Words, the Mind and Metaphor

The mind works in extraordinary ways. With or without our conscious remit it forges connections between things, demands associations, linkages and analogies in order to make meaning. Processes of mental interrogation that construct complex arrangements of understanding in the blink of an eye.

I’ve written a lot lately about Metaphor; metaphor and prologue in a TV series such as The Wire, the taxonomy of Cinematic metaphor expressed visually, cognitively and experientially and drawn upon James Geary’s TED talk to emphasis how important metaphor is to the way human beings make sense of our world.

And so this might explain why I am so taken with the short film WORDS by Daniel Mercadante & Will Hoffman. A seemingly simple montage film that connects words to actions, ideas to images, through the power of metaphor and mental cognition.

Visual Style in The Wire & David Bordwell's Dellusion

David bordwell has been the dominant name in screen studies and film theory for a good many years and his co-authored book ‘Film Art’ as been the seminal text for film scholars and film school students alike.
 
Yet, whilst articulate and useful, Bordwell’s perspective on screen aesthetics, film form and style is decidedly problematic. Bordwell is entirely, and openly, feature film centric. And for Bordwell this exclusivity for the theatrical-release feature film is not merely a kind of speciality in his thinking and theories but rather has manifested as a rather arrogant and ignorant view that only feature films can offer a canvas for artistic visual style. As such Bordwell is openly dismissive of television or any other form of cinematic medium.
 
This, it appears, is this issue that has promoted the very interesting video essay below examining visual style in David Simon’s THE WIRE - a show that Bordwell describes as little more than a “sturdy policeman’s-lot procedural” and in specific terms of its visual style “fragmented and uninspiringly shot.”

What a sad, deluded, outdated little man Mr Bordwell has become. And whilst I want to cry BULLSHIT on Mr Bordwell’s assertion its probably best I let the more elloquent Erlend Lavik illustrate…

For further reading on The Wire and visual style, I sometime ago wrote a post entitled the Wire, metaphor and prologue. In this post, which includes videos of each of the season opening prologues, I breakdown David Simon’s use of Metaphor to establish cognitive and conceptual prefaces for the themes the season is posing. Whilst i focus on the metaphor in writing and concept, what cannot be overlooked is the acute visual expression of those metaphors. In frame, in light, in staging… there is nothing dull or uninspiring about The Wire. Its just not austentacious, showy or overdone - like so much contemporary cinema. The Wire is visually deft, sophisticated, sublte and artistically rich.

Hitchock's 'Rear Window' as Spatial Timelapse

Cinematic Space has long been a pre-occupation of mine and the flotsam and jetsom of 5 years on an in-complete PhD thesis tells the story of this saturation. 

By Cinematic Space I don’t mean science fiction depictions of the stars, but rather the construction of spatial environments on screen - the process by which they are articulated, assembled and perceived. Matte-painting, forced perspective, deep-focus, widescreen, stereo and surround sound all had profound impact on how we compose space for the screen. And further, in the digital age, virtual cameras and multi-layer compositing took such perceptions, and conceptions, of space to a whole new level.  

I’ve written and presented on these ideas all around the world - in Italy, Germany, the Uk and US - several long articles are here on mikejones.tv (Montage, Collage and Decoupage and Vanishing Point) as well as podcast recordings of these lectures and produced video essays exploring the idea of how space is manipulated and built by filmmakers. Yet, nothing I have written or said is near so profound an illustration of cinematic spatial manipulation and construction as this video from Jeff Desom. www.jeffdesom.com

In Jeff’s own words…

“I dissected all of Hitchcock’s Rear Window and stitched it back together in After Effects. I stabilized all the shots with camera movement in them. Since everything was filmed from pretty much the same angle I was able to match them into a single panoramic view of the entire backyard without any greater distortions. The order of events stays true to the movie’s plot.”

You can read an interview with Jeff Descom on One Small Window.

BlackMagic Restores my faith in Humanity and Camera Technology

When the National Association of Broadcasters conference (NAB) rolls around each year in Las Vegas I find my self torn… On one hand the nerd-fest in new gear, tech and software taps some deep primal desires within. On the other hand, recent years have too often seen the triumph or marketing and hype over rational technological advances.  
 
