Beyond Spatial Montage
Beyond Spatial Montage: Windowing, or the Cinematic Displacement of Time, Motion, and Space o ers an extended discussion of the morphology and structure of compositing, graphic juxtaposition, and montage employed in both historical and contemporary motion pictures. Drawing from the history of avant-garde and commercial cinema, as well as studio-based research, media theorist/artist Michael Betancourt critiques cinematic realism and spatial montage in motion pictures. This new taxonomic framework for conceptualizing linkages between media art and narrative cinema opens new areas of experimentation for today’s lm editors, motion designers, and other media artists.
Michael Betancourt is an internationally exhibiting artist/historian and critical theorist. His publications and books include The ______Manifesto, The History of Motion Graphics: From Avant-Garde to Industry in the United States and The Critique of Digital Capitalism. He has written for both scholarly and academic publications such as The Atlantic, CTheory, Leonardo, Make Magazine, Millennium Film Journal and Semiotica, and his writing has been translated into Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, and Spanish. This page intentionally left blank Beyond Spatial Montage Windowing, or the Cinematic Displacement of Time, Motion, and Space
Michael Betancourt First published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Michael Betancourt The right of Michael Betancourt to be identi ed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Betancourt, Michael, 1970– Beyond spatial montage : windowing, or the cinematic displacement of time, motion, and space / Michael Betancourt. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Motion pictures – Editing. 2. Motion pictures – Aesthetics. 3. Cinematography. I. Title. TR899.B47 2016 777'.5–dc23 2015034071 ISBN: 978-1-138-93866-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-66778-2 (ebk) Typeset in Perpetua by Out of House Publishing
The discussion of Kolchak: The Night Stalker title sequence was previously published in amended form by Bright Lights Film Journal as “That Uncanny Moment: Jack Cole’s Design of the Kolchak: The Night Stalker Title Sequence,” January 14, 2014. For Leah This page intentionally left blank Contents
List of Illustrations ix
1 Introduction 1 Definitions and Scope 3 The “Image Animation Problem” 5 The Taxonomic Approach 8 Affect 9 Motion Graphics 10 Scope of Analysis 14
2 Realism 19 The Long Take 22 Animation 26 Abstraction 28 Montage and Editing 35 Realism versus Reality 38 Simultaneous Action 45
3 Windowing 51 Conceptual Framework 52 Multiple Image Compositions 55 Technological Production 55 Limited Scope in Manovich’s Theorization 56 Windowing 57
4 Taxonomy 65 Time–Motion–Space Displacement 66 Motion–Space Displacement (Mirroring) 70 Time–Space Displacement 84 Time–Motion Displacement (Step-Printing) 104 Interdependence of Types 111 viii Contents
5 Conclusions 115 Commercial and Noncommercial Forms 117 Theory and Praxis 119
Appendix 123 Semiotics of Morphology and Structure 125 Application 126 Aesthetics Are History 162
Index 165 Illustrations
Figures 1.1 Still frames showing collage of elements (spatial montage) from the title sequence for American Look (1958), designed by Robert Mounsey, Charles Nasca and Otto Simunich for Chevrolet. 11 1.2 Spatial montage (time–space displacement) in still frames from the title sequence for The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), designed by Pablo Ferro. 12 2.1 Still frames from The Next Door Neighbors (1909), animated by Émile Cohl. 27 2.2 Still frames from Rhythm in Light (1934), designed by Mary Ellen Bute. 31 2.3 Still frames from Synchromy No. 2 (1936), designed by Mary Ellen Bute. 31 2.4 Still frames showing the opening long take from Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974), title sequence designed by Jack Cole. 38 2.5 Still frames showing the montage from Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974), title sequence designed by Jack Cole. 39 2.6 Still frames showing lighting changes from Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974), title sequence designed by Jack Cole. 39 2.7 Still frames showing the kinestasis in The Rockford Files (1974), title sequence designed by Jack Cole. 45 3.1 Venn diagram showing the relationship between motion, time, and space in cinema as distinct elements with their combination identi ed in the overlapping areas. 58 3.2 Still frames from the “Hearts and Pearls” sequence in Sherlock, Jr. (1924), directed by Buster Keaton. 60 4.1 Time–motion–space displacement (displacement via duplication) showing repetition within frame from Chipmunk (2006), designed by Michael Betancourt. 68 4.2 Time–motion–space displacement (displacement via duration) from Rabbit (2006), designed by Michael Betancourt. 69 4.3 Time–motion–space displacement (displacement via division; the Einbau structure) from Coming and Going (2014) designed by Michael Betancourt. 70 x List of Illustrations
4.4a–c Patent image of a kaleidoscope (1867) by John Earnshaw. (Sir David Brewster’s patent does not include full diagrams.) 71 4.5 Re ections producing a kaleidoscope e ect in a 60º–60º–60º equilateral arrangement. 74 4.6 Motion–space displacement showing kaleidoscopic re ections from Ballet Mécanique (1924), by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy. 76 4.7 The re ections produced by the kaleidoscopic apparatus used in Ballet Mécanique (1924) based on the imagery in the lm itself. 76 4.8 Still frames from the title sequence showing kaleidoscopic re ections in The Fall of the House of Usher (1927), by Melville Webber and James Sibley Watson, Jr. 77 4.9 Still frames showing repetitions of the con and the stairs in The Fall of the House of Usher (1927), by Melville Webber and James Sibley Watson, Jr. 77 4.10a–d Design for a kaleidoscopic lens attachment, patent no. 1,690,584, by Loyd A. Jones (1928). 79 4.11 Still frames from the trailer for Universal Studio’s The King of Jazz (1929) showing kaleidoscopic forms. 83 4.12 Still frames showing kaleidoscopic forms from the title sequence for Auntie Mame (1958), designed by Wayne Fitzgerald. 83 4.13 Matrix showing the range of possible cinematic juxtapositions as a set of relationships between singular and multiple images. Their orientation to the frame edge determines whether they appear as a single full-frame composition, or as a series of discrete, individual frames. 85 4.14 Still frames from Action Movie (1996), designed by Michael Betancourt, showing wipes producing a composite of three distinct images on screen simultaneously, made with the Jones Colorizer at the Experimental Television Center. 86 4.15 Still frames showing spatial montage (time–space displacement) produced with superimposition and compositing in The Man with the Movie Camera (1929), directed by Dziga Vertov. 88 4.16 Still frames showing spatial-montage combinations that border on abstraction (time–space displacement) produced with superimposition and compositing in The Man with the Movie Camera (1929), directed by Dziga Vertov. 89 4.17 Still frames showing loops and repeated elements from Come Closer (1954) by Hy Hirsh. 90 4.18 Still frame showing spatial montage from Come Closer (1954) by Hy Hirsh. 90 4.19 Still frames showing framed representational imagery from Runs Good (1971) by Pat O’Neill. 91 4.20 Art Director’s Club 40th Annual of Advertising & Editorial Art & Design, 1961, Plates 335 and 336 (New York: Straus & Cudahy, 1961), pp. 188–189. 92 List of Illustrations xi
