I was going to mention this in my blog on Avatar, but I got onto other things. I do not think cinematographers and editors have fully thought three dimensions through. It is not sufficient to simply film and cut the piece as if for two dimensions, but shoot each frame in three dimensions.
Psychologically there are two key things which have to be considered.
1) Everything has to be shot in deep focus. It is no longer possible for the director to have the subject of the fram in focus and everything else classically blurred. Especially if there is something in the foreground which is out of focus, our eyes automatically try to focus on it. So we look at it - and it's out of focus. This isn't right, our brain says. We are looking at a three dimensional object and yet we simply cannot get any focus on what we want. Our focus is still in the plane of the subject the director wants us to be looking at - we end up trying to look at the blurry image even harder, with the brain willing the eyes to bring it into focus, and the eyes contorting as they try to find some way of bringing the image into focus. Meanwhile we have lost what is going on in the scene.
So directors have to revert to the ways of classic Hollywood and use deep focus. The audience will then be able to see every part of the scene as though they were actually there, and the job of the director is then - by lighting, action, dialogue and composition - to draw us to the point in the shot where we are supposed to be looking.
2) It takes much longer for our eyes to adjust to a 3D cut than to a simple 2D cut. The moment we cut we have changed position on the room and this becomes far more intrusive psychologically than the similar effect in 2D. (In fact I have had a mild headache during and after the three 3D films I have seen.) The answer here is to use less cuts. In action sequences, we are used to cut-cut-cut-cut-cut, but that simply makes the audience dizzy and disorientated in three-dmensions. Urgency can be added by camera movements and by the performance, but it takes (I estimate) about a second in three dimensions for the brain to adjust after a cut. If we are cutting every second, we have no sooner worked out where we are than we are somewhere else and we have huge trouble actually seeing what is happening in the shots.
Perhaps I am over-exaggerating the case, but I do think a radical rethink of both cinematography and editing is necessary with the advent of three dimensions. We have to return to human psychology and see what works and what doesn't. Murch expressed amazement in his book that the cut works at all. It is such a violation of reality to transpose the viewer geographically in a fraction of a second. Somehow it works in two dimensions. Maybe we are less tolerant of the cut in three dimensions.
Monday 28 December 2009
In the Blink of an Eye
Discovering that this book by Walter Murch, often cited by Andy, was not a massive tome but a slim paperback was quite a welcome find while browsing in the library and it's remarkably easy to read. I recommend it to all aspiring editors, and to everybody else too. It doesn't lay much stress on the technicalities of the edit, but instead looks at it in a more psychological and philosophical way. How does our brain react when we see a cut? Is there a "right" cut and a "wrong" cut? How can we work out which is which?
Even the chapter on digital editing is not as hopelessly out of date as other books I have come across. Murch seems able to put aside the limitations of current technology as it was in 2001 or whenever the book was written, and instead has very accurately estimated the curve of how technology has advanced. He said he was actually surprised how long it took to catch on. He blamed it on the "old industry" editors being so traditional in their methods and afraid to experiment and take a risk by going out of their depth. It was apparently something he and FF Coppola looked at back in the 70s for The Coversation, but had to abandon at the time for logistical and budgetary reasons.
Even the chapter on digital editing is not as hopelessly out of date as other books I have come across. Murch seems able to put aside the limitations of current technology as it was in 2001 or whenever the book was written, and instead has very accurately estimated the curve of how technology has advanced. He said he was actually surprised how long it took to catch on. He blamed it on the "old industry" editors being so traditional in their methods and afraid to experiment and take a risk by going out of their depth. It was apparently something he and FF Coppola looked at back in the 70s for The Coversation, but had to abandon at the time for logistical and budgetary reasons.
Final Week of 2009
For the sake of completion, I'll mention something about the last week of term.
Monday I was ill - so stayed in my bed.
Tuesday was a class in Directing. We were working on storyboarding a short sequence based on a "ticking clock" idea. Ours involved a foolish boy playing with a toy car in the middle of a highway while a drunk driver sped past him.
