arcs no one will notice my lack of actual screen credits..." (notice im not naming names as I dont want to be sued - these guys who shall remain nameless strike as the litigious type...)
Anyway, it was while musing on this idea that I struck upon an article in WIRED by Scott Brown entitled "Why Hollywood needs a new model for storytelling". Satyrical though it is, it none the less prods at the 'sub-industry' of self-help that often plagues filmmaking.
"Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today to mourn the death of Story. As you may have heard, it's kaput?or, at the very least, terminally ill, wracked by videogames, wikis, recaps, talkbacks, YouTube, ADD, and the rise of a multiplatform, multipolar, mashup-media culture. Hollywood, vendor of Story in its most denatured form, is most at risk: The film industry is slowly but steadily being forced to part with quaint artifacts like the "hero's journey," Joseph Campbell's so-called Monomyth. (Which is just so ... well ... mono.) Beginnings, middles, and ends are headed for the attic, next to the box marked VCR Rewinders/Beastmaster Franchise. And Tinseltown can kick this chestnut to the curb."
If you want to understand story, you need to understand people, what makes us worry and fear. if you want to understand Aristotelian ideas then here's a thought; read Aristotle! better from the horses mouth than from some bloated mis-attributing parody. Read Howard Suber's book "the Power of Film" which will NOT tell you how to write a screenplay but will tell you a lot about the fundamentals of what makes a person/idea/event 'dramatic'. In fact DO NOT read any book that even vaguely suggests that it will tell you HOW to write a screenplay. Instead read about ideas, conflicts, struggles and adventures; there is far more to be learned there then in another re-hashing of screenplay 'rules'.
And better still, if you REALLY want to understand the 'construction of experience' that is the nuts and bolts of cinema, DONT ask a screenwriter...! Instead ask an Editor. Dont read Screenwriting books, read books on Editing. Start with Norman Hollyn's superb 'The Lean Forward Moment' and work your way from there.
The screenwriter is simply the first writer on a movie. The Director then 're-writes' with direction and the actors re-write their bits with performance but ultimately the king kong final-say 'writer' is the Editor. Most editor's Ive ever known have a significantly more engrained and innate sense of the 'cinematic' and how to leverage dramatic action into emotional enaggement than most writers will ever comprehend. The art of the Dramatist is the art of Problem solving. Screenwriters only have to solve problems in a 2-dimensional way, it's the Editor who has to wrangle, craft, shape and manipulate drama with 3-dimensional holistic density - not just as words and actions but also as timing, rhythm, pace, moments, glances and inflections, tones, colours, shapes and sounds.
By defintion a 'Plug-in' is a small piece of software that adds functionality to a larger 'host' software application. So, as such, a good plugin is one that adds a feature to the application that otherwise is there. Its exactly this mindset that led me to Alex4D's collection of free Final Cut Pro plug-ins.
Whilst FCP has some excellent strengths, it also has some major weaknesses - audio, effects and titling are certainly three areas where FCP is sub-par by comparison to other NLE's. But our friend Alex4D, an editor from the UK, has produced a suite of little plugins that deliver to FCP some very bloody useful features otherwise absent.
You can get the whole range of Alex's plugins from his website http://alex4d.wordpress.com/finalcut/Of particular interest and usefulness are the titling plugins - Closing Credits which allows for easy creation of movie closing credis using multiple fonts and side by side Name/Title; and Lower Thirds which is perfect for an easy way to generate subtitles with shadowed backgrounds.
