Cinema space ? definition, form and problem
There are inherent problems in the way we think about, understand and even make cinema in the digital age and this is an area i'm persuing in a new book. Here's some of those thoughts in attempting to re-define cinema space.
?cinema, as we know it, is based upon lying to the viewer. perfect example is the construction of cinematic space.?- Lev Manovich
In all its forms, modes and manifestations cinema is a construction; an artificial built environment where communicative meaning is assembled through the leverage of tools, processes, mechanics and methodologies. Whether viewed from the perspective of experience, process, medium or entity; cinematic form is never divorced from the collaborative and inter-disciplinary notion of assembly. Of disparate pieces put into place and meaning derived from both the placement and the act of placing ? placement in time and composition, placement in the frame, placement in perception and experience and, at the core of all these, a placement in space.
Of course, defining what that space is and considering how that space is understood, in both broad and holistically complex terms, is no simple task. In order to make that investigation in a meaningful way, one that ultimately provides a robust and flexible new theoretical framework for understanding the full extent of cinematic form in the twenty first century, we need to start with the axioms of what cinema is. Or, more importantly, what cinema has long been known and accepted to be. These axioms then become the tangible pillars at which we can hurl the stones of of new technologies, new modes of seeing and new concepts of media making like a techno-cultural Hajj.
Borge has commented that:
"It is quite feasible to produce a film without actors, but a film without a camera is a sheer impossibility. So the history of the film is to some extent the history of the camera, for it is the camera which actually takes the photograph, arranges all the separate shots in sequence, and which evokes the illusion of a live picture, an illusion which depends on the imperfection of the human eye."(Börge, V. 1962)
Whilst this idea of cinema being inextricably linked to the camera as a physical and photographic-based apparatus is highly questionable in the current era (indeed this issue will be specifically dealt with in subsequent chapters) the concept of cinema being inextricable from mechanical and technical construction of illusion is certainly difficult to question. So what we have is a distinct techno-cultural form whereby technology and culture, mechanics and aesthetics, are conjoined ? howwe make effecting whatwe make.. Similarly, whilst the visual and aural aesthetics of cinema may consistently vary and morph, the cinematic form itself remains rooted in technological components. What are the accepted techno-cultural pillars of cinema; those elements born of technology and technical process that dictate the cinematic experience?
There are essentially three key axioms that we might adopt from the outset from which to govern an understanding of the established and accepted modes of cinematic form as a technologically mediated process, experience and medium. These axioms are not gospel-like in their rigidity and the cannon of cinematic work is peppered with exceptions and fringe works that challenge such axioms. But they do, none the less, present, and are therefore useful as, guides for understanding the established patterns and dominant discourses of cinema; for it is these discourses that have served as the pillars for established cinematic theory over the past century ? mise-en-scene, montage, the role of the viewer and the role of the maker are all built from their accepted norms.
Singularity and pre-determination
The first of these axioms is that cinema is composed and constructed for a pre-determined and predicted mode of viewing. A filmmaker1, in assembling a work of cinema, does so with a defined and specific understanding of how that work will be experienced by an end viewer and the constructs under which that experience will be mediated. The filmmaker knows how wide and what aspect the screened image will be, they know the configuration of audio speakers and specifically how loud each respective sound element in the work will be, they know the colour gamut that is available, they know the light-levels of the cinematic space, the attributes and limitations of the delivery apparatus and, of course, the duration of the experience itself.
Whilst the application of this assertion to the cinema theatre (as a venue as much as a medium) is obvious, it is none the less pertinent to other traditional, well established and broadly popular cinematic delivery forms. The ubiquitous household television as a technical entity can certainly vary enormously in size, shape form and location within a space but it still retains formal and specific characteristics of how a moving image work is presented on its screen. These characteristics can be purely technical ? interlaced image display, restricted colour gamut of broadcast legal colours, audio channels and specific dynamic range of sound. They can be format driven ? narrative act breaks dictated by commercial breaks, thirty minute and one hour timeslot structures. They can also be cultural ? particular aesthetic content delivered at specific times of day; variety morning shows, evening news, night-time adult drama, late-night comedy. In any of these cases the production of a television broadcast program is done with relatively precise and pre-determined constructs of delivery. The maker knows how the cinematic work will look governed by technical elements, they know how it will be seen and indeed, when it will be seen, as such the work itself is composed accordingly within that pre-determined structure.
