Theatrical-Release Feature-Film is Irrelevent...
A provocative statement no doubt since my readers are, by majority,
filmmakers and film students aspiring to make films for a living.
I was researching and writing recently on motion graphics,
compositing and the aesthetics of the layered cinematic image. Foremost
in mind was music videos, advertising, TV show title sequences, promos
and so on.
What struck me was that there is a perception that such aesthetics
and modes of cinematic presentation and experience are perceived as
somehow on the fringe. The exception to cinematic grammar and
language rather than the norm.
This position obviously stems from the narrow Theatrical Release
perspective of the cinematic landscape; that the penultimate cinematic
form from which all others both descend and aspire is the
feature-length Theatrical Release.
I find this a troubling thought.
This visual aesthetic of motion graphics is certainly not obscure
and it would be an onerous mistake to assume that it belongs to the
realms of video-art and fringe cinematic forms. Rather, layered
aesthetics and composition embodied by compositing and motion graphics
are a distinct part of the common mainstream and, indeed, dominant
cinematic language of contemporary moving image media. Whilst examples
can be seen throughout the myriad of genres and mediums of cinema it is
music videos, advertising and television that have sort most readily to
exploit the visual power and dynamism of compositing and motion
graphics.
The takeup of layered aesthetics in contemporary popular media is
not one driven out of choices of style or a simplistic desire to grab
attention, rather the principles of compositing and motion graphics
present a distinct communicative trait that is purely in touch with
narrative and communicative ideals. Robbins, Drate and Salavetz in
their book Motion by Design observe that "We now have the ability with
sequence to show an entire context and the simultaneity of a particular
event." (2006 p7) What this indicates as the core functionality of
compositing and motion graphics - layers rather than mise en scene and
montage is one of efficiency and density of communication.
If we take television drama programs we can see the aesthetics of
layers driven by the needs of the medium; a spatial composition serving
the narrative needs of the format in ways that traditional paradigms
cannot. A typical one hour television drama on a commercial station is
approx 45 minutes of actual program once commercial breaks are removed.
Unlike a feature film with a 90min to 3hour running time, the 45minute
TV drama does not have the luxury of copious time to establish mood,
tone, character and scenario. For the episode to progress into story as
quickly as possible in order to maximise the use of the 45minutes,
there is an overt need to condense style, form, meaning, aesthetics,
character, situation and scenario into a sequence of maximum meaning in
minimum content.
The distinct answer to this problem has become the definitive TV
title sequence. Whilst the concept of an introduction to a TV program,
often involving images and music, has been entwined with TV production
almost since its inception, the growing trend has been to evoke the new
language constructs of layered spatiality to build highly complex title
sequences that communicate an enormous body of information about the
program to follow in a short span of time. By providing a visual
environment of simultaneity, where multiple images coexist on a
platform of transparency - rather than in sequence a density of
communicative language is engaged.
Now not only are cinematic elements able to be arranged and composed
based on their physical or spatial location within the frame but also
their metaphysical arrangement within the shot their opacity, their
movement, their seamless merging with other elements, their position as
a layer amid and amongst many layers.
When we move to advertising, overtly the most ubiquitous form of
cinematic media in popular culture, we take this idea of communicative
compression through the language of spatial layers to new levels. The
common 30sec commercial advertising spot demands levels of
communicative efficiency that go even further than that of the 45min TV
show; a tiny sliver of time in which to engage, inspire, evoke and
persuade a viewer. And so advertising too has moved quickly in recent
decades to cement the language of layers and compositing as fundamental
to the discourse and reading of advertising as a cinematic genre.
Likewise the music video, looking to evoke complex cinematic engagement
within the confines of the 4minute pop song very often employs spatial
arrangement of layers rather than sequential assembly of mise en scene
frames as simply a more efficient and effective cinematic visual
language.
It is very often the fundamental mistake of studies and scholarship
into cinematic media aesthetics to draw almost exclusively on
feature-film as the foundation and touchstone of cinematic language.
This narrow perspective often leads to false conclusions about what
mainstream cinema language is comprised of. Too often conclusions are
arrived at that the minimal presence of blended multi-layer imagery,
that does not hold perceptible indexical reality as its main aim (in
other words compositing that does not pretend to be natural or
realistic) is somehow the domain of the fringe rather than the centre.
Studies by the Media Research Lab at the University of Texas in the United States (Surfing all channels, 2007)
lay out the media consumption of US consumers. Of all the forms that
could be defined as cinematic media (the only functional definition of
cinema being the art of the moving image and so including all
screen-based audio-visual mediums TV, movie theatre, online streaming
media, home DVD, video games and so on) it is feature-film at the movie
theatre that is an extremely distant last in terms of viewing hours.
According to the study theatrical release 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) may be dominantly feature films,
the proportion of cinematic media being consumed is overwhelmingly not
from the feature film category.
As such defining common cinematic language by the trends and
aesthetics of theatrical release feature film is simply dysfunctional.
A brave person may even claim that feature Films current contribution
to cinematic language is irrelevant and that cinema language is defined
by a myraid of other forms that are wholly more popular and saturating
that feature film. Im perhaps not that brave fearing the spam of
disgruntled purists. None the less the point is solid - that the
domiant driver of contemporary cinematic language and experience is
certainly not the Feature Film.
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 trained to read by their viewing habits everyday.
What does this mean in practical terms to someone such as myself
involved in teaching cinematic production to the next generation of
filmmakers..? It means there is a desperate and pressing need to
instill a much broader perspective on what cinema is. Driving student
filmmakers to consider their future platforms for creative work as
being much broader, bigger, dynamic and diverse than the staid and
static theatrical release.
Because any aspiring Filmmaker right now whose focus is solely and
narrowly on making feature films for theatrical release is destined for
a collision with the reality that the theatrical release is the
smallest, least dynamic, least popular, least creative, least
effective, least adventurous cinematic medium in contemporary culture.
In pragmatic terms, if youd rather be a working filmmaker than an
aspiring one then its time to widen your thinking about what cinema is.
It would seem at this point that Im not totally alone in peering
through the haze of how its always been to a brighter more expansive
vision over the horizon. Norman Hollyn, renowned editor who pens the
excellent Hollynwood blog as well as being contributor to Film Industry Bloggers has many times explored this idea. And this article called Screens Screens Screens puts an articulate and forceful motivation on the bigger picture of Cinema
Norman echos my comments above:
"Once again, those of you who see the big screen as the be-all, had better start sharpening your burger-flipping skills."
Posted at 12:00AM Jul 25, 2008
by Mike Jones in industry comment |