Wednesday was a day off, as I recall.
Thursday was, I think, a class with Cammy on Sound gathering. I didn't feel I learnt an awful lot in this class. I think we are beginning to bump into a bit of a ceiling in terms of our advancement. Perhaps if we progress to recording scripted dialogue we might be able to further hone our techniques, but largely what we need as a class is the same as what we need with the camera: practise. And for myself I find it difficult to be motivated for practise unless it has a specific aim in mind, or unless it is to learn a specific technique prior to recording. What I have found my biggest challenge with Sound Recording is dealing with the cold in Mugdock Park while holding a freezing boom pole. Lucky I have now acquired a pair of leather gloves for when I'm next on boom duty!
Friday was an editing assesment: building a scene from Balamory based on the footage collected. I did feel myself constrained occasionally, with the only shot of one or two lines from one character being the Master shot. I wasn't sure if the director had forgotten to film an extra shot, or if some footage had just got lost on the way from the set to our Media folder, but either way, ti showed me the importance of getting "options" for the editor. (I still hate Avid!)
Monday I was ill - so stayed in my bed.
Tuesday was a class in Directing. We were working on storyboarding a short sequence based on a "ticking clock" idea. Ours involved a foolish boy playing with a toy car in the middle of a highway while a drunk driver sped past him.
Wednesday was a day off, as I recall.
Thursday was, I think, a class with Cammy on Sound gathering. I didn't feel I learnt an awful lot in this class. I think we are beginning to bump into a bit of a ceiling in terms of our advancement. Perhaps if we progress to recording scripted dialogue we might be able to further hone our techniques, but largely what we need as a class is the same as what we need with the camera: practise. And for myself I find it difficult to be motivated for practise unless it has a specific aim in mind, or unless it is to learn a specific technique prior to recording. What I have found my biggest challenge with Sound Recording is dealing with the cold in Mugdock Park while holding a freezing boom pole. Lucky I have now acquired a pair of leather gloves for when I'm next on boom duty!
Friday was an editing assesment: building a scene from Balamory based on the footage collected. I did feel myself constrained occasionally, with the only shot of one or two lines from one character being the Master shot. I wasn't sure if the director had forgotten to film an extra shot, or if some footage had just got lost on the way from the set to our Media folder, but either way, ti showed me the importance of getting "options" for the editor. (I still hate Avid!)
Monday 14 December 2009
Reformation 1490 - 1700
A book I have come to the end of reading this weekend was "Reformation", which I think I started in September. It looks - from a historical and non-partisan manner - at the history of the Reformation in Europe and how the events of these years have affected us down to the present.Reading this lengthy tome was inspired by watching The Tudors, and being fascinated by the whole backdrop to that series, and it's been a book I have found fascinating. It covers a vast time period and geography in quick detail, with an occasional tongue in cheek sense of humour. Despite his attempt at neutrality - and I think he does fairly well - I think the issues of the Reformation still divide us today. In Glasgow especially, your identity is deicded for you by which school you go to and the colours of your football team.
My previous knowledge of the reformation had been a series of rather hagiographical illustrations from childrens books and sermons, where the Protestants were always the goodies and the Catholics the baddies. And if occasionally the Protestants were the baddies too, that was only because they weren't real Protestants but were just pretending. And its amazing how such simplistic ideas stay with us, even in our subconscious. Dark hints from childhood as to the wicked doings of the Jesuits ("Give me a child till he's 8, and he's mine for life!") made me wonder how it was possible that any sane parent would send their child to a Jesuit school. Yet reading into this book, I begin to understand something of what the Society of Jesus (as the Jesuits were otherwise known) were all about. Although I disagree with some of their methods and theology, I no longer think of them as Machiavellian demons, looking to brainwash the world one child at a time!
The huge flaws of some of these Reformation heroes like Luther and Calvin were highlighted, along, of course, with their huge bravery and insight. They began to feel more like fallible humans than as Magi whose words must be valued as being just below the apostles.