4.21 Still frames showing multiple image juxtapositions (spatial montage) creating parallel action in the polo sequence, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), designed by Pablo Ferro. 93 4.22 Time–space displacement in the photographic collage, The Brooklyn Bridge Beyond Gehry & Hockney, by Bill Rabinovitch (2010). 94 4.23 Still frames from David Hockney’s “experiment with lm” (1982), produced for the documentary Portrait of an Artist: Hockney (1983). 95 4.24 Still frames from the title sequence for Mesrin: Killer Instinct (2008), designed by Gianni Manno. 96 4.25 Single-image displacements (time–space displacement) in still frames from the title sequence for Grand Prix (1966), designed by Saul Bass. 97 4.26 Still frames showing repeating images in the polo sequence, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), designed by Pablo Ferro. 98 4.27 Still frames of the “Produced by” title card showing a background with footage of a dancer’s torso horizontally ipped and superimposed over itself from the title sequence for A View to a Kill (1985), designed by Maurice Binder. 100 4.28 Still frames showing the eye–gun iconic combination from the title sequence for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), designed by Maurice Binder. 100 4.29 Still frames showing iconic composites showing the relationship of female acrobats to guns from the title sequence for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), designed by Maurice Binder. 101 4.30 Still frame showing old man, bottles, and cat in an iconic combination from the title sequence for The Cat and the Canary (1927), designed by Walter Anthony. 102 4.31 Still of title card from The Cat and the Canary (1927), designed by Walter Anthony. 103 4.32 Still frames showing iconic juxtapositions of imagery in The Man with the Movie Camera (1929), directed by Dziga Vertov. 104 4.33 Time–motion displacement in chronophotographs by Georges Demenÿ, from “The Human Body in Action,” Scientific American, February 7, 1914, pp. 124–125. 105 4.34 Still frame showing step-printing from Pas de Deux (1968) by Norman McLaren. 106 4.35 Video feedback produced by Ben Palmer for the title sequence to Arabesque (1966), designed by Maurice Binder. 108 4.36 Time–motion displacement produced with the glitch technique called “datamoshing.” Still frames from A Glitch Is Like a Cold for Your Computer (2013), designed by Michael Betancourt. 110 4.37 Still frames from a datamoshed (glitched) MPEG video showing time–motion displacement (the graphic, repeating elements) 111 A.1 Explanation of the working process employed in the production of my movies, especially those that employ glitch protocols. 128 A.2 Still frames from A Self-Referential Film in 30 Sentences (1994) showing the use of a simple window located centrally. 129 xii List of Illustrations
A.3 Still frames showing displacements in Action Movie (1996). 131 A.4 Still frames from Mushroom (2001) showing composite mirroring structures. 134 A.5 Still frames showing the disappearance of windowed elements in Squares for Breakfast (2001). 135 A.6 Juxtaposition of shots in She, My Memory (2002). 136 A.7 May 24, 2003 section in Year (2003), Part I of the Alchemy Trilogy, showing complex displacements. 139 A.8 Displacements in Telemetry (2003–2005), Part II of the Alchemy Trilogy. 140 A.9 Script for my movie Telemetry showing notations about sequence and duration. 143 A.10 Omega sequence in Telemetry (2003) showing complexity of displacement windows. 144 A.11 Still frames from Prima Materia (2006), Part III of the Alchemy Trilogy showing the juxtaposition and combination of windowed imagery. 145 A.12 Script-diagram for Prima Materia (2006), showing the combinatory process and relationships between di erent imagery as well as explanation for their use in the movie itself. 146 A.13 Spatial montage in W (2004) showing repetitions and changing relationships of material on screen. 147 A.14 Kaleidoscopic form from Kaleidoscopsis (2006). 148 A.15 Stills showing displacements in Kaleidoscopsis (2006). 149 A.16 Still frames showing the displacement matrix that organizes the juxtapositions in One (2010). 150 A.17 Still frames showing iconic combinations and displacements in Contact Light (2012). 151 A.18 Iconic juxtaposition in Contact Light (2012). 152 A.19 Still frames from Antag|Protag (2012) showing the iconic combination of imagery. 154 A.20 Still frames from Dancing Glitch (2013) showing windowed displacements. 155 A.21 Still frames from Helios|Divine (2013) showing the progression and development of imagery using the automated time displacement matrix. 156 A.22 Still frames showing Einbau displacements and glitch forms in my movie The Kodak Moment (2013). 159 A.23 Einbau form suggesting interiority/exteriority in The Kodak Moment (2013). 159 A.24 The transformation of windowed elements into physically present areas of color in The Dark Rift (2014). 160 A.25 Displacement and Einbau structures in The Dark Rift (2014). 161 A.26 Still frames showing the iconic juxtapositions in Rey Parlá Orders Pizza (2014). 162 newgenprepdf
List of Illustrations xiii
Tables
4.1 Windowing structures 66 A.1 Displacements of time–motion–space from the preliminary theorization in Structuring Time (2004) 125 This page intentionally left blank 1 Introduction
Theorizations of motion pictures, cinema, lm have developed in two closely parallel relations with the nished work: the hermeneutic and the heuristic. While these analytics are intimately related, they remain distinct protocols, each developing according to its particular relationship to the practicalities and limitations of production. Those theories that are hermeneutic in nature dominate the academic analysis and historicization of motion pictures. Primarily interpretative, hermeneutic theories develop in the abstract, according to their own internal logic and propositions that are then applied to the discussion and analysis of completed movies. Any potentials for prescriptive application to lm production is secondary to their form and purpose: This approach is fundamentally critical—the consideration of meaning and explanation of form—rather than empirically limiting on the techniques of production. The application of hermeneutic theory to production is not impossible or even unusual in the history of cinema but is rather a re ection of speci c interpreted meanings being used to organize the materials on screen in advance of that interpretation. The best-known example of this relationship between hermeneutics and heuristics is Sergei Eisenstein’s theories of montage that both describe technical arrangements of material and propose protocols for arranging them to create speci c meanings. His theorization is explicitly a grammatical one concerned with determinate interpretation (hermeneutics) but organized through a heuristic methodology. The connections and role of these elements in his theory are uid and mutually reinforcing. In direct contrast to critical hermeneutics is heuristic theory. These approaches, while occasionally being concerned with meaning, are more often dismissed and ignored by hermeneutics precisely because their primary concern is with the product- ive form taken by the motion picture: Protocols for exposure, technical instructions of all types, the methodologies employed in staging during and for production are all heuristic in nature. This type of theory is concerned with the mechanics of production, quite apart from whatever significance those techniques might produce. These theories tend toward a taxonomic foundation, empirically descriptive of both existing work and logically predictive of new potentials that may not currently exist. It is this formal basis in the description of physical potentials, independent of their semiotics, that di erenti- ates the heuristic from the hermeneutic. There are many points of overlap, and the dis- tinction between a heuristic and hermeneutic theory may be little more than an issue of emphasis in how it presents via logical argument. 2 Introduction