Obviously many works, particularly those made for the cinema theatre, ultimately find their way to a different medium such as television. But what underpins this axiom of composition for pre-determined viewing is that theatrical release cinematic work might be screened on a television but it was not composed, either technically or aesthetically, for the television. Its' re-purposing to the small-screen format is very much an affront to its compositional aesthetics and at odds with the originally intended mode of viewership. Indeed the technical process of adapting a theatrical release involves a number of processes that intrinsically technically and aesthetically alter the work at a fundamental level. Conversion to small screen from a wide-screen theatrical print requires either letter-boxing of the image frame, whereby one third of the screen surface area is lost to black bars top and bottom of the image. Or, alternatively a process of 'pan&scan' where by the image frame is manually animated to shift back and forth alternately shifting the subjects into the viewable screen area that would have otherwise fallen outside of it due to the source's wide aspect frame that extends beyond the space available to the traditional TV. Effectively this can change the cinematography itself as a two-shot becomes a series of panning mid-shots; the work is inadvertently re-composed for the small screen.
Television, as a specific example, thus serves as either the primary mode for works unique to its form, and composed specifically for its particular constructs, aesthetically and technically; or television serves as subsidiary and subservient format for re-purposed cinematic works. This notion of subsequent viewing in a medium and form not part of the original compositional intention or auteur vision presents a distinct hierarchy of privilege in cinematic works reinforced as much by economic structures of cinema as business, as they are by the technical constraints of different delivery platforms. A hierarchy where one form is the primary form, the form to whose parameters a work is composed, and all other forms are inferior re-purposing's offering a lesser or bastardized experience.
Above all this traditional hierarchy of delivery grounds the driving cinematic compositional mode around a singularity of viewership ? a singular work designed for a singular mode delivery to predictable and defined expectations of viewership.
Techno-Aesthetics and expectations
This idea of 'expectations' leads us to the second axiom that we can use to underpin an understanding of traditional cinema in the context of techno-cultural composition, process and reception. The creative process of building a cinematic form and the construction of its imagery, has a direct and tangible impact on the experience of the viewer. In other words, How a work is made ? the technology and processes used and undertaken ? directly effects how the work is Perceived.
Moreover, the ongoing nature of this process of perception and the saturation of cinematic forms in popular media and culture constructs a framework of specific expectations on the part of the viewer. A cinematic work can be immediately placed in time, related to when it was made, as readily by the look, type and style of the film stock - its visual 'feel' and the cadence of the frame's rhythm - than by any other element such as story, character, setting or performance styles. A 1980's television sit-com has a look and feel, purely in the technical aesthetic of its image, that is wholly distinct and immediately discernible from a 1950's film. This is a clear distinction independent of the film's content; a perceptual distinction built purely on the basis of how the work was made rather than what it is about.
A simple and highly contemporary example, one that emphasises the power of the relationship between technical process and viewer expectation, can be seen in the evolution from celluloid-based film-making to digital; the perceptual comparison between film and video. The digital video-based image is by nature cleaner, sharper, more crisp and colour accurate than a celluloid based one ? and only becoming more so with each technical evolution. Digital is capable of a more 'realistic' image (culturally and aesthetically subjective as a concept that may be) than any other imaging device created by humankind driven purely out of a technical precision of light capture.
And yet because of a popular culture that has been saturated in celluloid images for more than a century - images made from light-sensitive silver grains and a photo-chemical process, along with a social and hierarchical positioning of the cinema-theatre projected image as of primary stature - our popular perception and visual acceptance of a 'truthful narrative' and an associated visual diegesis is altered.
