3D Movie Making

Mendiburu, Bernard. (2009) 3D Movie Making – Stereoscopic Digital Cinema from Script to Screen.

Oxford. Focal Press.

3D is moving a step beyond the monoscopic depth cues that have been created in the making of 2D. Monoscopic depth cues include: occlusions, perspective and relevant size, texture gradient, atmosphere blur, saturation and colour shift, cast shadows and spectacular highlights.

'Because 3D is our natural way of seeing, it brings a feeling of realism to the audience. With 3D, we no longer have to rebuild the volume of objects in the scene we are looking at, because we get them directly from our visual system. By reducing the effort involved in the suspension of disbelief, we significantly increase the immersion experience.' (Mendiburu, B. 2009 pg. 3)

This would be good to now add some statistics and quotes from my questionaire to back this up.

'When it comes to close-ups, the effect is even stronger. The actor's head fills the room, and this dramatically increases the emotional charge of the shot. If the person were as flat as a cardbourd puppet, we would notice it immediately when we met him face-to-face. We naturally prefer the fine details of flesh structures, the volume and movement of underlying bones and muscles. The increased realism of human figures in 3D movies positively affects the identification and projection processes.' (Mendiburu, B. 2009 pg. 3)

This would be good to now add some statistics and quotes from my questionaire to back this up.

'3D cinema creates the illusion of volume by projecting two pictures, one for each eye.' (Mendiburu, B. 2009 pg.9)

Stereo blindness
I have had to anticipate during my research that I will encounter people that cannot see 3D and how best to approach this as a sensitive subject.

'Not everybody sees 3D , and stereo blindness is estimated to affect 3 to 15 peccent of the population, mostly due to poor binocular vision. It means that 1 in 30 persons will not see 3D at all, and one in six has some sort of  stereoscopic vision impairment.' (Mendiburu, B. 2009 pg. 24)

The process of reconstructing the 3D image requires more work on behalf of the viewer. The viewer has to invest more in physically,

'First, the stereoscopic depth reconstruction relies as much on cognitive processes and learned associations as on the visual stimuli. We can fool it to a great extent, but we can't expect the audience to be passive in its experience. Second, we are reaching the moviegoers on a deeper level. Even if visual gimmicks like flying objects trigger survival reflexes, most of the additional mileage provided by 3D images will be in the emotional sphere.' (Mendiburu, B. 2009 pg. 25)

What does the viewer want, the projectionist from the Rio said something really interesting.

'I do not know what the viewer wants anymore.'

This is coined nicely  by Phil McNally,

'alias ''Captain 3D,'' global stereoscopic supervisor at PDI, is to consider that all technical progress in the cinema industry brought us closer to the ultimate entertainment experience the dream.' (Mendiburu, B. 2009 pg. 40)

'Movie editing is affected too, by new image reading and transition rules. The main new concept is depth continuity. It says that you cannot cut between any random depth compositions. You have to script the depth strength and placement of your scenes and images. Write down the depth story of your movie, just like you will comment on musical and visual ambiances surrounding your protaganists.' (Mendiburu, B. 2009 pg.92)

'Ennio Morricone says, ''What is important in a film is that the spectator doesn't percieve when the music enters and leaves.'' That should be the same for the depth in a 3D movie. The 3D helps you to tell a story   but 3D is not the story.' (Mendiburu, B. 2009 pg.92)

Message is key and medium is the tool

McLuhan, Marshall (2001) Understanding Media.

Abingdon. Routledge Classics.

Marshall McLuhan introduced some interesting ideas in his book 'Understanding Media', notably:


'Medium is the message. This is merely to say thatthe personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new sacle that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.' (McLuhan, M. 2001 pg. 7)

This was a key idea that circulted during and upon reflection when I studied at Chelsea College. The philosophy of the course was very anti the notion of a 'Medium', instead the idea was very much that the concept would dictate the form it took to best represent the idea.

'Many people would be disposed to say that  it was not the machine , but what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message.' (McLuhan, M. 2001 pg. 7)

Since then I have realised the potential in developing a skill whether that be with a craft or technology. This notion of the message however is profound. The medium can change throughout the  evolution in the technology.

Marshall McLuhan discusses in great detail the effects of industrialisation and the notion of mechanisation.

'For mechanization is achieved by fragmentation of any process and by putting the fragmented parts in a series.'