The descriptive capacities that are so highly visible in early lm theories result from this duality of hermeneutic and heuristic engagement. A brief consideration of this dynamic is instructive: Soviet montage theory describes a technique for the temporal organization of lm at once both hermeneutic and heuristic. This theory was program- matically developed by lmmaker-theorists in the Soviet Union to be directly con- cerned with the form taken by edited sequences in a motion picture, but it is presented as a protocol for producing speci c meanings, linking the heuristic to its hermeneutic interpretations. The result is a theory-complex situated both as a productive set of pre- scriptions and techniques and as a paradigm for understanding the signi cance of these same forms when encountered in a lm. The duality of Soviet montage theory-practice emerges from its empirically grounded foundations in production methodology. While Soviet montage is intimately concerned with the interpretation of the edited sequence, those meanings appear in their theorization only secondarily to the more dominant concern with formal description. Recognizing this distinction between meaning and form—conjoined in their theorization—enables a separation of empir- ical, taxonomic analysis of formal structures from their ideological application in Soviet propaganda. The methodologies developed by the Soviet theorists are closely linked to their con- cerns with Marxist doctrine, yet these protocols do not necessarily have to produce lms with speci cally Marxist meanings. However, the duality that cannot be avoided in their theories re ects the ambivalent nature of technique versus interpretation. The heuristic and hermeneutic are distinct, independent types of consideration that are correlated but not irrevocably linked. As their appearance in all sorts of later lms so ably demonstrates, the in uence of the montage theory originates with their empirical descriptive heuristic, its taxonomic description of morphology and structure, rather than their Marxist interpretative hermeneutics that assigns meaning to these forms. Soviet montage protocols are primarily sequential: the organization of singular images into a series that develops over the duration of a lm’s projection. The various types of montage structure that Sergei Eisenstein described in his theory are literaliza- tions of Marxist dialectics, an assignment of inherent meaning to speci c form, quite apart from its means of production. The temporal organization of montage theory is a direct re ection of the available technology at that time: Initially proposed in the early 1920s, the compositing of multiple images into a single shot was a dicult, costly, and imprecise process; optical printing, which makes compositing shots much easier and more precise, was not invented until 1929. The particular structure of montage that was commonly employed in Soviet lms re ects this technical limitation. Applications of Soviet montage via compositing do appear in some montage lms, the best known being the climax of Dziga Vertov’s 1929 Man with a Movie Camera where multiple images appear superimposed or juxtaposed within the same shot, demonstrating concerns with juxtaposed imagery that are a common feature of modernist and avant-garde art during and after World War I. That these composite images were reserved for the climax of the lm re ects not just their signi cance as summary montage images but their novelty in cinema. This placement comes as a “highlight” to the lm as a whole. The heuristic concern with meaning apart from, and against, technical methodology is a common feature of discussions of recombinant imagery, whether static or in motion. Introduction 3
Soviet montage is a development that re ects then-current concerns with recombina- tion and the potential of imagery to be organized as a “universal language”—aspirations common to the painterly avant-gardes working the 1910s and 1920s. The duality appar- ent in Soviet montage demonstrates the independence of heuristic taxonomies: It is a formal organizational device separate from whatever meaning such a technique might produce in a completed work.
Definitions and Scope The combination and juxtaposition of images on screen, whether individually over time (via montage), or less commonly in simultaneity (via compositing), is a recurring feature of cinema in the twentieth century that has intensi ed with the advent of digital systems that make such combinations technically easy to produce, increasingly inexpensive, and a common aspect of everyday experience. The issues of editing are a logical product of the basic fact that every shot must have a beginning and an end. Distinguishing Sergei Eisenstein’s montage from the long takes in Orson Welles’s lms is not simply a matter of when and how they choose to cut; it is also an issue of the imagery contained within their shots. The distinction between the standard narrative featuring live actors and composed from sequences of shots and the composited melding of multiple images, graphics, and animation has remained relatively constant even as the technologies making these constructions possible have become increasingly common. The apparent division and fragmentation of the screen into smaller, discrete units in narrative works remains relatively unusual even as similar forms appear more frequently in TV commercials and the designed title sequences accompanying these realist ctions. This concern with the combination of images appearing on screen is the focus of windowing; it is not exclusively or only a matter of editing but of the visual organization of materials within the frame. Since the 1980s there have been several competing terms used for this same morphology: collage, mosaic-screen, spatial montage, split screen, temporal image mosaic, and, less commonly, parallelism (video art) and windowing (digital art). All identify the presentation of multiple images (shots) simultaneously on screen, all juxtaposed in a fashion that has direct parallels in both graphic design and comics. These forms, as the range of di erent names for the same phenomena implies, are common features of media art. Video artist Tom Sherman discusses these converging developments in his article “Machine Aesthetics Are Always Modern,” where he examines “parallelism” in video art:
Artists combine and run two or three or four (multiple) divergent elements in parallel, setting up perceptual and conceptual counterpoints. There is an ongoing obsession with contrapuntal composition across time-based arts; that is, running multiple independent phrases, event sequences, melodies, narratives, above and below (and beside) each other. The strategy seems to be about the construction of complexity, shifting relationships and associations structurally, engineering density and weight, challenging the listener or viewers to the point of overload. Parallelism is good for generating open-ended texts, as closure is dicult when information is con gured in arrays or stacks, or multiple channels in shared time.1 4 Introduction
The terminological plurality around this formal device makes the critical analysis of these theorizations dicult since each individual theory’s frame of reference—video/ lm, computers/design or more traditional art (such as painting)—results in radically di erent historical foundations for what is the same visible phenomenon on screen. Even without this range of competing descriptors for the same technique, terminology would still be a problem for the theorization of these phenomena because digital media theorist Lev Manovich has explicitly described spatial montage as an oppositional practice to how cinema has been structured through temporal montage. His conception of spatial montage as an accumulation of imagery on screen, immanent and graphically juxtaposed, rather than arranged over time, is a prominent, but limited, conception of the potentials for image relationships on screen. How this collection of terms have been conceived and de ned inhibits a more general theorization. Further complicating the theorization of windowing are the technological limitations and production costs re ective of what André Bazin described as the ontological foun- dation of the cinematic image—the historical basis of motion pictures in photosensitive chemistry—that is a central part of his realist theory that demands an inviolable image. The historical scarcity of lms that stage, combine, and fuse images in ways described by windowing is a result not of a unitary logic of inviolability but of the diculty and expense in making the types of combinations that digital technology renders common. Citizen Kane employs complex, virtually seamless optical printing not only to create continuous shots (most famously the crane shot through the sign and then down into the window) but also to juxtapose and fuse space and time on screen for the introduction/ ending of each ashback narrative.2 The underlying issue posed by spatial montage and its related terms is not exclusively hermeneutic: It is fundamentally a heuristic structure whose formal parameters deter- mine (in advance of interpretation) the possibilities for meaning. The temporal element remains fundamental to all these structures encountered in a motion picture because the time of cinema remains linear, whether the materials are structured in a simultaneous composition of distinct individuated elements or composited as a singular unitary image on screen. The spatial arrangement of elements is always a component of the image’s meaning, whether as a relationship existing across multiple images composited together or between elements contained within an apparently singular image. The limitations of a narrow opposition of spatial to temporal montage becomes apparent when situating spatial montage within a broader framework of material rela- tions focused around the cinematic frame—those motion pictures, whether produced chemically or electronically—that engage with the formal combination and organiza- tion of kinetic imagery on screen. Thus, the issue is elaboration over a speci c duration rather than the accumulation of materials on screen. It is not an issue of compositing but temporal development that is determinant of meaning for cinematic materials: what comes before and after any particular image. Historically, the technical means employed to produce these kinds of displacements in lm have ranged from the custom-built, specialized apparatus to the industry-standard optical printer and animation stand; yet they are not limited to celluloid—analogous types of displacement have been possi- ble with electronic means since the earliest years of experimentation with television. There is substantial formal overlap between lm and electronic-image composites. The Introduction 5 repetitions of imagery common to “step-printed” lms made with an optical printer are apparent in video feedback. The discovery of this process in the early 1950s by Norman Taylor found commercial application in title sequences for the BBC television program Doctor Who in the 1960s, and in Maurice Binder’s title sequence for the lm Arabesque in 1966.3 The term used throughout this heuristic analysis of multiple image juxtapositions, “windowing,” was selected because it encapsulates a broad range of media practices, not only those that use the digital computer (in the form of the GUI, or “graphic user inter- face”) as metaphor but earlier technologies and approaches as well. It evokes the histori- cal conception of the realist painting employing linear perspective and the cinematic screen or “proscenium” as an imaginary window opening onto a virtual space. As such, it is a general term not tied to speci c, formal cinematic structures under consideration. By invoking the history of representational painting since the Renaissance invention of linear perspective, while at the same time linking that formal system of representation to more contemporary language used to describe computer interfaces, “windowing” acts as an explicit bridge between these otherwise disparate formal approaches to imaging. Any consideration of a contemporary morphology for compositing images in sim- ultaneity must begin with the simple recognition that this particular approach to the motion image is one that runs counter to the historically dominant aesthetic-theoretical paradigms of cinematic realism and so historically occupies a minor position in the his- tory of cinema. Finding examples and precedents for these structures in motion pictures must draw from commonly neglected sources: the experimental lm, motion graph- ics (such as title sequences), and their parallels found in comics, graphic design, and collage-based art. The taxonomy of structures described by windowing are not necessarily narrative or realist in nature; for some of these formal potentials, realism is speci cally problematic as their formal character tends toward non- and anti-realist applications much more than the common realism familiar from commercial cinema. However, as with the term “windowing,” this taxonomy of morphology and structure is “open”: It neither requires nor denies realism, even though realist forms are innately linked to its historical morph- ology. Making these general conceptual relations a feature of their description allows an acknowledgment of both the role of realism in mediating the historical uses of these techniques as well as their position within larger debates over mimesis and cinematic realism. These debates are an integral part of the history and development of these visual structures. This relationship is re ected by the general term “windowing.”