Stuart Maschwitz, a visual effects artist and inventor of the Magic Bullet software system for video post production that simulates a 'film-look' on images derived from video sources, comments on this effect of perception in relation to video and filmic imagery:
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Video's frame rate being as close to reality as we can discern jibes with our ingrained perception of how video is traditionally used: to document real-life events. The TV news, reality TV shows, and our own home movies have a documentary quality to them that subconsciously suggests to the viewer that they are seeing actual events. Even sitcoms and soap operas are less like movies than they are like simulations of being in a studio audience watching a live performance. Video clues us in that we are watching reality, and by showing us everything, it invites us to passively absorb it... Movies are anything but reality. Ironically, by showing the audience less (40% of the temporal information of video), they trigger a part of our brains that works to fill in the missing information. In this way film creates a more participatory experience and at the same time informs its audience that what they are viewing is an authored, narrative work. This is backed up by our historical associations as well we have learned to associate film's flicker with storytelling and video's unflinching detail with reality." (Maschwitz, S. 2003)
Subsequently a great many digital films have a degradation, cadence and colour manipulation process deliberately applied that actually reduces the clarity and precision of the digital image to better match a visual expectation of a how a truthful and faithful cinematic narrative should look. In more metaphysical and philosophical terms Baudrillard has explored these ideas of 'truth', 'reality' and ' simulation' based on production technology.
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We will not distinguish the true from the false, but will look for the falser than false: illusion and appearance.? (Baurdillard, J. 1990. p7)
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In the movement of seduction it is as if the false were resplendent in all the power of truth.? (Baurdillard, J. 1990. p52)
These expectations of the image, driven by technical process of cinematic construction, have a direct impact on a wide range aesthetic choices on the part of film-makers. In simple terms what we expect from the moving image is driven by the technology and tools that make it. Our established theoretical structures are built on this relationship between cinematic apparatus and cinematic expectation and the symbiosis of the two cannot be ignored or divorced.
Diegesis and identification
The third axiom we might engage to define the core techno-aesthetic structures of cinema is somewhat more ephemeral but, none the less, potentially serves a pragmatic function in articulating the relationship between individual cinematic components. Simply put, all cinematic elements and subjects contained within a work can be defined and understood by their diegesis, their natural or unnatural belonging to the depicted cinematic environment. This diegetic positioning is consistent across modes and genres of cinema and similarly spans the development of cinema as a form over time. Largely independent of technology diegesis has been traditionally focused on cinematic content rather than other elements such as cinematic construction.
Diegesis is a simple enough concept and a common dictionary definition is remarkably brief; ?A narrative or history; a recital or relation ? (1998). Certainly the simplicity of this concept extends into an understanding of diegesis as it applies to cinematic form but in doing so, diegesis as a conceptual tool of analysis also diversifies and becomes simultaneously more specific and more broad ranging.
Alexander Galloway reinforces the traditional film perspective that steps a very small way outside of a narrow narrative diegesis to begin to encompass the cinematic form and mechanics: ?In film theory 'non-diegetic' refers to a whole series of formal techniques that are part of the apparatus of film while still outside the narrative world of the film, such as a film's score or titles.? (2006)
There are arguably five largely independent and established articulations of diegesis as it relates to cinematic constructs and narrative forms. All of these seem to have a firm traceable thread back through cinema history, being present throughout all the major shifts in form (silent, talkie, colour, digital) and consistent through evolutions in style and technique.
Diegesis of Narrative. An Aristotelian concept that defines the nature of fictional worlds and the position of story-telling within them. A diegetic narrative element is one that is consistent with the constructed ?world? of a story. Moreover the idea of narrative diegesis extends to multiple independent narratives that may share the same diegesis ? for example multiple series' of science fiction TV shows and films set in the same 'world'.
Gerald Prince defines diegesis as ?The world in which the situations and events narrated occur.? He also expands on this to include the notion of the act of the ?story?s telling? ? ?Telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting.? (1987)
More specifically to the concept of cinematic space, that we will explore from a diversity of perspectives, is the concept of diegetic narrative elements being also those that are not actually shown on the screen but which are still part of the narrative world. Events that are assumed by the viewer to have happened elsewhere but which are ?present? in the sense that they have ramifications for the narrative and its environs. Events that have happened prior to the framework of the specific narrative being portrayed along with people or events that are spoken of but which have occurred elsewhere in another time are also part of the narrative diegesis.
Diegesis of Sound. Whilst diegesis of narrative is the central pillar and oldest application of diegesis in cinema studies it is actually the application of notions of the diegetic to sound that form much of the dominant discourse in the context of cinematic form. In this regard sound diegesis refers to the relation of the sound to the depicted and represented space of the mise-en-scene and the narrative.
