The Emergence of Filmic Artifacts: Cinema and Cinematography in the Digital Era Author(S): Stephen Prince Source: Film Quarterly, Vol

The Emergence of Filmic Artifacts: Cinema and Cinematography in the Digital Era Author(s): Stephen Prince Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Spring 2004), pp. 24-33 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/fq.2004.57.3.24 . Accessed: 18/02/2014 15:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Film Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:33:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Stephen Prince The Emergence he digital revolution has taken us from pictures Tsuch as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), of Filmic Artifacts shot using conventional filmic practices but incorpo- rating a brief sequence of digital special effects, to all- digital pictures such as Star Wars Episode II: Attack of Cinema and Cinematography the Clones (2002), in which the only residual live- action elements are the actors. But the in-your-face in the Digital Era special effects of these films are red herrings. Media coverage plays them up, and many viewers love to experience them, but they are not the most important manifestation of the digital turn in contemporary cinema. The substantive im- pact of this turn lies elsewhere, and has consequences that, as yet, seem under-examined. To exam- ine them, this article provides a snapshot of the present moment, a recording that is important because the changes are occurring so fast, and it is infused with all the nostalgia that typically at- taches to snapshots. With no apologies for this nostalgia and with reference to cinematography, I want to point to a transforma- tion that is at once substantive and, for film viewers, relatively subliminal. I need to begin with an important qualification, and that is that there are always counter- trends to those that I am about to discuss. An industrial and cultural field like cinema is neither mono- lithic nor unidirectional; important exceptions and alternatives always exist to the conditions that seem dominant or to those that seem to be emerging. Thus, while big box-office films like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Spider-Man suggest how central blockbusters are to the contemporary Hollywood industry, that The special-effects-intensive Spider-Man industry also released pictures in Film Quarterly, Vol. no. 57, Issue no. 3, pages 24-33. ISSN: 0015-1386. © 2004 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Send requests for 24 permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center Street, Suite 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223. This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:33:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The all-digital Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, with two live actors the same year which had very limited box-office appeal performance in order to slip a cut around an eyeblink, (Memento, Monster’s Ball, and The Shipping News, for with ILM artists implementing his ideas at their key- example). In 2001, the majors released 189 films in the boards. “I would say that at least a third of the shots in U.S. and Canada, but distributors unaffiliated with the [Clones] have been manipulated in that way,” Lucas majors released an additional 273 pictures. In 2002, said.2 these figures were, respectively, 220 and 229 films.1 Digital tools have been making inroads into film- These pictures from non-majors were largely smaller making for nearly 20 years. In the mid-1980s, Lucas- budget, independent films, and the large number of such film was using proprietary digital editing systems for pictures in distribution suggests a limit to the popular image and sound. For most of this time, the output was notion that blockbusters dominate contemporary film. always exported back to film for conventional theatri- Recognizing that there are counter-trends, in what cal exhibition, but digital exhibition is now an increas- ways is this digital turn reconfiguring the meaning and ing important element in the business. The number of experience of cinema, altering its nature, at a deeper digital screens (though still relatively small compared structural level than the provision of special effects to conventional screens) has climbed impressively in signifies? In its first century of existence, cinema was a three-year period, going from 12 in 1999, 31 in 2000, a photo-mechanical medium, its images arising from and 45 in 2001 to 124 in 2002.3 Attack of the Clones chemistry, darkroom, and processing lab, fixed in screened at 61 U.S. and Canadian locations in digital analog form on a celluloid surface, and then trucked and conventional formats, and 20th Century Fox, the around the country for exhibition. This paradigm is film’s distributor, reported that business was more sus- changing because of the influx of digital tools in all tained at the digital locales.4 On conventional screens, phases of film production: set design, cinematography, the film’s box office dropped 47 percent in the second editing, sound, postproduction, distribution, and exhi- weekend and 64 percent in the third, whereas the de- bition. Even the domain of acting now sees the en- cline for the digital screens was a smaller 28 percent croachment of digital designs. Oliver Reed continued and 45 percent. Films today perform most strongly on to perform in Gladiator after his death, courtesy of their opening weekends and virtually all drop off there- some digital cutting and pasting that enabled the late after, and Clones’ decline was not atypical of this pat- actor to complete a necessary scene. George Lucas con- tern. The interesting aspect was the potential role of tinues to direct his actors long after they’ve gone home digital exhibition in retarding the effect. One digital —after converting their performances to digital video, screen, in Farmingdale, N.Y., generated $35,000 over he tweaks line readings and interchanges facial ex- the first weekend, compared with $134,000 from three pressions from scene to scene or slows the synch in a local conventional screens. By the fourth weekend, 25 This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:33:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions however, the digital screen’s $14,500 nearly matched the Hulk kicking butt?”7 Spider-Man’s digital passage the $18,000 from the three conventional screens through the canyons of Manhattan is far more en- combined. thralling and three-dimensional than the old-fashioned It remains to be seen whether the strong perfor- matte and process work used in 1978’s Superman. mance of the digital screens reflects a short-run curi- But the rather gaudy wave of digital effects in con- osity about digital exhibition among viewers or will temporary film is just the iceberg’s tip. The new tech- hold up over the long run. But the trend toward digital nologies are transforming cinema in more subtle and exhibition is already well established, and Clones is important ways than with the creation of jaw-dropping merely its most visible indicator. During summer 2001, imagery alone. In an important sense, this kind of ex- for example, Fox released Planet of the Apes on both travagant effects imagery is nothing new: cinema has conventional and digital screens. In 2002, DreamWorks been invested in its creation since the era of Georges did likewise with Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Méliès. He used papier-mâché and stop-motion tricks Warner Bros. with Scooby-Doo. Fox extended the sum- where filmmakers today use computers, but the mission mer release of Spielberg’s Minority Report into fall of this kind of imagery has remained relatively con- 2002 by adding digital screens (it had wanted to do so stant. Not so in other areas of filmmaking. Digital is immediately but couldn’t because the nation’s digital producing tremendous changes that are affecting the screens were fully booked with product during the role and function of such traditional domains as cine- summer). matography and, more deeply, the viewer’s perception A Fox executive confirmed the studio’s support for of the nature of cinema. digital exhibition. “This is the wave of the future for The cinematographer, in the strictest sense, is the this company and for the industry,” he said. “Fox’s in- person who creates the image on film by controlling tent is to support a continuing supply of pictures to the light, color, and composition in order to help the di- digital environment. This [exhibition] is one of the last rector achieve his or her vision. Using traditional meth- areas of entertainment to be completely revolutionized ods, a cinematographer controls color by manipulating as it moves into digital.”5 A Warner Bros. executive light levels on the set and costumes or by using col- concurred, pointing out that film distribution and exhi- ored gels over the light sources. In doing so, the cine- bition are being affected by digital just as acquisition matographer is creating the image in camera.

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