The “Image Animation Problem” The technologies of compositing and image combination directly contribute to the development of juxtaposed imagery. While the production of composite imagery is evident in the history of motion pictures since the rst Trik lms were made in the 1890s, the rarity of these images—even within the Trik lm—remained relatively constant due to the diculties of their production. The greatly reduced costs, coupled with ease of production in digital video, has made the integration of live action, animation, and graphic design via compositing a common feature of motion graphics and commercials 6 Introduction even though it remains relatively unusual in narrative production. Historically, only the avant-garde lm has engaged with these techniques as consistently or thoroughly. Thus, the precedents and foundations for the structure and morphology of windowed forms lies with both the avant-garde lm and the eld of motion graphics. The works curated for this taxonomy as exemplars were chosen because of their clarity of presentation. The elaboration of methods and approaches for the compartmentalization and manipulation of imagery on screen remains an issue that has been under-theorized in relation to these new technologies, posing fundamental challenges for established cine- matic form. Film historians André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion call this fusion of aesthetic–historical–technical developments the “Image Animation Problem” in The Kinematic Turn: Film in the Digital Era and Its Ten Problems:
The phase of cinema we are living through today, which we might call “post”- institutional, is thus the site of a return of the repressed: animation is returning to take its place as the primary structuring principle, as it was at the time of optical toys, Plateau’s phenakistiscope and Reynaud’s Théâtre Optique.4
This observation that digital tools have brought a new emphasis to the motion picture as a technical process of animation comes at the close of their discussion; it is the tenth problem they describe. The (re)emergence of animation as a central technical concern for cinema is readily discernable in the transformative techniques of motion capture used in the production of (semi-)animated commercial feature lms starting with The Polar Express (2004) and continuing through the mixture of live action and animation in Avatar (2009). However, this example is simply the most egregious—it is the same problem that windowing poses for the seemingly continuous, coherent form of the shot. The “degree zero” of animation their discussion implies is the technical foundation of motion pictures. The sequence of individual sampled images that becomes animated when presented at high speed has always allowed for transformative applications. These potentials were well known in the rst decade of motion-picture production, and (as with contemporary VFX-based lms) they were of general interest to the viewing pub- lic, as the cover story “Trick Pictures: How Strange E ects in Moving Photographs are Produced,” published in the journal The Phonoscope in July 1899 demonstrates:
A reporter asked Mr. Robert Pitard, the cinematographic expert, how trick pic- tures were made. “How, for example,” he said, “do they get up those curious lms in which people suddenly disappear, jump out of space and leap into the air and vanish?” “It’s the simplest thing in the world,” replied Mr. Pitard. “Suppose I am taking a picture of a man seated in a chair and want him to disappear. All I have to do is stop the recording machine. The man gets up and walks o and I start the machine again. When the picture is thrown on the machine there is no indication of stop- page. You simply see a man on a chair, and all of a sudden you don’t see him. Of course,” he continued, “the lm itself is susceptible of unlimited ‘doctoring’. By cutting out pieces and cementing the end together one can get the most astonishing e ects. It is a lightning transformation with a vengeance.”5 Introduction 7
The capacities for uid and invisible transformation on screen—the imitation of a singular continuous shot—are an inherent potential of motion pictures, one that has been of technical interest and an aesthetic focus since the earliest movies were in production. The simple e ects Pitard describes in The Phonoscope cover story are familiar from the work of Georges Méliès. The “camera-stop technique” was responsible for many of the magical appearances and sudden replacements that characterize Méliès’s lms, linking them with theatrical illusions and stage magic of the nineteenth century. Without the foundation of animation, these transformations would not be possible; neither would the eld of visual e ects as a whole. Animation provides a technological solution to the creation of motion pictures, but the way in which animation functions within these works is not plastically as with painting, where the material dimensions of the manipulation are made apparent. Instead, the realism produced through animation is a highly detailed one that does not announce itself as animation but as “reality,” as Pitard notes about the a ect of the camera tricks he describes. The potentially abstract consequences of digital technologies’ application to compos- iting and juxtaposition have not generally materialized: The combinatory principles and techniques of animation function more or less uidly within a mimetic structure where clearly animated elements behave and develop realistically within narrative form. The organization and development of animation are subordinated to concerns with narrative and the verisimilitude of the ctional world as mimesis. Even as the technical capacities for deformation and abstraction have increased through digital technology, the applica- tion has remained closely linked to traditional mimetic form rather than the disjunct- ive formalism rst explored in modernism. Edgar Wright’s feature lm Scott Pilgrim versus the World (2010) contains graphic animated elements that acknowledge the lm’s comic-book origins, yet by embedding these within the photoreal space of the diegesis (characters interact with and acknowledge these graphics’ presence) their disruptive potentials are neutralized through narrative function—they become “real” parts of the world these characters inhabit. The development of juxtaposed imagery follows this same realist logic and has con- sequently limited the variety and scope of formal potentials that are historically evi- dent in motion pictures. The strictures of mimetic realism common to narrative cinema have reduced the plastic aspects of juxtaposed imagery to a few relatively uncommon appearances in commercial motion graphics—predominantly title sequences—and the lm/video avant-garde where the mimetic concerns of commercial narratives do not establish the horizons of possibility. These works exist in parallel to commercial realism of narrative cinematic forms, not governed by the same limiting structures, and so have enabled experimentation with morphology and structure not otherwise evident. Thus, the historical examples selected for discussion were chosen precisely for their function as exemplars of the particular windowing technique from the range of available works. Often, several works were selected for discussion as each had a distinct contribution for the analytic range within this heuristic framework. Clarity of structure and morphology were the primary concerns in selecting for inclusion. This underlying principle gave the selection of potential works for inclusion a protocol not dependent upon established hierarchies. Distinctions between “mainstream” and “mar- ginal” are irrelevant to this consideration. The rigorously curated exemplars re ect the 8 Introduction larger range of materials considered in the selection process, broadening the reach of the analysis itself.
The Taxonomic Approach The heuristic proposed for composited, juxtaposed imagery is taxonomic in nature, empirically developed from studio-based research, historical observation, and logical analysis. These limiting factors give the resulting framework a robust basis in practical application. Observational and descriptive, the taxonomy enables the recognition of mutually interrelated positions that are not dialectical in nature. The logical completeness of the taxonomy proposed in this analysis allows for both extension and hybridity speci cally through its heuristic application. The signi cance of the forms it describes, their meaning, is not only a function of formal structure; it depends on the speci cs of the imagery and their temporal develop- ment with a larger work. While the formal organization on screen may be decisive in this interpretation, its role is necessarily secondary to the particulars of image, develop- ment, and narrative function: Meaning is not an a priori given in the resulting semiosis. Ambivalence and ambiguity are common features of purely formal analysis that develop independently of hermeneutic constraints. This uncertainty is precisely the goal in the current analysis. The description of formal structures in themselves should not result in inherently appended meanings since to attach signi cation requires the exclu- sion of alternative potentials, thus necessarily limiting the analysis only to evidence that supports a determinant meaning within a speci c logical structure. Typically subordinated to other concerns such as the presentation of simultaneous action inside a realist narrative, previous theoretical analysis of windowing has devel- oped narrowly, focused only on this particular morphology and structure. This limited historical application is re ected by the lack of a systematic analysis focused on the morphological and structural organization of simultaneously juxtaposed imagery in cin- ema. While some of the potentials described are readily in evidence (identi ed in the morphology of either commercial work or the avant-garde), other potentials within the taxonomy, while logically possible, are other present in the historical record. Studio-based research was essential for the construction of the taxonomy proposed in this analysis. Those structures predicted by a logical consideration of the analytic system, but not employed in the past, are “discoveries” suggested by the logic of the analytic protocol itself—developments that required a studio-based “test” to determine their validity in practice. These examples in particular required “experimental” dem- onstrations through a directed and focused studio practice that then becomes formal research applicable to re nements and developments of the taxonomy. This cycle of practice-theorization is particular to heuristic approaches to media theory. It requires extended time to work out its potentials, constrained not only by the demands of the the- oretical model but by the aesthetic demands speci c to art as well. The development of this theoretical model for windowing began in the early 1990s, was initially summarized in my book Structuring Time: Notes on Making Movies in 2004, and has been the focus of directed re nement since then. It constitutes not only a theorization of spatial montage but a range of related phenomena and provides a heuristic model for conceptualizing Introduction 9 all these hybrid forms in relation to the more common and well-theorized commercial structures of the long take and montage. Since the creation of a taxonomic theory is heuristic in nature, studio-based research is an appropriate tool for its description. (The relationship between my studio research and this taxonomy is secondary to this theorization, addressed in the Appendix.) The logical elaboration of potentials based on observation and historical research revealed possibilities that had not been explored or developed; studio work demonstrated the validity of these analytic discoveries. “Formalism” employed in this fashion—as a means to understand the morphology and structure within complete works—is not an end in itself but rather a tool for the extension and demonstration of what has been logically identi ed as potential; it is a methodology for the exploration of heuristic propositions. Heuristic theory tends toward formal development because the focus in such theory originates with formalist descriptions of technical elements rather than a semiotic analysis focused on their inter- pretation. The present analysis acknowledges this restriction by engaging the interpret- ative constraints on historical development.