A diegetic sound is one where the source of the sound, in both space and time, is tangible and (in most cases) visible within the mise-en-scene; an actors voice as they speak, foley sounds directly connected with visible and physical actions, the sound of events that occur in the scene.
Subsequently a non-diegetic sound is one where the sound?s source and presence in time and space is outside of the mise-en-scene, beyond the spatiality of the scene. Key examples in this case being a film?s musical score or a voice-over narration.
Diegesis of Sequence. This implementation of diegetic thinking can also be applied to sequence and montage and the specific utilisation of image edits into a given sequence that do not belong to the established diegetic construct of the scene otherwise being depicted through montage. These edit inclusions of objects and images that are beyond or outside the established narrative and spatial diegesis are often referred to as a ?non-diegetic insert?.
When Gus Van Sant directed the re-make of Psycho (1998) he included a number of non-diegetic inserts that serve as key examples of a specific diegesis of montage. For example, in the scene where Marion is murdered in the shower, amid the frenetic stabbing, the scene cuts momentarily several times to an image of a cloudy, stormy sky with the clouds themselves moving at a sped-up, unnatural pace. The non-diegetic nature of this montage inclusion happens on three levels - To begin with the cloud shot is removed from the motel bathroom, outside of the events taking place in the montage mise-en-scene diegesis, subsequently it is beyond the place and space of the depicted event. Secondly the montage diegesis has a specific time-frame, that of late night, so the inclusion of a day-time sky shot into the sequence is clearly non-diegetic to the established time-frame. The third element, which shouldn?t be overlooked in such an examination, is the fact that the clouds are moving at an unnatural rate, one that is artificially sped up. This too divorces the shot from the established diegesis of the montage which happens quite specifically in natural, real-time.
Diegesis of Frame. This form of diegesis, which is far less documented or explored than other elements, is very closely related to the diegesis of the edit but which functions in a different constructed form. Where the later relates specifically to montage seqeuncing and the insertion of elements that are outside of the established diegetic norm of that sequence (in other words the diegesis is broken in-time) a diegesis of the visual frame is concerned with inserting non-diegetic elements into the visual mise-en-scene.
Simple examples of this would include titles and text slides super-imposed over a shot or series of shots. In such a case the words are certainly part of the mise-en-scene, contributing to overall composed meaning, but are distinctly non-diegetic to the time-space of the depicted frame. A perfect example can be seen in the Peter Weir film Witness (1985). The movie opens with images of a old-fashioned horse-drawn buggy and people costumed in antiquated dress. Into the frame fades a text title with the words ?Pennsylvania 1984?. The distinctly non-diegetic element is absolutely a part of the frame and contributes profoundly the meaning of the scene but is positioned outside of the time, space and form of the frame and all its diegetic elements.
Lastly, diegesis of the View or Gaze. This form of cinematic diegesis relates, for the most part, specifically to characters and the positioning and subjection of their personal view or gaze within the context of a framed mise-en-scene. Daniel Chandler breaks down this type of diegesis into an Intra-Diegetic gaze and an Extra-Diegetic gaze. (2000)
Intra-diegetic view refers to ?a gaze of one depicted person at another? (Chandler, D. 2000). The view of the character is toward another object sharing the same diegesis; the same space-time, the same spatiality. An Extra-diegetic view is ?the gaze of a person... depicted in the text looking ?out of the frame? as if at the viewer? (Chandler, D. 2000) A gaze outside of the diegesis, that does not share the same diegetic spatiality as the character. Any form of direct address in cinema is a prime example of extra-diegetic gaze, or might more simply be known as non-diegetic gaze.
Measure and test change
Whilst it may seam like a meandering path, what we have at the end of this sojourn is a conceptual cinematic GPS system by which to understand the mapping of established techno-aesthetics in cinema; a set of barometers to measure and test change.
The pillars we have in place bear a consistency across cinema both temporal - through moving image history - and modal - across forms, styles and genres...
A singularity of viewership dictating specific compositional auteurship.
An inextricable link between how cinema is made and how cinema is experienced ? technology and form.
A consistently reinforced framework of diegesis to position all cinematic elements and subjects.
These are the pillars against which the stones of questioning must be hurled as we move deeper into an age where the moving image has never been more pervasive or more powerful; never been more diverse or more complex.