The first few days of this years NAB sadly promised to out do previous years for ludicrousness.  
 
Last years bold and emphatic assertions by the major tech developers of the future being 3D were this year proved to be what anyone with half a brain already knew to be true - failed marketing hype. So this year those two letters ‘3D’ were all but entirely absent; erased from conscious memory as if they never existed -  dealt with by Winston at the Ministry of Truth.  
 
Instead they were quickly replaced with two other letters with lofty ambitions of buzzword status - ‘4k’. Sony, Canon, Panasonic, JVC all spruking the 4K headtrip. RED somewhat predictably never content to be only as absurd as the next guy, opted for something more ridiculous and spouted an incoherent stream of dribble about 6k…  and was largely ignored by all and sundry…
 
And so there I was, my nerdy genes deadened by irrational marketing hype silliness, on the verge of disspair that my techno-creative brothers and sisters had all LOST THEIR FUCKING MINDS…!  
 
But wait… What was that small but confident voice from across the room…? Blackmagic Design had created a camera…?  
 
It wasn’t 4k. It wasn’t 3D. It wasnt a Super35 size sensor. It wasnt a new proprietary format. It wasnt a Prototype? It wasn’t a Kickstarter campaign. It wasnt a public beta (a la RED).

It was…

Wait for it…

A Camera…  A real working, soon to ship, Camera…
- professional cinema camera
- small, compact, light weight camera
- 2k and HD res camera
- under $3000

And in a single move BMD put all the major camera players to Shame!
- no lossy compression
- shooting direct to open universal formats (DNG raw, DNxHD, ProRes)
- Standard, out of the box, EF and ZF lens mounts  
- bundled with arguably the worlds best colour grading and management software - DiVinci
 
But more than all that, more than the fact that BMD have seemingly delivered  what the loud mouth lunatics at RED have promised but failed to deliver for years - they have created a camera that puts Workflow at the Centre of production process. BMD have made the camera a Part of the workflow solution rather than making yet another camera that Needed a workflow solution.  
 
Hal-lei-fucking-lu-ya…!
 
I might have still been a touch skeptical at the press release until I saw who BMD had approached to test the camera - Australian Cinematographer John Brawley. Now let’s be clear about what John is; he is working professional cinematographer. Major cable and network TV drama series, feature films and award-winning shorts are his credits.  
- tangle
- offspring
- lake mungo
- lowdown
- twentysomething
- 100 bloody acres
- puberty blues
- the perfect host

John Brawley IMDB
 
This is the consistent work of an in-demand professional. NOT a blogger, not some ignoramus with a Vimeo account and a twitter feed, NOT a professional ‘camera tester’ or DSLR workshop tutor, or camera brand ‘guru’. BMD did something truly out-of-the-norm whacky and asked a Real Working Professional Cinematographer to test their camera.
 
John provides a clear headed appraisal of what the camera can do from a body of knowledge deeper and wider than the majority of online voices.  Read and see his thoughts on the BMD camera at his superb blog here…
 
This combination of a rational technology, free of hyperbolic marketing horseshit and a genuinely professional appraisal has restored my faith in creative technology developers. Even more so the response from users across the Internet has also restored my faith in humanity’s ability to Not be sheep. Despite  all the 4K hype and numerous announcements and product releases, the most talked about and tweeted product of NAB was NOT 3D, not 4K, not a huge sensor… It was the BMD. 2k RAW camera for three grand.
 
Now dont get me wrong. I havn’t used it and nor do i think its going to be the grad poo-bah of cameras. But that’s not the point. Whether the BMD camera proves to be amazing or mediocre is not so significant right now as the fact that finally a company has sought to deliver a useful, rational, working product that is competitive, functional, balanced and focused. No bullshit. No marketing team interfering with the truth. No bloated specs in a ridiculous pixel-count arms race. Just good thinking and good design.

Amen…!