Affect How the audience understands what they see on screen—whether it “looks” like it was assembled or appears seamlessly continuous—determines the affect of that image. This construction is of central concern when discussing visual e ects of all types but remains an inherent dimension of any motion picture. The understanding of a long take as continuous is central to the realist argument for cinematic imagery, but this understanding is itself the product of a particular shot having the a ect of being unedited, of proceeding without intervention. When the audience encounters that imagery, whether they will understand it as juxtaposed or continuous is a re ection of how it appears, not how it was produced. The potentials for juxtaposed imagery on screen in motion pictures were being explored throughout the twentieth century. Multiple projection as well as Trik lms employed procedures to create multiple image compositions. The linkage of meaningful outcome to the technical means of creating images tends to confuse the technical (and technological) issue of juxtaposition as a formal structure with the uses of juxtaposition in pursuit of a particular hermeneutics. The development of strategies and techniques to produce new meanings through the juxtaposition of imagery, whether temporally via montage or instantly through simultaneous combination on screen is often theorized as subservient to the interpretations those juxtapositions are meant to produce. The primacy of interpreted outcomes for juxtaposition is a re ection of the neu- trality of this formal process. The assignment of meanings to speci c formal protocols obscures the ambiguity of any particular formal methodology by suggesting that heu- ristic theories can be fully contained by an interpretative paradigm. This attempt is a fallacy: Even though there is a shared referent for both types of theoretical engagement, the morphology of the work is structured separately from the dictates of hermeneutic explanation. The tendency of juxtaposition as a formal device to function in a second- ary role to these theoretical frameworks—as the means by which the interpretative 10 Introduction demand is met—is not the same as being responsible for, or coincident with, those demands. However, the affect—how the audience recognizes and understands the imagery on screen, juxtaposed or otherwise—is essential to understanding the nature of the techniques being employed. Juxtaposition in cinema is not simply a technical result, autonomously produced by the combination of two or more materials on screen; it is the audience responding to these composited and masked elements and recognizing their assembly. Juxtaposition depends on the recognition that the collection of imagery appearing on screen is not the autonomous action of a long take “recording” actions in front of the camera but rather a consciously chosen—designed—product of human activity. Where the autonomous action of the camera is treated as a “given,” produc- ing imagery that is continuous, in contrast, juxtaposed imagery is already selected and assembled; juxtaposition is not understood as an autonomous product. With the recognition that juxtaposition always implies a conscious decision and arrangement of materials, our knowledge that some motion pictures where shots appear as continuous and unmanipulated—not juxtaposed—are (in fact) constructed “invisibly” is irrelevant: only those shots we recognize as being juxtaposed—that have the affect of juxtaposition—are of concern when we consider juxtaposition as a heuristic. While this limitation requires an acknowledgment of the hermeneutic aspects of cinema that structure these recognitions and understandings, at the same time, these interpretative frameworks are incidental to the heuristic they can be said to inform. The formal description of possibilities once the recognition of juxtaposition emerges is independent of the interpretations producing that initial recognition. The dynamic rela- tionship between initial identi cation and subsequent semiotic and formal development is important to the range of potentials for juxtaposed imagery in cinema as this dynamic identi es the theoretical and ideological constraints on how juxtaposition has developed in historical lm practice.
Motion Graphics Motion graphics and graphic design o er historical models and abundant examples of works employing collage-like compositions of juxtaposed imagery. These applications of windowing are a common element in modernist title sequences, starting in the 1950s. The connections between graphic design and the morphology of juxtaposed moving images are immediately apparent in these works, and they provide many historical examples for creating a heuristic theory. The diculty of producing these early designs—the combination of motion and static, graphic elements typically employs both standard animation and optical printing to produce the required composites—is one reason why they remained relatively uncommon until digital compositing tools for video production became available in the 1980s. Robert Mounsey, Charles Nasca and Otto Simunich designed an early example of windowing in the title sequence for the industrial documentary produced by Chevrolet, American Look (1958) (Figure 1.1). This series of frames shows the development of what is essentially a static composition: It is a graphic design where the transitions between title cards are animated but the photographic material shown is motionless, a still Introduction 11
Figure 1.1 Still frames showing collage of elements (spatial montage) from the title sequence for American Look (1958), designed by Robert Mounsey, Charles Nasca and Otto Simunich for Chevrolet. photograph. The animated elements within this title sequence are graphic in nature, the kinds of animation that can be produced easily on an animation stand without the need for compositing. This title sequence has parallels in graphic design (the work of Paul Rand and Alvin Lustig), motion-picture titles (Saul Bass’s design for The Seven Year Itch), and abstract lms (Hy Hirsh’s Gyromorphosis and Come Closer). The motion in this sequence consists of three distinct elements:
1. The opening full-frame cards have a background that is animated, sliding horizon- tally across the screen. 2. Individual cards employ fades and dissolves to add elements to the composition. 3. The main title, American Look, slides vertically down the screen, rst revealing “American,” followed quickly by “Look” in the frame just below it.
