Week 3.
I’m sorry to say that I was very distracted during the lecture, so I don’t have many notes from it. I have a notoriously short attention span. I don’t know. Sorry. I hope that my disruptiveness didn’t offend anyone, because I genuinely find this subject fascinating.
Any-who, I think I got the central point that Adrian made in the lecture. The world likes classifications. System. Order. Taxonomy. But, really, everything is entangled. Messy. Convoluted. Complex. Despite our collective want to make it all simple.
I recall one thing in particular that sparked my interest. (I’m pretty sure Adrian had brought this point up in some Networked Media lectures, but it has gained even more meaning since then.) Adrian identified the key filmmaking question that is instinctively overlooked by filmmakers. We watch rectangular screens. So, the question we need to ask, before we do anything else, is: what can I do inside a rectangle? What can I compose inside a rectangle with light, movement, space, time, shape etc.?
I found this particularly interesting because it got me thinking about how unnatural a rectangle is in terms of vision. Camera lenses are round. Eyes are round. Irises are round. Pupils are round. Human vision isn’t even rectangular. If it had to have a shape, I suppose it also would be roughly circular. Or oval shaped because of the vision crossover of two eyes on a horizontal plane. It’s so strange that we chose a rectangle for screen. Well, actually, there have been square screens too. But corners in vision are so odd. Who came up with these square/rectangular screens? And why? And why did the world accept it so unequivocally? Oh. Right. Photographs. (Apologies for this stream of consciousness-esque blog post.) But the question stands the same for photographs. Why are media that are meant to symbolise vision rectangular? What’s with the corners?
Maybe that first lot of round/square-themed sketch tasks had been hinting at this, eh? … No, probably not.
This whole idea of a rectangulified (making words up is fun) vision relates to one particular section of the reading this week, which discusses the film element of space. It defines three central types of space in film: story space, plot space, and screen space. I just have to point out how surprised I was to remind myself that in film there exists story space and plot space, let alone remind myself about screen space. It’s so simple and so true and so damn EASILY overlooked. But, yes, there is more than one kind of space in film. (FOUR kinds if we’re talking about Cuarón’s Gravity! Hahahahah. Good one, me. But seriously, it was a masterpiece of a movie.) So, each ‘space’ type selects from the type before it. Screen space (that rectangular thing we’ve been talkin’ bout) selects from plot space, and plot space selects from story space. Ignoring the story space to plot space wizardry, I’m going to focus on the plot space to screen space artistry. I suppose, here, we are talking about mise-en-scène. Yes? Maybe? Sure. But mise-en-scène within a rectangular frame is the key. Offscreen space is inferred. Some plot space is selected for the screen space. Some plot space is omitted. So, some offscreen plot space is inferred. As is offscreen story space. So that screen – that tiny little rectangle of space (or huge, depending on whether you’re viewing something on your Android or at the IMAX) – is responsible for your whole perception/assumption of the film’s story, simply through its selection of space. And it’s a bloody rectangle. Great job, everyone.
Ok, I think it’s time to stop because I’m going around in circles with what I’m saying. Oh no. Circles. Round. Rectangular. How does this even happen, brain? I don’t know. Cool.
These ideas about screen space somewhat relate to my post from last year called Thinking Space. Since I wrote that post, I’ve been completely unable get the concepts out of my head. Please go and read it. It’s actually got something to say.
2 Comments
Nice stream of thought. I never considered to think about the framing of film outside of aspect ratios. I feel like I’ve seen scifi movies where their screens are sort of ovally and they go out of focus around the edges, which is essentially what the human eye is, but you wouldn’t want to always have focus on the centre of the screen.
I think that we never had oval screens because it would have been difficult to produce. We could do it now digitally, but fitting a square into a camera rather than a circle may have seemed easier? A lot of people use circular frames with their photos, so I don’t think it’s unheard of to have round images, but I think it’s a generational thing. We have all become used to square framing, and it’s become a guideline in the construction of a film.
Cool post.
Cheers Jim!