This idea of film and ideas of mechanization and relation to cubism is very interesting:

'To a highly literate and mechanized culture the movie appeared as a world of triumphant illusions and dreams that money could buy. It was at this moment of the movie that cubism occurred, and it has been described by E.H. Gombrich (Art and Illusion) as ''the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce our reading of the picture - that of a manmade construction, a colored canvas.'' For cubism substitutes all facets of an object simultaneously for the ''point of view'' or facets of perspective illusion. Instead of the specialised illusion of the third dimension on canvas, cubism sets up an interplay of planes and contradiction or dramatic conflict of patterns, lights , textures that ''drives home the message'' by invovement. This is held by many to be an exercise in painting, not in illusion.
     In other words, cubism, by giving the inside and outside , the top, bottom, back, and front and the rest, in two dimensions drops the illusion of perspective in favour of instant sensory awareness of the whole. Cubism, by seizing on instant total awareness, suddenly anounced that the medium is the message.' (McLuhan, M. 2001 pg. 13)

I enjoy this quote too,

'Subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisons without walls for their human users.' (McLuhan, M. 2001 pg. 22)

'Einstein pronounced the doom of continuous or ''rational'' space, and the way was made clear for picasso and the Marx brothers and MAD.' (McLuhan, M. 2001 pg.177).

Insane/Sane

'Who can define this'. 1 in 3 during a lifetime will experience mental health problem. The mind can only endure so much.

Watched/Watcher

The all pervasive nature of CCTV, but who is watching the watcher? There is also a concern about the inherent power that some institutions have and whio is holding them in check?

Other/Self

It has allways been important for me to think beyond the parameters of my existing culture and work on content that is about people of other cultures. This can be insightful working on different content but also working with people of other nationalities.

Refugee/Native

Borders have been put in place, whether that be a stone in the landscape to identify one country from another or via other means. In acknwledging that people travel great distances to flea persecution or to find work, there will always be a level of migration and transient communities. This also includes nomadic people.  'Out of the box' recognises the stateless and their plight and also the media machine that subjugates them. I hope to facilitate and enable a voice for people who choose to challenge this.

Exclusive/Inclusive

'Out of the Box,' is an inclusive manifesto which embraces all people irrespective of iderntity, demographic, education or professional atainment etc.

outside/Inside

 How do you position yourself? Is this of your making? Are you on the inside or outside. Where is the boundary between inside and out, individual and group, body and mind? 

Object/Subject

I am against the objectification of the female body, in all its visual manifestations. The question is to explore the environment and surrounding space and its affect on the subject. The boundaries between subject and space is constantly shifting and transient.

Manifesto - Out of the Box

'Out of the Box,' is the title of my manifesto. It means to think creatively and lateral and to not be contained. It is a term that has been appropriated amongst corporate organisations to encourage new and creative ideas which is apt for Ravensbourne new corporate identity.


 ''The term is said to derive from a famous puzzle created by early 20th century British mathematician Henry Ernest Dudeney, in which someone is asked to interconnect nine dots in a three-by-three grid by using four straight lines drawn without the pencil leaving the paper. In order to be successful, the puzzle solver has to realize that the boundries of the dot array are psychological.
The only way to solve the puzzle is to extend the lines beyond the artificial boundry created by the nine dots. One also thinks of the expression "boxed-in," or having reduced choices.''

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/out-of-the-box

3rd November, 2011


 'Out of the Box,' is both a theoretical and physical manifesto. It contains a series of eight images which will screen via the mini-net over all nine floors of Ravensbourne. The colours will follow from the base chakra at the bottom of the building to the crown chakra at the top of the building. Each chakra references to an internal gland of the body, which translates to its associated colour.


Movement is an important part of my work, whether that be within the work or movement that the viewer has to undertake in relation to the art.  This physical interaction recognises the phsyical body as well as the concept. 'Out of the Box' rejects the notion of a passive viewer.

Paradoxymoron

Paradoxymoron
Patrick Hughes 1996
Given by the Elephant Trust with the help of Angela Flowers Gallery.
The British Library.
London










This painting and style can be neatly summed up by the writing of Georg Simmel;

'Thus the third dimension in painting depends much more on visual images than the third dimension in reality, for in art there is absolutely no other point of reference beside purely optical processes. For this reason the third dimension appears as a world seperated in principle from the actuality given visual impressions. In order for the visual impression to convey the third dimension, it must appear to us with much greater power. It acts like a mystic exorcism which attempts to dominate an objecty with which it is denied any direct contact. I see an essentially effective value in this complete exclusion of any direct paticipation by the tactile sense on which the imagination of the third dimension properly rests. And yet I see also it s simultaneous inclusion in the visual impression.'
(Simmel, G, 1968 pg.86-87)

G, Simmel. (1968) The Conflict in Modern Culture and Other Essays. 