The various black-edged color elds then slowly dissolve into a full-frame still of sunrise/ sunset clouds as the documentary begins. This structure of introducing and removing elements while altering the composition dynamically throughout the sequence is typical of the morphology for this type of windowed design. A similar structure appears in Pablo Ferro’s design for The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) (Figure 1.2) with a few important di erences from the design in American Look. The most obvious di erence is the use of color in Ferro’s design. The screen is divided into many small blocks of image (all stills) that tend to present either a singular color—all the elements are tinted the same hue, often red or gray—or dynamically change colors, shifting through the full spectrum, but only in one or two of the photo elements. The structure is consequently highly dynamic. The title cards themselves are organized 12 Introduction
Figure 1.2 Spatial montage (time–space displacement) in still frames from the title sequence for The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), designed by Pablo Ferro. around speci c compositions. Several di erent pieces of text may appear accompanied by one arrangement of images. The change between arrangements corresponds to shifts in these titles’ content: the stars share one card, production personnel another, etc. The juxtaposition of imagery and text in The Thomas Crown Affair follows the rhythmic structure of the music. Musical shifts signal changes in title card, and the transitions where the photo elements appear and disappear are precisely synchronized to the beat, producing a strongly synesthetic a ect. Introduction 13
What is especially notable about both The Thomas Crown Affair and American Look is their use of heavy black rules separating the composed elements. The screen is organ- ized by a rigid grid made from these black lines. As elements appear on screen, the resulting accumulations leave space for the typography, or photo elements disappear to be replaced by titles. In American Look, the photo elements and typography are both imposed, overlaid on the imagery, a fact made apparent by the dissolves, suggesting that the black lines between the colored blocks are borders to the imagery rather than a structural support within which the imagery appears. The Thomas Crown Affair has the opposite a ect: The black lines appear to be the background, an armature that contains and supports the composition, each photo element simply being placed within a preex- isting matrix. The nal shot of The Thomas Crown Affair title (also the opening shot of the lm narrative) reinforces this sense that the black background exists independent of the imagery shown: A tiny full-color, full-motion image appears in the center of the screen and then grows larger, seemingly advancing through the darkness to ll the screen as the narrative begins. This shift from titles to narrative action enables the later juxtapositions of live action on screen that Ferro created throughout the lm. It is these moments of simultaneous action created by optical printing that anticipate similar uses of simultane- ous action in TV shows such as 24 at the start of the twenty- rst century. The integration of multiple image compositions into narrative by Ferro for The Thomas Crown Affair is typical of the deployment of these visual structures within narra- tive lm. The compositional technique remains constant, despite changes in technology, narrative content, and aesthetic aspiration. Jean-Luc Godard’s lm Numero Deux (1975) employed video to create the same type of complex combinations but produced without the need for optical printing or com- puters. Godard created his combination/juxtaposition of imagery simply by rephoto- graphing several video monitors in compositions that produce juxtaposed relationships between screen-frames. The results are recognizably like what Ferro created, but, unlike the carefully composed, grid-aligned compositions of The Thomas Crown Affair, Godard’s compositions are dynamic and irregular in organization. These structures create an ambiguity of relationship between images that is speci cally based in their juxtaposition. It is unclear if the monitors’ presentation as clearly de ned frames functions as simultan- eous events happening in parallel, or as di erent events, whose combination is speci c to the montage Godard employs. This ambiguous relationship is the particular critical focus of the lm’s meta-narrative aspects announced by Godard during his on-screen introductory monologue at the beginning of the lm. His experimental process of combination/juxtaposition in Numero Deux also includes the use of video switching/mixers to create a second level of image combination within any of these subframes. Because they are physically present, lmed in actual space rather than optically printed into a single image, the relationships of these monitors is more dynamic than graphic. Their di erential placement on screen, their combination with Godard himself, as well as the movement between full-screen transfer so a “single” moni- tor becomes the entire frame, and multiple monitor framings show the continuity between the single-screen composition and the juxtaposing of multiple images. To refer to this work as spatial montage in the sense that Manovich de nes it is inappropriate as well as mislead- ing: what actually appears on screen is more dynamic and complex than his term implies. 14 Introduction
A preponderance of such combinations in the painting of the 1980s by artists such as David Salle pre gures the motion-picture composites produced by Peter Greenaway using HDTV (high-de nition television) and digital animation/composit- ing in his feature lms, starting with Prospero’s Books (1991). The interruption of the screen by compartmentalized imagery is a common feature in both artists’ works. In both cases, these composites refer to graphic assemblage—graphic design and collage respectively—rather than the montage procedures of motion pictures. In Greenaway’s lm, these inserted smaller shots function explicitly as contained “frames” within a lar- ger image eld. They are interruptions, cut-ins that substitute for continuity editing, rather than juxtapositions. The foundational shot (the background) maintains its pos- ition in relation to what has appeared in front. It is this spatial relationship—behind/in front—that de nes these shots rather than their juxtaposed combination. This structural link to collage is a common feature in windowing, regardless of medium employed in its production.
Scope of Analysis This heuristic analysis is concerned with the full range of morphologies and structures that employ these same potentials based in juxtaposition and displacement—windowing—the variety of formal e ects includes not only superimpositions, kaleidoscopic and optical distortions and their related e ects but also the linkages all of these have to the standard form of the motion picture—both the long take and montage (editing in general). The development and proposal of such a general conception of cinematic forms ultimately depends on arbitrary decisions about what formal aspects of cinema to emphasize in creating the framework. Formalist approaches are inevitably guilty of being reductive. They claim a universal foundation for their results, but a careful consideration of their foundational assump- tions will inevitably reveal that those choices were ill conceived. It is their essentialism that determines these de nitional failures in advance—that there is a “pure” nature to cinema which must then be discovered, and, having been found, must then be imposed without remorse—this aspect of formalist analysis creates dissenters simply by making its claims. It also leads to a blindness toward anything that does not match the precon- ceptions created by this “purity.” The diculties posed by conceiving any formal consideration following this absolut- ist pattern is, as art historian Yve-Alain Bois notes in his introduction to his anthology Painting as Model, that this conception of formalism is dualistic: “either one is a formal- ist, hence necessarily oblivious to ‘meaning,’ or one is an antiformalist, hence entirely uninterested in formal matters.”6 What is true in the criticism and theory of painting and art is also true when confronting motion pictures. The aspect of windowing that is of greatest immediate interest is precisely the way that its formal e ects are not deci- sively linked to determinate, a priori meanings. However, the historical development and particular critical blindness that appears simply at the mention of the term “spatial montage” should give anyone engaging with this type of work pause as there are clear ruptures between these two ways to analyze and theorize the simultaneous juxtaposition of imagery on screen. The morphology and structure that are apparent in windowing Introduction 15 are unde ned in both critical and interpretative ways that leave a wide range of apparent phenomena