What we talk about when we talk about filmmaking
the big challenge with stray cinema has been, and continues to be, getting the message disseminated of what it is we're all up to. at this tenuous juncture, it would be churlish in the extreme to fault anyone on how they choose to spread the message of who we are and what we're doing.
however.
there's a simple misconception at work out there, and i'd like to fire off a minor correction, in the vain hope that it might single-handedly reverse a worldwide trend toward flawed thinking regarding what it is exactly people do when they are making films.
obviously i'm no longer talking just about stray cinema here, but in fact about the whole damn world and what it thinks it knows about filmmaking.
(what follows is a brief detour into a potted history of what people think they know about filmmaking. if you, like me, have some idea of what most likely follows, you can choose whether to skip it or to skim for things to correct me on.)
so. in the olden days, people made films as a product. from les freres lumiere to poor misguided mr. griffith, there was high artistry here; but it was the same sort of artistry that shapes a really beautiful piece of furniture. the cognoscenti knew and cared who was doing the yelling and who was distributing the paychecks; the man on the street didn't, for the most part, care. he'd pay his money and go take in the latest mary pickford or douglas fairbanks flickershow, and as far as he was concerned, the people playing out the stories were those wholly responsible for their telling. if the work was a literary adaptation, the writer of the originating text also was a prime contributing factor.
as awareness of this new snazzy mode of storytelling grew, folk started to pay attention to who was putting these things together exactly. actors would work under contract to a particular studio, and the studios, the producers who would assemble a project together, started to become names of their own. a rough analogy might be drawn to (oh god, i hate to do this to you) the prevailing state of awareness of the executive/creative process behind a videogame throughout the medium's ascension in the 1990s: from playing whatever was available and beeped the loudest, players developed an awareness that, say, a capcom title would exhibit a certain polished solidness, whereas an ocean release, f'rinstance, would embody a certain cosmopolitan level of optimistic experimentation. from here emerged an awareness of certain personages within the field, so that the release of a title developed under the aegis of a peter molyneaux would be anticipated by cerebral deus ex machina types, whereas bedroom-coder types would dust off their least soiled jerseys to rally round their boy-made-good, jeff minter.
this, then, is where film appreciation was at: the gradual realisation that, not only were the people onscreen influential in the creation of a film, but that there were also people you didn't see having a direct bearing on your entertainment.
flash forward to the mid c20th, and a bunch of french cats (andre bazin being a good name to hang this all off) decide to throw a huge fucking cahiers du cinema-shaped spanner in the works with their auteur theory. y'know what, they said (in french), this cinema thing, it's a real art form. it's not just cold product: people are doing things here that need to be recognised as works that speak to and inform our culture.
mhmm, with you so far, answered the teeming masses. well then, continued the cahiers crew, can we agree that an art form needs an author? that a true work of cultural significance needs to be assignable to a human creator?
there is one person, held cahiers, responsible for the creation of any film worth talking about. and that person, nine times out of ten, is the film's director.
they'd point to the work of alfred hitchcock, as a prime example, and say, now, tell me you can't see what kind of guy made this film, just by looking at it. if we're to elevate film to the same status as literature and music and so forth, we need to agree that alfred hitchcock is the guy that "painted" north by northwest.
and this caught on rather too well. because now it's the automatic assumption, of the majority of the saturday night video-store crowd, that not only was alfred hitchcock the only guy responsible for vertigo, but that (based on conversations i have had and supposedly professional reportage i have read):
- David Fincher was solely responsible for a sublime piece of filmmaking in directing se7en(1);
- Darren Aronovsky is the sole creative force behind requiem for a dream(2);
- it's primarily director michael mann who is responsible for the pioneering digital/celluloid hybrid look of miami vice and collateral(3);
- it was quentin tarantino who chose to cut between both sides of the same frame during the climactic scene in the pan 'n' scan video release of pulp fiction;
and that it follows from this that the director is the only person who "makes" a movie, and henceforth, that (again, based on a mix of Smart People I Have Talked To and Smart articles i have read):
- george lucas directed the empire strikes back(5);
- peter jackson will be directing dambusters and has recently lost the director's job on halo(6);
- quentin tarantino directed not just true romance and natural born killers but also hostel and hero(7);
- fast food nation was directed by morgan spurlock(8).
obviously besides muddying the meme pool substantially by getting smart people to make dumb assumptions about who did what on a movie, this emphasis on the director as the only person worth a damn in the making of a movie ensures that the myriad actual roles that go into making a motion picture don't get their due. and, thus, you could argue people don't do as well on them as they could.
when stray cinema is introduced in a news item by promising audiences the chance to "be the next peter jackson", it just confuses the issue. when jumpcut.com asks users to sign on as a "director" before giving them the opportunity to cut someone else's footage, it demeans the person who first created the footage; but, possibly more pressingly, it doesn't pay due respect to the person who's reediting the footage to tell the story their way.
