We don’t have to ask why we love videos and movies, visual literacy is becoming more important as time goes on.

Produced by Thomas Edison and directed and filmed by Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery was the first narrative movie ever made.

Thinking about today’s conventions I see in contrast to the silent films of the early years of cinema, the first thing is obvious: there are a lot of talking heads. The cinematic elements that make me love movies, especially silent movies, are mostly lacking, having given way to VFX and complicated dialogue. Cool effects work well in the right places but, as we learned from the great, early filmmakers, a story is best told with a visual, artful use of the tools to lead us to make connections on our own. This is what cinematography is. The American Society of Cinematographers defines cinematography as:

a creative and interpretive process that culminates in the authorship of an original work of art rather than the simple recording of a physical event.

The difference between a good film and a great one is that even with the audio removed a great film stands on its own. The audience can still make sense of the action because the cinematic elements keep moving the story forward.

Silent films didn’t have the luxury of audio tracks to bolster what was happening on the screen. Directors worked feverishly to keep the inclusion of cards with words on them to a minimum as audiences often found them distracting because they broke a certain rhythm to the visual story that was unfolding before them. The fundamentals of editing were more than enough for directors in those early days as they saw a seemingly infinite number of conventions that could be used to craft atmospheres, psychological experiences that led audiences to emotional heights and dramatic lows in response to the visual sequences taking place in front of them.

In contrast to now, when a majority of popular films have so many stylistic choices in common, produced with technology that can shoot high and low, inside and out, leave no stone unturned, no thought of a character unknown, possessing perhaps a similar cultural rhythm about them, too, that can at times make them feel almost like the same movie. Technology has certainly opened up many more options for modern day shooters, myself included. Shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II allows us to shoot cinema quality footage at 24p at a fraction of the cost. However, as in design, there is a time and place for whitespace, which is to say, to not exploit the tools for all they’re worth just for the sake of exploiting the tools for all they’re worth. Does it add to the story? Yes? Keep it. Does it not add to the story? Lose it.

I surely don’t mean to discount the work of the great cinematographers of our age, only to suggest that limitations are what create the opportunities for innovation, not a lack of them. The life pursuits and soaring accomplishments of a legion of great screen directors in the early days of cinema stand testament to it.

So how has the rapid deployment of these new tools impacted our ability to tell a story cinematically? Surely it’s both helped and hindered. A great story is still a great story, regardless of what tools are used to tell it.

Part 1

If you didn’t care what happened to me,
And I didn’t care for you,
We would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain.
Wondering which of the buggars to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing.

Part 2

You know that I care what happens to you,
And I know that you care for me, too.
So I don’t feel alone,
Or the weight of the stone,
Now that I’ve found somewhere safe
To bury my bone.
And any fool knows a dog needs a home,
A shelter from pigs on the wing.

Our man Werner Herzog reads Curious George in a tone that only the German filmmaker can muster:

hats off to @jeremyryancarr for this tasty tidbit

Sycamore Review: Winter 2010 featuring Zach Falcon

ZACH FALCON was born and raised in Alaska. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, his stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Quiddity, the 2009 Bridport Prize Anthology, and the Bear Deluxe Magazine. He lives in Iowa City where he is working on a novel.

Author Michael Pollan says:

The tulip, by gratifying our desire for a certain kind of beauty, has gotten us to take it from its origins in Central Asia and disperse it around the world. Marijuana, by gratifying our desire to change consciousness, has gotten people to risk their lives, their freedom, in order to grow more of it and plant more of it. The potato, by gratifying our desire for control, control over nature so that we can feed ourselves has gotten itself out of South America and expanded its range far beyond where it was 500 years ago. And the apple, by gratifying our desire for sweetness begins in the forests of Kazakhstan and is now the universal fruit. These are great winners in the dance of domestication.

The five months of furious short-story writing in 1923-24 had left him with a stake of $7,000. In Great Neck, that would only cover two and a half months of expenses. How could he stretch the $7,000 to gain the time to finish Gatsby? Earlier, as he was struggling to save, a friend wrote from France to suggest that Fitzgerald join the many Americans living well in Europe on the strong American dollar. The friend wrote that it cost one-tenth as much to live in Europe: he had just finished “a meal fit for a king, washed down with champagne, for the absurd sum of sixty-one cents.” Fitzgerald thought, based on the friend’s recommendation, living expenses on the off-season Riviera would be low enough to let him finish Gatsby without any short-story interruptions.

Thanks to Jason Kottke for posting on such good stuff. Cheers.

Spike Jonze worked with Lance Bangs on this new documentary about Maurice Sendak, who wrote and illustrated Where The Wild Things Are, which is in post-production having been directed by Jonze. Click on the image to see the trailer for the documentary.