As the author said, the Reformation now may seem like two bald men fighting over a comb: a futile struggle over an irrelevant issue. But quite apart from the fact that it has been one of the chief shapers of our modern Europe (as that differs from country to country) I feel that the Reformation was a continent-wide re-examination of a fundamental question equally relvant today. How can we know who God is, who we are and how we can be reconciled? The Catholic church said then - as they still say today - that we learn about God through the teaching of the church. Whatever the church teaches on the subject of God is true. The Reformers said - as Protestants of all flavours still say today - that we learn about God through reading his word: The Bible.
One thing that stands out so clearly from this book is the danger of fanaticism - of all sorts. Toleration is a wonderful thing. I do not mean toleration in its modern sense of saying "You are as equally right as I am" to an individual whose beliefs clearly contradict your own. But toleration in the original sense. "I think you are wrong. This is why I think so... Nevertheless, let's still get along as human beings without reaching for that nuclear missile!"
Week Beginning 7th Dec
An easy start to the week with no classes on Monday. Tuesday was a screening of "This film is not yet Rated". I found this film rather fascinating to watch. First up, it was very very funny in places, especially in the description of what is permissable in each classification. Second it raised some interesting issues, albeit in a very one-sided and polemical fashion. There were some things which it presented which I heartily concurred with. (1) There is no need for the ridiculous levels of security and privacy surrounding the voters. (2) The high handed attitude of the MPAA and their unwillingness to reason out the issues, enter into dialogue with the film-maker and supply information is also needless, bullying and ultimately counter productive. (3) The make-up of the voting members from the laity rather than from specialised professions, such as phsychologists, sociologists, film-makers even councillors and politicians is foolish and makes a virtue of ignorance. It also taps into the mythical notion of "normality" and "the real world".
Having said that, there were also certain areas in which I disagreed with the film, or at least didn't support it as much as I might have been expected to. The implication that sex - with all the array of fetishes that go along with it - is safe for anyone and everyone to see is, I believe, false. I just yesterday read an articule about G.K. Chesterton, author and journalist from last century. He has a quote: "All healthy men, ancient and modern, Western and Eastern, hold that there is in sex a fury that we cannot afford to inflame; and that a certain mystery must attach to the instinct if it is to continue delicate and sane". I think our culture is significantly too free and easy with something so elemental, raw and powerful as sex. Further, I think the argument of "artistic freedom" only goes so far. Zam was talking about genre, and how within a genre movie, each scene can have a different genre, for example within a horror film, we can have a romance scene, a comedy scene, a thriller scene, and action scene or a social drama scene. Similarly, in pretty much any genre of movie produced today, we can have a scene in the pornographic genre. Seeing two characters, naked, simulating sex (or indeed actually doing it - though that is a whole new kettle of fish) and letting the camera languidly linger on them as they do so, is, in my book, pornography, and is (insofar as I am going to generalise) a Bad Thing. If for no other reasons than the objectification of women, the exploitation of young desperate wannabe actresses and the cynical attempt to sell a poor or average film on the back of an pornographic section.
I could write oodles more about it, but I feel I should curb my rant and move on - just after one final thought. The thing I just didn't get was the NC-17 rating itself. Why do cinemas not show such films? Is it because they tend to be pornographic and small-town America would not stand for their local cinemas showing porno pictures? After all, looking at the British system, we are even more strict. A lot of the films they rate as R we would rate as 18 (even stricter that NC-17). Yet cinemas still show such films and although they won't do so well as lower-certificate film, they will still draw in enough profits to make them worthwhile. This seemed to be the missing piece in the jigsaw.
Wednesday and Thursday morning were a class with Zam, looking at genre: in particular at comedy, and how that has manifested itself in different ways over the decades. Certain films I found vastly funnier than others, but we saw that the key things were the set up and the punchine; the reaction - better being underplayed; the timing of the reveal; the pacing of the scene and the turnaround in where the audience thinks the scene is going.
Thursday afternoon was editing: just a case of viewing and annotating footage ready for the assesment next week.
Friday was a screening of some of the films DFTV have done over the last year. The two that really stood out for me were "Slag" and "Little Clown". It would be nice to see more external projects being done by more people.