These three axioms have subtly, and to large degree silently, held sway over the conceptualization and experience of the cinematic form for the extant history of the moving image. But we now have moved rapidly and with increased acceleration into a broad and dynamic moving image culture; one of a digital age that seems unprepared to invoke these paradigms as keystones of cinematic language. Instead the cinematic form is presented with substantial problems that make many elements of our established moving picture language highly problematic with significant ramifications for how we make, interpret and experience cinema. All three of these axioms are now, when brought to bear, highly problematic and fundamentally dysfunctional in the context of range of hybrid and mutated technical and relational constructs.
The cinematic viewer-experience is no longer unified or singular.
The mode of reception and the cinema viewing experience itself is no longer predictable or pre-determinable.
The space and form in which a cinematic work might be experienced is almost infinitely variable and, moreover, functions in parallel and non-hierarchical structures.
The cinema theatre is no longer the primary mode of experience nor does it occupy the place of privilege as the most desirable.
A work may be seen simultaneously on a myriad of devices and in a plethora of spatial environs and each infuses its own computational aesthetics.
The compositional framework itself is fundamentally flawed when the mode of experience is neither singular nor predictable and the mode of making is hybridized beyond the bounds of the camera and the frame.
The link between how cinema is made and how cinema is experienced ? the symbiosis of production and reception ? is no less tangible now than it has ever been but the articulation of those processes and the blurring hybridization that takes place between forms and functions; between the techniques and the tools has never been more complex or more disjointed in shaping viewer expectations far beyond any conceivable perception of traditional cinema.
When the same software tool that an architect uses to erect, in engineering precision, a sky-scraping building is the same tool that shapes human embodied avatars to interact in a computer game environment, is the same tool that gives life to a dragon in a fantasy film, and is the same tool that models molecular structures for scientific research; we have fundamentally altered the techno-aesthetic contract of expectation with the viewer via the tools of assembly.
We engage with a cinematic form born from a technology that intrinsically effects the viewer's relationship to space, comprehensions of diegesis and the inherent belongings and perceptions of perspective that are the foundation of cinematic construct. Diegesis can now be influenced, altered and born a new by technologies of perception. The camera itself vanishes as a mechanical apparatus and becomes intangible, ephemeral, a floating point of observance defying all physicality. By proxy, understandings of natural belonging and presence tied up in traditional ideas of diegesis evaporate and are supplanted with new viewer expectations and a new signed contract with the audience. Our view on the cinematic space, the landscape of narrative diegetic belonging, becomes not one of convenient vantage point for the purposes of a story's telling but something much more intricate as a co-existence with diegetic space ? hearing as the characters hear rather than simple hearing what they hear.
Forms and Modes of Cinema
Of course to move forward from this point we need first attend to pragmatic list making; the collation of ever diverse types of contemporary, digital driven, cinema. Once we have a collated assembly of types we can then, seeing through the quagmire of diversity and difference, begin to look for, and identify, the element that unifies cinematic form - the baseline concept that allows for an informed and functional discussion of the moving image and the techno-aesthetics of the digital age.
The breakdown is not, and need not, be wholly complex. We can say with some certainty that there are two broadly functional categories ? Cinematic Forms and Cinematic Modes. The former details the means of experience based on the medium itself; the later defining the principle types of content. For the purposes of this discussion, and the intention to locate a unifying element, we can break down five of each that are largely independent of genre and style and unearthed from a simple technology-driven base. That said, whilst these forms are significantly established, mainstream and popular they do not exist in isolation. Whilst they can viably be categorized and referred to independently there is also enormous overlap, increasingly by design and intention, between forms.
~ Theatrical Cinema.
The dedicated space designed for scale of experience. Controlled environment, large screen, projected image cinematic viewing for public audience en masse.
~ Home Theatre.
The purpose engaged domestic space for cinematic consumption. A space that embraces tangible and efficient delivery in forms such as TV, DVD and digital broadcasting.
~ Mobile.
The portable and the personal. The intimate viewing experience. Cinema for one. Small screen phone, PDA, portable media player and potentially spreading into laptop computers of various shapes and sizes.
~ Computer.
