On Oct 19, 2011, at 12:40 PM, Sandra Maliga wrote: > The aesthetics and techniques of > film and photography can be taught using digital equipment.
Well, no. It is interesting how many students suddenly get it re editing once they cut film on a Steenbeck. What was a disembodied virtual process suddenly made sense once it had become physical. Having to actually pick the right frame to cut on, because you don't want a string of 1-frame splices, teaches them how to think when editing. Decisions have consequences, and can't always be instantly reversed (there is the Mitt Romney exception, of course). Shooting film has many virtues. Leaving aside the aesthetic ones, it teaches discipline -- when to turn the camera on and off. When you are capturing data to a flash card, it costs nothing to just keep shooting. Shooting film is like having a taxi-meter as footage counter -- it forces you to really think while shooting. That doesn't mean you might not shoot a 400-foot roll in one or two takes, but you have made a decision. Digital pushes one into a decision-free zone -- any decision can be postponed -- which leads to bad art. It leads to laziness. Shooting reversal stock is a great educational tool -- because you learn about exposure, and do not have much latitude. Yes, the cost of film is a terrible thing. In the olden times, the cost and the technical skills required acted as a filter on what films got made. It required not only some skill, but it forced one to learn how to hustle. (When I grew up in Chicago, Tom Palazzolo was the master of making films for no money -- he knew film couriers for TV stations who sold film cheap -- it fell off their motorcycles -- and lab guys who would sneak it through the processing machine. I learned a lot from Tom.) Now anyone can go to WalMart and get all they need to make a film that could be shown theatrically. Access to equipment is no longer a problem. The new iPhone (too expensive for me) shoots great 1080p video. So Coppola's mythic "fat girl in Ohio" (his words, not mine) will have access to her camera-stylo, and might make a great work of art. At the same time, 999,000 others will suddenly be able to shoot and finish the most horrific pieces of shit, but they end up with "a movie" that they force others to try and watch. I now feel some degree of pity for festival programmers, who theoretically have to watch this glut of stuff. Yes, 30 years ago they also had to wade through tons of crap, but the percentage was lower because of the filter. When the typewriter became popular, more people tried writing novels, but it took perseverance to finish even a dreadful one. Personal computers carried on this trend, but there was a lot of work involved -- though with all the retyping eliminated, some writers learned to edit and rewrite, not a terrible thing. It's easy to shoot digitally, easy to throw it into a computer and string it together -- if you don't edit it on your phone. Making things too easy cheapens it, in my opinion. That's not to say digital is the villain. Cell phones are great for documenting police brutality and cute animal antics, and someone will make great art with them. (What was Pixelvision before Sadie Benning?) But even if students are going to end up in a world where there is no film being shot, a good education will still give them the experience of shooting and editing film, because the lessons learned are greater than one might imagine. Jeff "officially an old curmudgeon now" Kreines _______________________________________________ FrameWorks mailing list FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