The Thriller Storyworld

The Thriller, as a film genre, is an enduring one with broad audience appeal and equally consistent with critical acclaim and mass audience. Yet it is also a genre of cinematic narrative that lacks the hard specificity of tangible edges and conventions of other genres such as SciFi, Horror and RomCom. It’s a genre that can be all too easily misunderstood and mis-construed particularly in the context of transmedia and multi-platform experiences. 

What is it to be Thrilled…? What narrative concepts do we need to deploy to satisfy that contract with the audience?

Certainly there is much written about the nature of Suspense which is at the heart of generating Thrills beyond the raw kinetics of the action sequence.

Noel Carroll cuts to core with the notion that…

“We experience suspense by entertaining uncertainty regarding an unfolding event which has two logically opposed possible outcomes one moral the other immoral of which the moral outcome appears improbable and the immoral outcome appears probable.”

And A. R. Duckworth contests and expands on Carrol in a lengthy series called The paradox of Suspense 

However such compelling and conceptual understandings of Suspense and the Thriller need also to be grounded in hard narrative, scripting and creative development choices. And this is where I see two core principles of The Thriller that stem from the generation of rich Thriller Storyworlds. 

1. FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE

At the heart of the Suspense Storyworld is Forbidden knowledge. Such knowledge is secret, protected and has the power to do great damage. It is knowledge characters are Not allowed to know. So, invariably, storylines and plots will happen when that secret, dangerous, protected knowledge leaks out, when it becomes known by people who shouldn’t be allowed to know, often people who don’t want to know and may, ultimately, wish they never knew..!

This observation of Forbidden Knowledge in a suspense story is obvious in all manner of Suspense films; notably, of course, in those of Hitchcock. Most often it’s a singular event - a crime, a murder, a corruption - which is witnessed by someone who cannot be allowed to know. At other times characters are compelled to pursue the Knowledge to discover what it is, unaware at first of its Forbidden nature. A third archetypal variation sees a character encounter the forbidden knowledge but be unaware what the knowledge is or what it means and must unravel the mystery to escape. A film like North by North West plays out in this way where the mistaken identity of the protagonist brings him into contact with the Forbidden knowledge yet the character himself does not know what that knowledge is.

In any of these variations it is the value of the Forbidden Knowledge that compels the character forward and into dramatic action. In the case of the much bigger canvas of the Storyworld which may underpin multi-platform and long-form thriller narratives, the articulation of exactly what the forbidden knowledge is, along with its value and power, is what will serve as a prime motivating force that is sustainable.

What the Storyworld writer must carefully map out is the scale, scope and ramifications of the forbidden knowledge - how big is it, how far does it spread and how much fall-out could come from the Knowledge being unleashed. (corruption, murder, conspiracy, secrets, lies) This forbidden knowledge is a central, unshakable truth of the Storyworld. Any character (or indeed audience-member participant) who comes in contract with the Forbidden Knowledge will be changed and compelled into action - they will no longer see themselves or their world the same way.

Think of your Forbidden Knowledge as Secrets and Lies - very big and important Secrets and Lies. The secret needs to have dire ramifications if it gets out, and the lies are what are told to keep the secret a secret. If you can articulate a big set of secrets and lies at the heart of your suspense Storyworld, then you will have the fuel to make that suspense propel stories, characters and audiences across episodes and platforms.

2. TWO WORLDS

The second crucial element in the Suspense Storyworld is the concept of ‘Two Worlds’. The effect of having a clearly articulated and compelling Forbidden Knowledge at the centre of your storyworld design is that you effectively create Two Worlds. One is the world outside the Forbidden Knowledge, where the secret is maintained and the characters are ignorant of the secrets and lies. The other world is the world inside the Forbidden knowledge, this is the world the characters will encounter and move into once they have transgressed and come in contact with the forbidden knowledge.

This conceptual construct of the Two Worlds is vitally important for sustainable suspense drama - particularly in a transmedia, long-form or episodic environment. In a traditional feature film narrative structure this duality would simply be the shift for a character from their Status Quo into the inciting incident that casts them into adventure. So in the example of the North by North West, the first world is the status quo for Thornhill staying in the hotel. The shift into the ‘other’ world comes when he is mistaken for another man, George Kaplan, and becomes caught up in the spy world of stolen microfilm. 

