Booster # 01

CINEMA SCREEN v/s TV TUBE

In the perspective of millenniums that the Visual Arts took to grow and mature, Cinema and Television can be seen as mere babies. While Cinema genetically remained true a genealogy, TV tube destroyed an umbilical aesthetic connection which later day Digital technology rectified. I am looking at the idea of “Projecting a Film” as opposed to saturation bombardment of photons or fermions or whatever, that is the basis of forming a TV image and which led to the famous saying by Marshall McLuhan, “Medium Is The Message”; so true of the neon sign. We are bathed and inundated with electronic bombardment only part of which falls on our retina and creates the illusion of an image while the rest of it penetrates our bodies and destroys our soul.

Cinema does not do so. All human visual perception is based upon reflected light that is caught by our eyes and that is how we see the world around us. No one would like to look into the Sun while we enjoy looking at the Moon, which reflects the light falling upon it. And then enter TV & Neon sign that stood a time honoured tenet of human existence upon its head. Cinema,, from the very beginning was based upon the notion of “Projection”, true to the history of human visual perception. In the realm of Digital Media lately the notion of projection has surfaced as a welcome innovation. There are, of course, the LCD monitors that do not share the bombardment principle of the old tube.

Rahatavalokit

Caca262

Booster # 02

PERSPECTIVE & THE ZOOMING SHOT

While most painting would naturally incline to perspective and focal-length of the human eyes equivalent to 50mm of 35mm format lenses; focal lengths began to vary as still photography took rapid strides. We, therefore, have wide-angle as well as telephoto lenses; they vary the perspective and a certain visual effect is created, a variation on basic human visual perspective and the idea of ‘looking’. Optics, however, created yet another commodity called “Zoom Lens” which had so many focal lengths telescoped into the same barrel. This was highly prone to aberrations as there were moving parts in it compromising clarity & sharpness. As though that was not enough, amateur enthusiasts started filming while zooming this lens, devastating perspective, yet; it was “something new” & “Oh, so fashionable...”

Once again, the history of human visual perception as well as history of the Visual Arts had never known such an aesthetically unresolved jolt. So, my suggestion is, once again, to be careful and thoughtful about using zoom lens, specially ‘zooming shots’ for they are an ‘outsider’ as far as aesthetics of creative visualization is concerned, historically.

Rahatavalokit

Caca190

Booster Shots ...!!

STABILITY OF THE FRAME

Free from shackles and blinkers of Holly / Bolly / Tolly / whistling , damp, dark & rotting woods we may feel lost & scared unless we have some classical re-assurance of firm grounds under our feet. Anybody who looks through a motion picture camera or a Director’s View-finder for that matter, is confronted by a frame. Most people, however, are un-aware of it as they are too busy peering at the scene, moving the camera this way & that or tweaking the accelerating pedal zoom.  Anybody with a nodding acquaintance with the Arts, however, will readily agree that historically “Frame” has forever been a static, solid boundary of a painting or lately still-photograph. Motion Picture in a sweeping, revolutionary gesture, “Moved the Frame Itself” ...  as if it were. This amounts to a fracture of a certain “Tradition” in the Arts. The Proscenium & Painting share certain “Aspect Ratios” with the 9:16 aspect ratio of film frame, but they didn’t move about freely as Film Frame could. So, what I am suggesting is that we take a deep breath & a serious view of this historic disjunction before we start panning & tilting wildly on our fluid-heads. This will give us a sense of stability & connection with the Arts; it will help to ground us firmly in a creative field. It will give rise to editorial and ‘cutting possibilities’ which are integral to Film Form and thus, help to advance notions of visual articulation.

Rahatavalokit

Caca250  

Rasa-siddhanta

RASA-SIDDHANTA

(The Principle of Evoking Emotion)

In practicing Mis-en-scen we shall confront difficulties about “Pakad”, a grip in other words, on the mood of a given scene. The classical Indian text called “Rasasiddhanta” part of “Nattyashastra” (Treatise on Dramaturgy) proposes a working solution by naming nine “Sthayee-bhavas” and thirty odd subtler variations of the basic nine Rasas. It is a difficulty of English language that there are no direct equivalents in words for these terms and what their connotations happen to be in the mind of an Indian student learning in Eastern Methodology. For the sake of information and risk of reductionism, however, I mention below the  “Nine Sthatyeebhavas” (prevailing emotions) :

1.       Rati                        love, affection...

2.       Haas                      joy, laughter...

3.       Shok                      sorrow...

4.       Krodh                    anger...

5.       Utsaah                   enthusiasm...

6.       Bhay                      fear...

7.       Ghrina                   revulsion...

8.       Aashchary             wonder...

9.       Kshama                forgiveness...

There are, of course, thirty odd subtle shades of these basic nine but we can start simple practice of identifying “prevailing mood” of a scene and trying to shoot it in a way that foregrounds it; after editing and mixing your sounds and all that, for your audience.

Rahatavalokit

Caca191