From Friday - well from Thursday, really - I have been knocked out by a flu or cold from which I am only just recovering. Very nasty. Today I feel like I have been run over by an elephant (or arguably a herd of giant squirrels) but I no longer feel infected, so hopefully I shall be able to get back on form for tomorrow.
Having said that, there were also certain areas in which I disagreed with the film, or at least didn't support it as much as I might have been expected to. The implication that sex - with all the array of fetishes that go along with it - is safe for anyone and everyone to see is, I believe, false. I just yesterday read an articule about G.K. Chesterton, author and journalist from last century. He has a quote: "All healthy men, ancient and modern, Western and Eastern, hold that there is in sex a fury that we cannot afford to inflame; and that a certain mystery must attach to the instinct if it is to continue delicate and sane". I think our culture is significantly too free and easy with something so elemental, raw and powerful as sex. Further, I think the argument of "artistic freedom" only goes so far. Zam was talking about genre, and how within a genre movie, each scene can have a different genre, for example within a horror film, we can have a romance scene, a comedy scene, a thriller scene, and action scene or a social drama scene. Similarly, in pretty much any genre of movie produced today, we can have a scene in the pornographic genre. Seeing two characters, naked, simulating sex (or indeed actually doing it - though that is a whole new kettle of fish) and letting the camera languidly linger on them as they do so, is, in my book, pornography, and is (insofar as I am going to generalise) a Bad Thing. If for no other reasons than the objectification of women, the exploitation of young desperate wannabe actresses and the cynical attempt to sell a poor or average film on the back of an pornographic section.
I could write oodles more about it, but I feel I should curb my rant and move on - just after one final thought. The thing I just didn't get was the NC-17 rating itself. Why do cinemas not show such films? Is it because they tend to be pornographic and small-town America would not stand for their local cinemas showing porno pictures? After all, looking at the British system, we are even more strict. A lot of the films they rate as R we would rate as 18 (even stricter that NC-17). Yet cinemas still show such films and although they won't do so well as lower-certificate film, they will still draw in enough profits to make them worthwhile. This seemed to be the missing piece in the jigsaw.
Wednesday and Thursday morning were a class with Zam, looking at genre: in particular at comedy, and how that has manifested itself in different ways over the decades. Certain films I found vastly funnier than others, but we saw that the key things were the set up and the punchine; the reaction - better being underplayed; the timing of the reveal; the pacing of the scene and the turnaround in where the audience thinks the scene is going.
Thursday afternoon was editing: just a case of viewing and annotating footage ready for the assesment next week.
Friday was a screening of some of the films DFTV have done over the last year. The two that really stood out for me were "Slag" and "Little Clown". It would be nice to see more external projects being done by more people.
From Friday - well from Thursday, really - I have been knocked out by a flu or cold from which I am only just recovering. Very nasty. Today I feel like I have been run over by an elephant (or arguably a herd of giant squirrels) but I no longer feel infected, so hopefully I shall be able to get back on form for tomorrow.
Monday 7 December 2009
Week Beginning 30/11
So we started with another early morning kit return - how many weekends in a row is that now?
After that, we had a class on Marketing and Distribution, possibly the most formidable of all the film strands - certainly the one I feel most out of my depth when considering. I think it is my own attitude to paying for anything, and certainly for luxuries, but I don't really understand how you can bank on anybody paying money for your product. I have the same issue with Maths tuition: happy to give it, I can't imagine what makes someone decide to pay for it. Same with theater: I only watch theater if I can see it for free, but I'm quite happy to draw a wage based on the crowds of people who spend money coming to see shows. There is no way I could ever be a salesman or a marketer - simply because the idea of spending money on something which is not particularly necessary or helpful is quite alien to me.
After this was a class in Screenwriting: the last class, actually, now that Mr. Smith has gone to Hollywood. We were looking at how to write an engaging scene. It was stressed that this sort of tense, emotive scene simply cannot be sustained throughout the movie or the audience will be utterly drained by the end of the film, especially with a feature. But for the key scenes which provide the main turning points of the movie, this is a very useful skill to learn: taking the key elements of a scene, and spinning them together, continually raising the stakes higher and higher until finally there is a resolution either for better or worse.