Much can be argued that the identifying the 'computer' as an entity for cinematic form is a blurry line of distinction as the separation between what is on-line and what is not in a world where the fridge has an internet connection, makes such distinctions inherently problematic. None the less we do have a distinct place for the computer as cinematic form distinct spatially and culturally from others. Streaming media, websites, gaming, data-casts, video-conferencing, web-cams all currently hold a specific home on the computer as a cinematic form for experience.
~ The Live Environment.
One of the least understood but most pervasive, the live environment embraces a range of cinematic mediums ? video billboards, electronic signs, advertising and augmented performances, public screens in public places. The key separation between the live environment and the cinema theatre is the un-dedicated space and the lack of singularity and predication in delivery. Simply put, for the most part, the audience viewing the movie at the cinema is a given; the viewing of a cinematic work on a public display live environment is somewhere between accidental and optional.
Having these five forms in place, that together can be seen to encompass the diversity of cinematic experiences, and open enough to encompass those on the fringe or yet to come (virtual reality goggles, holographic displays and whatever else manifests), we can begin to merge in the principle modes of content .
Here too there are five discretely identifiable, but intrinsically overlapping and coexisting, modes that relate directly to the cinematic content as well as the cinematic construction.
~ Live-Action.
The traditional base of cinema derived from a principally photographic process. Whether it be celluloid or video, electronic, analogue or digital, all live-action shares a common dominator in the lens and the mechanics of a lens-based device form capturing an image form an actuality of presence.
~ Animation.
Often thought of as traditional film's kid brother, there is much to suggest that live-action cinema is actually the child of animation being that the act of animating sequential still images to fool the eye into a persistence of vision is much older that the celluloid emulsion phonographic process. In any case animation has always been a crucial element of cinema born from the act of giving life to the inanimate; to set in motion.
~ 3D Graphics.
The illusion of depth is certainly nothing new. The construction of light and shadow to force a perception of otherwise non-existent tangibility and spatial occupation is as old as art itself. However the idea of three-dimension graphics in motion, the construction of three-dimensional environs to be occupied and populated, the intangible creation of tangible things in an intangible space, is really quite something else. VR environments, perspective simulators, composited 3D objects seamlessly into live-action spaces; the fundamental distinction of a non live action moving image media that has no reliance on the mechanics of lens and exposure.
~ Computer and Video Games.
Arguably the most dynamic and engaging of all the new and hybrid modes sprouted into life by the digital age. Obviously sharing technology and technique with all modes - animation, 3D and even live-action ? gaming presents a new aesthetic and contextual type that builds via a framework of re-mediation (Bolter, J & Grusin, R.1999) into an extraordinary medium of unique properties. Interaction, malleability, randomness, non-linearity and the composition of spatial entities for viewer immersion. Gaming is none the less a moving image media - no less cinema than any other moving image mode ? but being inherently divorced both from the traditional lens-based mechanics of live-action and the methodical framic assembly of animation, it becomes something something quite unique and demanding its own compositional, aesthetic and spatial considerations
~ Motion Graphics
The least understood and least studied of all the modes, motion graphics would seem (on the surface at least) to present a simple hybrid platform where all modes can meet. Photographic and computer generated, animation and live-action, moving and static, 2D and 3D all find a unified plateau in the construction and reception of motion graphics. But more than mere assembly point motion graphics demands its' own very unique, and conceptually complex, re-considerations of cinematic form born from its fundamental construction mechanism; that of layers and transparency which break down traditional collage and montage aesthetics.
The central concept here that increasingly distinguishes the modern age of cinema from the past is the non-hierarchical nature of all these modes; the distinct lack of privilege as to which occupies the position of dominant discourse. Where once live-action was the cinematic expectation and all other modes played supportive or ancillary roles, the same cannot be said of digital cinematic form in the contemporary age. Live-action is no longer a norm, live action is an option on a vast pallet of diverse but equal colours. Moreover these colours swirl and mix together with seamless boundaries far more readily then they retain their divisions. Once we unify the mechanics of cinematic building on the plateau of digital data ? of universal binary zeros and ones ? we inherently strip away the hierarchy and linearity of cinematic making. The colours run together because they are inherently, across all forms and modes, built of the same compounds. The modes and forms of digital cinema are water colours with a binary molecular structure making no discriminations where they run.
Cinematic Space.
As these forms and modes simultaneously fuse and diversify we invariably stumble our way into a far more complex structure from which to distil conceptual understandings; understandings that should have broad application independent and across the span of cinema modes and forms.
