Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

Virtual Camera and the Art of Infinate

By simple definition Cinema is the art of the moving image. Within that context of viewing the moving image the artistry of the cinema-maker is built around positioning the viewer to see that moving image and experience the effect of the image in motion – narrative, drama, emotion, thrill and ideas.



Following this simple logic the craft of positioning the viewer to see the moving image is about the placement of the camera; where it is placed in order to survey the scene and how it moves in order to explore the scene. But something quite profoundly shifts in our visual language and our expectations of the moving image when the what we have always perceived as a physical apparatus becomes a virtual vanishing point of perception in an infinite space. When the physical camera becomes the virtual camera no longer bound by the physical, the tangible let alone the real.

Regular readers will know this is a topic I've written and spoken about many times. A two-part lecture podcast I've put up for public listening called “VANISHING POINT: SPATIAL COMPOSITION & THE VIRTUAL CAMERA” (availible here) outlines the concept and argument and how it re-shapes our cinematic thinking. But finding really adventurous and forward thinking examples that explore the theory is not always easy to come by. Thus it is that I was highly excited by the stumble upon ZoomQuilt; on the surface a flash animated painting art work. But to leave it at that would do it no justice for the effect it has on the viewer and what it represents in the context of the virtual camera, the infinite, unrestricted viewing position exploring a spatial composition. The Vanishing Point from which we view a composed space.

Watch and be amazed. - Zoom Quilt

Posted at 01:00AM Oct 23, 2007 by Mike Jones in moving image theory  |  Comments[3]