But in a Storyworld with a much broader scope than a feature film, we need to be much more complex in designing our two worlds as potentially our world will see numerous characters and audiences take various paths between the two worlds. Each of the two worlds, inside and outside, the forbidden knowledge, will have different Storyworld rules. For a character outside of the forbidden knowledge, the world will have certain expectations, behaviours and rules of normalcy. However once a character crosses over into the other world by coming in contact with the forbidden knowledge, hierarchies, behaviours and what is ‘normal’ will change radically.

These two principles - Forbidden Knowledge and Two-Worlds - are part of an approach that importantly puts the development of World first before articulation of Plot. Design and develop a powerful and dangerous ‘Forbidden Knowledge’ and then shape ‘Two-Worlds’ that are bridged by that knowledge. The more radically separate the two worlds and the bigger and more powerful the secret knowledge, the more explosive potential your suspense Storyworld will be. Characters and plots, circumstances and events, will naturally flow from such pressurised Storyworld dynamics. But if you begin with character and plot you run the risk of such characters at play in Storyworld that is not sustainable; one that quickly runs out of fuel as it tries to support ongoing, multiple or interactive dramatic experiences. 

The Newsroom - HBO, Sorkin & Ken Finkleman

HBO. Arron Sorkin. Political Drama…. Do I really need to say anything more..?

More excited about this than any other in-production show right now.

 But it does make me wonder if Sorkin knows the other great TV series of the same title… 

Ken Finkleman’s CBC comedy series The Newsroom was Brilliantly funny and at times slipped into something sublimly poetic….

Five films to show to an Alien

Late last year the Australian Film TV and Radio School staged an intriguing public event that brought together a collection of Australia’s best known film critics to consider what 5 Films from all of cinema history would you show to an Alien come to visit from outer space…?

Much more interesting and important than the chosen films was the discussion justifying the choices. Julie Rigg, film critic for ABC Radio, was one the presenters on the night and she has compiled excerpts form the discussion to be broadcast on ABC radio in 2012. 

Julie writes:

“Which five films would you screen to an alien? Always supposing, that is, you met an alien who wanted to know about the history of cinema here on earth. This was the challenge Karen Pearlman, head of Screen Studies at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School set for a panel of film critics and lecturers late last year….

What sort of close encounter were we describing here?… What they (the Aliens) don’t understand is human emotion. Their emotions are, apparently, different; and kinda collective, but with sub specialties. So, in order to understand human emotions, and indeed why we even have cinema, I would have to explain to them that human understanding is a complex interaction of past individual experiences; of memories; and experiences real and imagined. Every individual has a different set of memories which inflect their emltions. But shared stories are the way we bind together at a deep deep level.

I would explain that  our cinema combines all art forms: music, sound ; image, performance.. and stories. Not always, but nine times out of ten, stories.

And that in these movies, they may see examples of some of the most profound emotions of humanity.

So I have chosen these five films, in an attempt to help them read human emotions.

It was hard, because our emotions are not limited to five…”

You can listen to the audio recording of the live event and read the full transcript here.

Hollywood's war on technology

There is nothing new about recent attempts by Hollywood to take control of the internet. It’s part of a long history of desperate resistance to change. And this infographic saids it all. Im particularly fond of the quote from Jack Valenti refering to the good old VCR… “I say to you that the VCR is to the American Film Producer and the American public what the Boston Strangler is to the woman at home alone…”

Infographic by Anne Rhodes

Dramatising Exposition

One of the most exciting science fiction narratives I’ve read in recent times is the Russian novel (and later adapted into a flawed but brilliant computer game by 4a Games) METRO 2033.