without cahiers' thinking on the notion of auteurs, we might never have happened upon the notion that some people have a natural affinity for coordinating a talented crew toward the telling of a uniquely personal story. there's little denying that figures like stanley kubrick and atom egoyan imbue their stories with a unique character; but neither man, nor any of the others lumped into the "auteur" bracket (and nowadays, that can include anyone who's ever had their credit on a movie poster), would claim that they and only they are responsible for a movie happening(9).
stray cinema is not a place where you can direct a movie. stray cinema is a place where michelle directed a movie, and you are given masssive creative free reign to edit it.
if you've already posted a cut, chances are i don't need to be telling you this: cuts so far exhibit a massive breadth of creative vision, and an awareness that the title of "editor" is something to be proud of, something to live up to.
i love directing. but this is stray cinema. we edit here, and we're proud of it.
now we just need to work out how to make that clear to the rest of the world.
(1) breakthrough script for sole writer andrew kevin walker.
(2) an adaptation of a novel by cult last exit to brooklyn author hubert selby, jr.
(3) a style developed through the rigorous technical expertise of cinematographer dion beebe.
(4) the closest he would have come was agreeing that editor sally menke should not cut often during those scenes.
(5) he didn't, but maybe the latter star wars pics would have been better recieved if lucas had remembered that a work's creator doesn't always have to be the director.
(6) he was never in discusssion to do either.
(7) respectively: written by, original script by, executive produced by, "presented by".
(8) spurlock directed a documentary about fast food and had nothing to do with this fictional drama.
(9) almost any: brett rattner has claimed that he is pretty much solely responsible for everything about x-men 3, from its story to its immense box-office success. the mere fact that anyone, even brett rattner himself, is seriously advancing the notion of brett rattner as an auteur of any kind, is proof positive that this whole thing has gone far enough.
He couldn't stop posting this link!
Storytelling interest you? Treat yourself now.
The fusion of film & game
By michelle, 5 years, 2 months ago - No Comments
Um, is anyone else interested in gaming? I don't necessarily mean playing (not enough hours in the day), I mean the future of gaming and the fusion of film & game.
Interactive cinema, where the audience has more of a say over where the story goes.
I guess this also ties in with the ethos behind Stray Cinema, giving everyone the opportunity to have a say over what story is told using our footage.
I have a special interest in Second Life at the moment. In fact, I was on a date the other night (yes the dating is still a relevant thing - so I have found out this year), anyway on a date, first date, so out to impress, then all of a sudden I find myself on a rant about Second Life. How I got to talking about an online computer game I don't know. It is not unusual for me to get into excited one way conversations about this particular game, but to geek out on it while on a first date…it was pretty funny.
But there are some exciting things happening inside that game, everyday there are new stories about the goings on in this virtual world. Second Life is continuously trying to position itself as an alternative reality in which we should spend all of our time.
I am not sure exactly where this blog entry is going, and I could link you to lots interesting Second Life stories, though I am sure you are able to find them yourselves if you ask Google. To be honest, I think this may have just been another opportunity to have a rant about Second Life…
In all seriousness though, I am really keen for the Stray Cinema footage to be shot inside a virtual world a few years from now. I think that would be quite interesting, remixing raw footage that has been shot inside a game.
Or not…?
Tom, Dan and the little red hen
By michelle, 5 years, 2 months ago - No Comments
Well, how nice to have another blogger... welcome Tom :) as per his commentary below, Tom is like the father of Stray Cinema, who wanted to give the kid up for adoption. That is until he held the little virtual buba in his arms, and couldn't resist its charm. It's nice to have Tom back on board.
There will be more than enough bread to share around said this Little Red Hen. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; I don’t think the wheat has even been cut yet.
I must also take the time to make a special mention of Daniel Winter as well. While Dan has decided not to partake in blogging (for now), he has played a huge role in the launch and development of the Stray Cinema website. Dan is a core member of the Stray Cinema team, providing ongoing technical support & advice. For that I am forever grateful.
And now for something slightly less rambling or relevant
By homage, 5 years, 2 months ago - No Comments
if you people want this sort of thing to happen - y'know, stray cinema, remix culture, blah blah blah - i'd appreciate awfully if someone would find a way to make it clear that - legally, creatively, societally, etc etc - bridgeport music inc is an evil and unprofitable and stupid idea.
read it yet? go on, I'll wait. done? ok. trivia bite: dungeons and dragons does not have any hobbits in it because the copyright holders of lord of the rings made them take them all out. so, wow, it looks like this "Slate" organisation doesn't know its literature or culture as well as it claims to!
(i am, of course, kidding).
By homage, 5 years, 2 months ago - No Comments