The Moving Image and Digital Media

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The Moving Image and Digital Media
S.T.Renshaw
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Trajans Column
113 AD, Rome
Marble band of figurtive carving spiraling up
its shaft Chronological from bottom to
top Narrative is Linear - storytelling with 150
episodes (frames) each merging into the next
without any vertical break to interrupt the flow
of the composition and the sequence of
events Reader must walk around the spiral 23
times, eyes climbing upward
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Optical Illusion employed figures at the top
are larger than those at the bottom Reality in
real scale distorted in relief scale in order
to create the illusion of real scale as seen
from viewers perspective As the scenes are
stationary on the pole the viewer is required
to move around it It is not a Moving Image, but
a 3D image that both depicts movement through
time and space and also requires movement from
the viewer thru time and space
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Zoetrope
1834 George Homer
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Animated images are arranged inside a
cylinder No longer must the viewer move but may
remain stationary Only they must spin the
device To create the moving image Peeping
through a slit they see the animation move on
The surface opposite the slit creating the
illusion of Movement Space Limitations of
cylindrical device Requires content to be
looped Creating non-narrative, non-linear
stories Images developed by hand, frame by
frame
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Jeffery Shaw Place, a Users Manuel
Shaw uses similar cylindrical shape as that of
the original zoetrope by using a cylinder with a
Slit - though scale and viewing experience
differ greatly Viewer effectively enters the
zoetrope
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Linear Zoetrope
Bill Brand (1980) installed linear zoetrope in an
unused subway platform in Brooklyn New York 228
hand-painted panels seen as trains pass
by Linear form eliminated the need for images to
be looped and also eliminated the problem of
Space and duration of movie sequence
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Edisons Kinetoscope 1888 The
Kinetoscope will do for the eye what the
phonograph did for the ear. Inspired by
Muybridge (who still drew his photographs by hand
onto glass slides for his zooprxiscope) Capture
d movement in real-time Still limited in
space/length 50 ft of film 20 sec of
footage Like early Quicktime movies, they were
very small in scale But long enough to construct
linear narratives Limitation Only one person
could view at a time
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Lumiere Bros Invented sprocket holes with
their Cinematograph The Cinematograph functioned
as a camera, projector, and printer all in
one 1st Public Screening 10 short films, 20
min total scenes of everyday life of Parisian
citizens The Cinema is an invention without a
future. - Louis Lumiere People were
captivated by seeing themselves represented
in another time A mirror of themselves - a
kind of narcissistic delight in viewing
themselves
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In Body Movies Relational Architecture by
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer The audience has a similar
reaction They are engaged with projected images
of themselves Seeing themselves on the screen is
the source of their interest Likewise was what
Jim Cambell frustratingly said he experienced
with early interactive piece Hallucination Viewe
rs were not so interested in the content of his
work as simply fascinated by seeing themselves
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Modern Cinema
Emphasis on capturing reality Special effects in
the periphery Jean Luc Godard Cinema is truth
24 frames per second Filmmakers step away from
animated graphics and into cinematic photographic
images Animation considered a low art (ie. For
pornography and cartoons, etc.) Focus on Linear
Narrative construction - processing of images in
sequential order to depict time passage
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Digital Cinema Return to emphasis on
animation graphics and special effects - tools
that were in the periphery of modern
cinema Digital Media makes manual manipulation
again a key element to the construction of the
moving image Modern Cinema linear narrative
and passive viewer Digital Cinema nonlinear
narrative and often active viewer
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• New Possibilities With Digital Cinema
• New Sources available for final footage from live
  action to 3D computer animation
• Now that all images are pixels they are malleable
• New kind of realism - the photorealism of modern
  cinema can be created digitally though it is not
  in fact reality depicted
• Editing and special effects, production and
  post-production merge
• Digital film live action material painting
  image processing compositing 2D computer
  animation 3D computer animation

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History Swings Full Circle
Increasingly Digital Media techniques resemble
methods used with pre-cinematic technologies for
creating moving images Ie. greater demand of
active viewer participation use of
graphic animations to construct images
nonlinear narratives
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