New York. Teachers College press.

Number: 67-25064

Paradoxymoron

Paradoxymoron
Patrick Hughes 1996
Given by the Elephant Trust with the help of Angela Flowers Gallery

Eye symbolism

'As a privileged sense, the eye organ acts as mediator between interior and exterior, subject and world. Above all, second degree vision - charged with reflexivity - was to guarantee critical access to reality. Its semantic multi-dimensionality is expressed clearly in the French language: voir (vision), savoir (knowledge) and pouvoir (power) have the same stem. The etymological relationship  symptomatically reveals the dual structure of vision, a connection to reason as well as the control of power, to illumination but also the illumination of reality and therewith its surveillance. Without becoming semantically fixed, the eye oscillates between these rival settings.' (1997, pp 7-14) (Kravanga in Schmidt-Burkhardt, A, 2002 pg.16)

by T.Y.Levin, U. Frohne and P. Weibel editors (2002) CTRL SPACE. 

Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother. 

ZKM/Karlsruhe

Figure 1. Hieronymous Bosch, Seven Deadly Sins, 

Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1480-1500 (R.Koolhaas/OMA 1979 p.121)

(Fig:2) Rene Magritte
The False Mirror
1929
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Panoptican viewer

I am interested in the role of the viewer whether that be in relation to a film to a viewer within an institution like a prison. In terms of achieving maximum viewing and observation, in the illustration the prison guards can view the prisoners from a central point. I can draw parallels to 3D and this idea of creating an immersive environment for the viewer who can know be positioned within the space. Benheims. vision of the all powerful observer can be illustrated (see Fig.1)

Figure 1. Project for the Renovation of a Panoptican Prison, 

Arnheim, Netherlands 1979-1981 (R.Koolhaas/OMA 1979 p.121)

Bibliography

Figure 1. Project for the Renovation of a Panoptican Prison, 

Arnheim, Netherlands 1979-1981 

by R.Koolhaas/OMA. (1979) CTRL SPACE. 

Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother. 

Massachusetts. The MIT Press

However one cannot ignore within this illustration the sininister motivation of this design. I include a quote to clarify my argument;

constituted a programme for the efficient exercise of power through the spatial arrangement of subjects according to a diagram of visibility so as to ensure that at each moment any subject might be exposed to 'invisible' observation. The Panopticon was to function as an apparatus of power by virtue of the field of visibility in which individuals were located each in their respective places.... for a centralised observer. (1985:88) (Smart in Norris & Armstrong, 1999 p.5)

'Bentham planned a cylindrical building with cells arranged in circles so that surveillance of the prisoners could take place from a central tower. By doing so he transferred the extension of the field of vision created by the panorama into the realm of the architectonic space. The increasing desire for vision, which was sublimated at the end of the eighteenth century by the illusionistic depiction on a circular horizon as a means of entertainment for the masses, is channeled into an ocularcentric three-dimensional concept in Bentham's project.' (1980:33-40) (Oettermann in Schmidt-Burkhardt, 2001 p.26)

Bibliography

Norris, Clive & Amstrong, Gary. (1999) The Maximum Serveillance Society. The Rise of CCTV. Oxford, Berg.

T.Y.Levin, U. Frohne and P. Weibel editors (2002) CTRL SPACE. 

Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother. 

ZKM/Karlsruhe

Artists and multiple views of the same subject

Cubism
Monday 3rd October 2011
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Web Address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubism

Thinking about the history of art and looking at an art movement whereby the artist tries to portray through an image multiple viewpoints.

‘In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.’

Wikipedia: Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907
(Cooper, pg. 24)

'Some believe that the roots of cubism are to be found in the two distinct tendencies of Cézanne's later work: firstly to break the painted surface into small multifaceted areas of paint, thereby emphasizing the plural viewpoint given by binocular vision.'

'cubism attempts to take representational imagery beyond the mechanically photographic, and to move beyond the bounds of traditional single point perspective perceived as though by a totally immobile viewer.'

Question

Placing the viewer at the centre of the work

Induction - metamorphosis

Time





Metamorphosis - Change
brainstorming

Places to film

brainstorming

Genre

brainstorming

Pass Me That. It's Time To Go Hunting!
brainstorming

Transport
brainstorming

Location/Story
brainstorming

Covered