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We at plugincinema asked, “Is it was time to reclaim film?” as part of the launch of the pluginmanifesto. The manifesto was our opening vision of where filmmaking, technology and the Internet could and should be. It generated loads of interesting responses. Here Steve Bennet of Iron First Motion Pictures
responds…
Note: The original manifesto is in normal text, while Steve's comments are in the darker boxes
Q. Is it time to reclaim film?
Right from the start, I'd avoid using the phrase "its time to reclaim film".
How about "its time to plug in film"? or ",,forget about film"! or,, ",,plug in and forget about film"!? Seriously though, I think this is one area where most thinking about computer and web motion pictures falls apart. Any "movement" that claims to be reappropriating filmmaking from the mainstream stuff via web and computer means is going to be blown over in time and appear ineffectual and/or obsolete. However, a movement based on more saavy USE of these things will last even as mainstream content is released via the web, if at all. Its another thing when they begin web-enabled cable to set-top boxes, but that is likely to be only partially like the "web" we know today, not to mention proprietary. Web "movies" or the application/incorporation of moving images on computers and the web exists in a different arena than film and television. The purpose and implementation of them will be something entirely different than those of film and TV.
If what you are telling filmmakers is that online, they can be equal to Disney or Viacom, then they will see that this is not going to be true. If what you are telling them is that they can part of a new application of and extension of motion pictures in ways that Disney and Viacom, etc, are not going to bother with, never mind master (because their products and intentions are too firmly set in old world sensibilities), THEN you have a lasting movement, and one with some potential.
1. It is currently far easier to describe what an on-line film is not than what it is.
Films are familiar to us all, Hollywood films at least. So much so that it is difficult for us to think about film in any other terms. So we must start with experimentation, with unlearning everything Hollywood has been teaching us over the last century. Freed from the conventions and context of traditional narrative filmmaking we will be able to see more clearly the other possibilities open to us in terms of form and structure as well as content. Fine, but I'd use a phrase like "computer movies" or "motion pictures in the online environment". When you use "film", people know exactly what "films" are, and they don't like what happens to them when you "put" FILMS online or crunch them up in a computer. You need to separate the web issues from "DV revolution" type issues, because they are not the same. Many filmmakers make a flawed leap of logic to connect newly accessable moviemaking via DV with newly accessable publishing methods on the web. That logic would fit if the web was technically like free television, but it isn't. This is why filmmakers are mostly frustrated with the web. Computers and networks of computers (today's web) are an entirely different thing than televisions and television broadcast networks.
By reinforcing the flawed connection in thinking between DV moviemaking and web publishing/computer media, you only prolong and accentuate the frustration. The parts of individualist filmmaking that CAN BE different from those of the entertainment industry are worth mentioning, and there are rough equivalents for web development - BUT, the exact issues are different. So are the perceptions, because people more readily understand the idea of "computer art" better than they can imagine filmmaking outside of the mainstream.
2. A film made for viewing on the Internet is not 1+ hours long.
The traditional length of a film seems right somehow. Much longer and we become restless, much shorter and we feel cheated. Plays also last the same approximate length of time. However, it is the context in terms of viewing that seems to be the most important element. TV programmes are more usually « an hour which seems to fit the schedule primarily but also seems a good length for much TV content. The short film, ie 10 to 15 mins isn't appropriate for either TV or the cinema but seems an ideal length for the internet. It is the length of time we want to stop for a coffee at work, the length of time we spend having a fag break, the length of time we don't mind wasting on a film we don't understand or can't read easily. People do all kinds of things on a break at work, but in the States, referring to a "fag break" is well, too "personal" (Man, I'm cracking up here, you get the idea). I also think that the statement is fundamentally incorrect. I believe that the reason people vastly prefer very short "films" on the web and on computers in general has nothing to do with how long they have to spend, but has everything to do with the fact that linear "cinema type" movies do not fit with the user leverages and motivations of either computer or web use. There ARE NO computer "viewers" like there are with TV, and no computer "audience" as there is with cinema - there are only computer USERS, as in people who expect to BE ABLE to DO something. Putting conventionally thought of "films" online is like producing splash screens for software applications. Nobody wants to see a long elaborate startup screen when trying to run software and get something accomplished.
3. It doesn't have to have a narrative - structure can come from a variety of means.
Narrative evolved as an intrinsic part of Hollywood filmmaking. Look to other films to see how filmmakers such as Deren,Godard or Brakhage, structured their films outside of the Hollywood tradition of narrative cinema. Structure can come from an external source and be placed on top of the film eg using colour, music, division into sections etc. or the structure can come from within the film, ie allowing the content to shape itself. I'd get deeper into the connection between moving images and other elements in computer software applications. It may be sad for some to find that this area is more one of becoming what they see as a "computer programmer" than a "movie director", but that's where the reality lies.
Besides, they usually have both ideas wrong unless they actually work in both fields. Time to expand, not just talk about expanding. In software, there are stories and even drama in all kinds of hitherto underexplored places. For example, a typical web site menu bar might have a row of buttons labeled "info", "download", "support" and "contact" arranged horizontally from left to right. This is a story! "info" makes you want to "download" some product. After doing so, the product won't work right, and you'll seek "support"! When "support" is ineffectual or generic, you'll then be seeking "contact", which you hope is more personal and hopefully more considerate of your problem than "support" was. Its a narrative in a nutshell. The examples you give have a lot to do with traditional "film" filmmaking, but little to do with computer leverages on/in/with narrative. Computers can take 500,000 linear OR non-linear narratives and reveal patterns common to all of them. Software experience designers could learn a lot from cinema and theatrical drama, too.
4. Forget Hollywood.film can be art!
It was decided very early on in Hollywood that films were products and not art. Independent filmmakers and artists have always known this to be wrong and have made films with genuine artistic merit; mainly outside the studio system though sometimes from within. Film was hijacked very early on in its career, claim it back. The difference is in the manifest aim of the film, whether it be to communicate and inform as well as entertain, or whether the overriding aim is to make money. Three images from filmmaking; Two scenes from a film in production and the Predator 2 video card.
5. Limitations can be creative - if you don't have a wind machine; use a fan, if you don't have the bandwidth don't expect the cinema.
Filmmaking on the Internet is at a truly exciting time. Currently, very little exists that has been designed for viewing on the Net. Much has been carried across from other mediums eg TV and film. This isn't good. It means that the work being shown can't be appreciated in the form it was originally intended and it does Internet films a disservice because audiences complain about the lack of 'quality' etc. because their expectations are for the traditional film seen in its familiar context. In the same way that film found its own form in relation to the theatre and TV in relation to film, the Internet filmmaker needs to search for the appropriate form for films on the Internet.
If the filmmaker doesn't do it the broadcasters will, in the same way that the studios did for film. Filmmakers have an ideal opportunity to experiment and push the technology creatively before the broadcasters decide to come back and take over, because they will.
Pretty good. Filmmakers, however, see this as the job of web developers! 7. Filmmakers and Geeks should be friends. Filmmakers, in order to be good at their craft, have always had to have a certain level of technical knowledge. Currently, many of the short films appearing on the Net have been made by people au fait with the technology rather than traditional filmmakers. This is good. However, how much better would those films be if people who had spent their lives learning the craft got together with people who could make the technology work for them. Co-operative, artistic endeavours, the clash of assumptions and traditional ways of doing things can produce surprising, challenging, new work. www.ifmp.net |