Tuesday was a Documentary class, where we watched Grey Gardens, which no doubt has had an effect of the collective cultural psyche, but which is still difficult to watch. There is little development from the understanding we have of these characters at the beginning to the end. Old Edie has obviously had her day - and still had a good voice, for a cailleach. She was going a little senile, but her life didn't seem to be the tragic mess of Young(er) Edie. Sexually frustrated, kept at home far longer than anybody should be and as a result sent over the edge into a world of fantasy in which she was an alluring young woman, with all her life ahead of her. I felt pity for her, but little sympathy, as so much of her problems were associated with her own choice not to leave. Perhaps, because I had to leave home at 18, and there was no quibbling with that, I find it harder to get into the shoes of someone who has "missed the boat" and finds themselves an adult living in someone else's house. The documentary is overlong and if I had watched more than five minutes at any point of it voluntarily I would have been surprised at myself.
No classes on Wednesday, and Thursday was our filming day. We were interrupted with the hospitalization of Adam, which meant that the afternoon had a different focus, being more interested in visuals (and arguably in simply getting through the exercise) than in getting the best performances. Either way, I am glad the experience is over: I am certainly not cut out to be a DoP, and was very much flying by the seat of my pants - as would have been very obvious to Ray and the crew.
Friday was a screening of The 400 blows. I use the translated title as I can't remember the foreign one... See other blog for review.
After that, we had a class on Marketing and Distribution, possibly the most formidable of all the film strands - certainly the one I feel most out of my depth when considering. I think it is my own attitude to paying for anything, and certainly for luxuries, but I don't really understand how you can bank on anybody paying money for your product. I have the same issue with Maths tuition: happy to give it, I can't imagine what makes someone decide to pay for it. Same with theater: I only watch theater if I can see it for free, but I'm quite happy to draw a wage based on the crowds of people who spend money coming to see shows. There is no way I could ever be a salesman or a marketer - simply because the idea of spending money on something which is not particularly necessary or helpful is quite alien to me.
After this was a class in Screenwriting: the last class, actually, now that Mr. Smith has gone to Hollywood. We were looking at how to write an engaging scene. It was stressed that this sort of tense, emotive scene simply cannot be sustained throughout the movie or the audience will be utterly drained by the end of the film, especially with a feature. But for the key scenes which provide the main turning points of the movie, this is a very useful skill to learn: taking the key elements of a scene, and spinning them together, continually raising the stakes higher and higher until finally there is a resolution either for better or worse.
Tuesday was a Documentary class, where we watched Grey Gardens, which no doubt has had an effect of the collective cultural psyche, but which is still difficult to watch. There is little development from the understanding we have of these characters at the beginning to the end. Old Edie has obviously had her day - and still had a good voice, for a cailleach. She was going a little senile, but her life didn't seem to be the tragic mess of Young(er) Edie. Sexually frustrated, kept at home far longer than anybody should be and as a result sent over the edge into a world of fantasy in which she was an alluring young woman, with all her life ahead of her. I felt pity for her, but little sympathy, as so much of her problems were associated with her own choice not to leave. Perhaps, because I had to leave home at 18, and there was no quibbling with that, I find it harder to get into the shoes of someone who has "missed the boat" and finds themselves an adult living in someone else's house. The documentary is overlong and if I had watched more than five minutes at any point of it voluntarily I would have been surprised at myself.
No classes on Wednesday, and Thursday was our filming day. We were interrupted with the hospitalization of Adam, which meant that the afternoon had a different focus, being more interested in visuals (and arguably in simply getting through the exercise) than in getting the best performances. Either way, I am glad the experience is over: I am certainly not cut out to be a DoP, and was very much flying by the seat of my pants - as would have been very obvious to Ray and the crew.
Friday was a screening of The 400 blows. I use the translated title as I can't remember the foreign one... See other blog for review.
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