Traditionally cinema has been examined and understood by the consistencies of its presentation, its predictabilities, and these have been rooted in the hard boundaries of the physical acquisition and delivery of the moving image. We defined cinema by its Mise-en-scene - its meanings constructed within the hard visual frame by the arrangement of the frames' contents ? And by its Montage ? its sequencing of those frames and the meanings derived from order and linear arrangement.
But the technologies for both construction and reception of cinema have become undeniably disparate ? the frame no longer consistent or predictable, the physical camera need not be present, a single frame my consist of multiple identifiable frames and an infinite number of transparent blended ones, we have simultaneous viewing on desperate mediums and delivery devices and little or no viable distinction between live action and computer generation. All these traditional tenets of conceptual thinking and understanding are left very much wanting for holistic relevance in this disparate moving image media-scape. We are forced instead to look beyond these two traditional pillars ? the meaning inside the frame and the meaning between the frames ? to new conceptual foundations that can account for, in a broad and functional way, this disparate diversity.
What unities an understanding of cinematic modes and cinematic forms; makes them tangibly comprehensible and functional as tools of analysis and comprehension, is their relation to the broad concept of Cinematic Space. To gain an holistic picture of cinema, and a frame work for understanding it both now and going forward, we need to engage with cinema 'spatiality' which stands as the only common thread that can be drawn and applied to all forms and modes.
A dissertation on cinematic space is not uncommon in cinema theory and much as been written exploring the construct of 'off-screen space' and the various manners in which camera, performer, subject and setting engage with and navigate space. But I would contest that the application of of cinema space to this point have been problematically narrow, focused on framic parameters and viewer perceptions and so subsequently unable to account for or deal with a wider range of spatial implications, particularly those born of new technologies of cinematic making.
The foundation argument being made in this work is the direct and inescapable relationship between how we make cinema, the tools of its making and the manner in which it is received and related to by viewers; the techno-aesthetic contract. This premise then subsequently engaged under the broad umbrella of an internally unified, but externally disparate, array of cinematic forms and modes. The common denominator revealed by this framework as the barometer of measure is space itself ? what are the compositional, relational and developmental spatialities consistent across all forms that might serve as the new tenets of understanding cinema in this strange new world?
I propose to break cinematic space into three strands that together allow for a much more holistic comprehension of cinema than traditional and singular notions of space have allowed. A three layered filter that is empowered to account for the techno-aesthetic relationship, the marriage between technology and viewing, between making and seeing, and a reconsideration of what it is to be a viewer.
The three forms of cinematic space this work will explored are articulated to encompass all the variations and possibilities for space;
~ Compositional cinematic space
This is the space in which cinema is composed and arranged, embedded with the idea of authorship, directorial and artistic choices. As a visual medium meaning is invariably built from arrangement of visual elements, composing that which is seen. Where once the compositional space of cinema was drawn from a process of re-mediating photography and painting we now move, driven by technology, into new compositional parameters that defy the traditional scope of celluloid and paint.
~ Developmental cinematic space
This is the space in which cinema is produced and constructed. The space of assembly, of production processes and of workflow methodology. Just as new forges of steel alter the shape and space of architecture; the tools of cinema inject their own agenda of space and form into the aesthetic of the moving image. Where once the photographic and the framic dictated cinema's aesthetic of space we now have the digital and the virtual to re-shape the mechanics of production.
~ Relational cinematic space
This is the space in which cinema is experienced, understood and interpreted. An examination of the spatiality of experience, the modes by which viewers, audiences, players and participants engage with cinema and make meaning through the spatiality of the mediums of cinema. The viewer's positioning in the context of contemporary cinematic form and the altered nature of perspective.
Understanding, identifying and examining all three is crucial as all three influence each other in the construction of space. How space is composed effects how it will be made. How space is made effects how viewers relate to it and what they expect from it. Their expectations force creators to alter and adapt their techniques of composition.
Where this triumvirate filtration system delivers us ultimately is into a new model of cinematic understanding. A landscape architecture of cinema that is built and understood from the composition, production and reception of cinema in space rather than cinema in frame.
Posted at 12:00AM Feb 03, 2008
by Mike Jones in moving image theory |