Metro isn’t particularly original - it stands in a long-line of post-apocalyptic, humanity retreats underground, narratives - nor is it predicated on a radical mind-bending concept like so many Phillip K. Dick novels and short stories. But Metro 2033 does nail two very important elements that make it a throughly engaging science fiction read. First it understands that the heart of SciFi lies in Metaphor and Allegory as it presents a confined underground future humanity trapped in the subway tunnels of Moscow. A social culture microcosm under a pressure-cooker that manifests tribal conflicts and humanities deepest fears and triumphs. In addition, what Metro 2033 demonstrates is that its author understands the particular structural challenges of Science Fiction and is able to exploit these challenges and weaknesses as a narrative strength.

What the hell does that mean?

It means Metro 2033 shows us a trick for Dramatising Exposition.  

Metro 2033 is set in a complex environment of  underground railway tunnels and stations. These stations have become a system of  post-apocalyptic  city-states , each with their own particular politics and agenda and drawn together in a complex history of forged and broken alliances, war, trade and take-over. Pressurizing  this storyworld are also external forces; strange creatures from beyond the tunnels - the dark-ones and monsters and all manner of post-nuclear weird shit.

The challenge of any such speculative fiction scenario is Exposition. Before any real engagement can be made with plot-arcs or character transformation the reader needs to be ‘orientated’ with the very particular storyworld context - its Rules and Pressures (see this post for more….) this Orientation is Exposition - the explaining of circumstances. In the common discourse around story, narrative and, particularly, screenwriting, Exposition is often treated like a leaper - something to be avoided, minimised, something that gets in the way of the ‘story’. I dont concur with this line of thinking and such feedback to writers along the lines that there is “too much exposition” is misleading. Exposition is not of itself the problem, how that exposition is presented is the real issue. Exposition is not just an important part of story telling, its also very often the most enjoyable part for storyworlds that are fantastic, foreign, futuristic or far-fetched. However, to make exposition engaging beyond the intellectual or cognitive levels it must be dramatised. And this is where Metro 2033 teaches a very simple yet remarkably effective trick. 

The early chapters of the book involve a LOT of exposition, and it’s exposition that is absolutely necessary. Before our hero, Artyom, can venture forth into the tunnels on his quest to save his home station and defeat the Dark Ones, we - the readers - must understand his storyworld. Rather than have the passive narrator describe the world - its past, present and politics - the author constructs an opening scene where the young Artyom sits around a campfire and listens to the tales of old-soldiers and their stories of adventure and battle and horror in the tunnels of the metro. In doing so the author puts the exposition into the first-person, embodies it in a character with a specific point-of-view and presents it in something approximating present-tense. The old soldiers recount their stories in an immediate voice of how they fought, escaped, hid, conquered or survived various encounters. And what the audiences gets its a highly dramatised, tension filled story that is not at all advancing the Plot of Artyoms journey but is delivering detailed exposition that will frame his future journey. It is immediate, characterised exposition. And it works. It’s a simple solution but it is highly effective and provides a good example of character-based dramatisation of exposition that is a sound lesson for all writers and storytellers. 

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Metro 2033 is also a great study in Transmedia, Freemium and Storyworld. Read about ths here…

VFX Breakdown

The video below is a fantastic behind the scenes look at the work of Cinematogrpahy, Production Design, Sound and Screen Composition students at the Australian Film Tv and Radio School. A grand exercise in VFX production and process, the students produced a dynamic fight scene on the high-seas between a Pirate (a la Johnny Depp) and a steam-punk automaton robot priate captain. A detailed exercise to build their skills and knowledge of VFX production and extend their confidence in visualising and executing such sequences. 

Following on from the making-of, you can watch the completed sequence in all its glory.

What is interesting in the context of these videos is to consider the evolving nature of not only the individual skills of filmmakers but also the much more fluid and blurry notion of production process. Where once there was a clear linear progression from production through post-production stages - the video here shows that separation as decidedly blurry. Where does ‘shooting’ stop and ‘editing’ begin? What are the new skills sets required by actors and indeed what is an ‘actor’ when their ‘performance’ is captured but they are visually absent from the film? And, over-arching this, what effect does the normalisation of such fantastical scenes have on the viewer, about how they perceive the traditional notions of ‘indexicality’ and ‘reality’ in the cinema?