outside the boundary of critical acknowledgment. Addressing these conceptual lapses—the morphology and structure of windowing—must rst account for what those lapses are, if not explain the reason these lapses are of great signi cance to the theorization. The presence of the lapses, from a historiographic standpoint are apparent; from a theoretical position they are not. It is my contention that the theoretical and critical assessment of windowing has been consistently impeded by a collection of interrelated factors. First, the perception that technological sophistication is a necessity for the creation of these forms—at the very least the availability of optical printing—is one that seems not only incontrovert- ible, it also appears to be moot. Early lms were technologically constrained, yet, by 1919, Homer Croy’s book How the Movies Are Made details a wide variety of applications for a small set of technical procedures, many of which involve the multiple exposure of imagery onto lm by selectively controlling what portions of the frame are exposed during any particular take.7 The process he describes, while cumbersome and imprecise, di ers only by degree of control and eciency with what an optical printer using masks does. Some of Émile Cohl’s lms such as Affairs of the Heart (1909), Crowns (1909), and The Mysterious Fine Arts (1910) employ framing devices that anticipate the break-up of the screen into smaller windows. The technological capability of producing a multiple exposure not unlike spatial montage is available by 1908 since this process was being used by Cohl to make his animated lms.8 Second, before even addressing its theoretical elaboration, the term itself, “spatial montage,” by invoking Soviet montage, with its dialectical structure of juxtapositions and immanent iconic form, tends to render the historical record invisible in favor of a more robust and well recognized theoretical language and system. “Spatial montage” is a term that advances a singular framework, one where graphically juxtaposed imagery stand in distinction (and opposition) to temporally organized juxtapositions produced through editing. Intermediate positions and hybrids recede into the background as either irrelevant or distractions from this dualism. Third, theoretical limitations, already suggested by the terminology employed to identify this phenomenon, are not limited to the dialectics o ered by montage the- ory. Of greater importance is the limiting function presented by cinematic realism and its particular foundations in the dramatic stage of the nineteenth century. The implicit demands that realism imposes, both formally, by a narrowing of scope to only those strategies that nd a function in realist work, and conceptually, by constraining the interpretations available for the formal techniques employed in a particular work. The horizons imposed by realism cause the scope of potential meanings to shrink to a range where procedures that undermine and challenge the realist foundations are either expli- citly rejected or simply ignored. Addressing this historical restriction required a larger range of works for examination and consideration. Finally, it is the unfashionability of formalist analysis itself during the period when windowed forms began to proliferate, a di erent kind of theoretical limit, that is per- haps the most decisive in obscuring the nature of these techniques. Generating a robust heuristic theory for windowing requires not only the analysis of spatial montage but a description of related forms. Situating that particular formal device in relation to other 16 Introduction similar methods reveals not only its particular “morphology and structure” but implies a larger eld of relationships not limited to just multiple image juxtapositions. It is this expansion of formal considerations that raises the specter of the unfashionable, reduc- tive, discredited formalism. But the present analysis is not reductive. It originates with an empirical desire to describe and identify a network of formal relations apparent in motion pictures as a eld. Doing this analysis requires a consideration of the broader theoretical constraints that have shaped the particular development of that work as well as the application it has received—both conditions not strictly concerned with heuristics but with interpret- ation and meaning. The hermeneutical aspects cannot be ignored, even when engaging in the sorting and identi cation of these phenomena. Thus, formal analysis proceeds through a consideration of meaning and interpretative constraint imposed on form; the primary purpose of this analysis is categorical in an unfocused way. The descrip- tors employed and the categories they imply are imprecise speci cally because while “pure” examples are possible, they are also atypical. It is more common for these formal devices to be employed at the same time in complex relationships where di erent and discrete techniques exist side by side within the same historical work. But the resulting organization implies a general theoretical framework for motion imagery, one where several distinct dimensions—identi ed as time, motion, and space in this taxonomy—can be more properly recognized as contingencies whose manipula- tion has rhetorically descriptive value but whose only existence is as an abstraction from empirical examinations of the completed motion pictures themselves. The individual elements identi ed here are theoretical in nature, rei cations of physical e ects that enable a critical clarity in the theorization not only of windowing procedures but in considering the full historical range of cinematic forms and applications. Morphology thus depends on this arrangement of terms and their consequent impli- cations as a system in themselves. The internal referentiality of such a formal analysis demands a cross-referencing with those phenomena present and available in histor- ical motion pictures. This limitation on the theoretical development is the empirical dimension of this analysis. Unrealized possibilities suggested by the theoretical frame- work that are not available in historical lms demand demonstrative proof. Examples of these predicted but absent potentials can be produced through studio-based research. Developing methodologies and formal strategies for their creation demonstrates the validity of the proposed systemic analysis. Elements of this taxonomy while it was still being developed were previously pub- lished in my book, Structuring Time: Notes on Making Movies (2004), which was concerned with the results of my experimental studio practice. The elaborations on these experi- ments, as well as their theoretical extrapolations, were proposed in that collection of schematic discussions. The current framework for windowing describes not only the combinatory e ects commonly identi ed with these techniques but also presents a the- oretical framework for situating them within realist lm practice as well as conceptu- alizing the relationships between the formal approach called the long take, editing (and montage) of all types, and the employment of multiple-projection and multiple-screen works. All of these relationships cluster around the image, its development over time, and sequencing/placement on screen(s). The distinctions between one screen containing Introduction 17 many small, framed images and many screens each containing a singular image are not so much formal as they are interpretative, re ecting a hermeneutic demand for “purity” and “clarity” rather than responsive to an “essential” nature. Morphology and structure teach that lesson clearly. The formalist approaches they produce tend toward an empir- ical bias in what is observable not only in the form of the work but also in its a ect for the audience.
Notes
1 Tom Sherman, “Machine Aesthetics Are Always Modern,” in The Emergence of Video Processing Tools, ed. Kathy High, Mona Jimenez, Sherry Miller Hocking, 2 vols. (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2014), vol. I, p. 96. 2 Linwood Dunn, “Special E ects Cinematography,” Journal of the University Film Association 26 (4) (1974): 65–66, 81. 3 Ben Palmer, Ben at the Beeb: Recollections of Life in the BBC (unpublished, February 2005). 4 André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion, Kinematic Turn: Film in the Digital Era and Its Ten Problems, trans. Timothy Barnard (Montreal: Caboose Books, 2012), p. 40. 5 “Trick Pictures: How Strange E ects in Moving Photographs Are Produced,” The Phonoscope: A Monthly Journal Devoted to Scientific and Amusement Inventions Appertaining to Sound and Sight 3 (7) (1899): 1. 6 Yve-Alain Bois, Painting as Model (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993), p. xvii. 7 Homer Croy, How Motion Pictures Are Made (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918). 8 Donald Crafton, “The First Animator: Emile Cohl,” in Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898–1928 (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 58–88. This page intentionally left blank