Well now that we’re all settled in nicely back to Uni after the 1st week, Week 2 was about getting ready for the workloads and assessments. On the Frame was no different. Daniel started the class off with a few more theory behind visual art, and the origins of cinema, and how framing doesn’t just show what’s inside the four walls, it also helps to tell a story, to show more than one perspective of the thing that is being shown.
He also mentioned about Plato’s Cave.
Daniel Binn’s explained the purpose of Plato’s cave, and this is my interpretation of it.
The people who are chained facing the wall are prisoners. The shadows on the wall are from the objects that’s on top of a mount, behind the prisoners. There is a fire that acts as a light, which is the main reason for the casting of the shadows. What I took from this, is that if we focus on the actual shadows on the walls, we would be just like the prisoners – we won’t know anything but the shadows on the wall. But the image doesn’t just show the shadows on the wall – it shows the process of creating the shadows. This means that we, as individuals, have to broaden our thinking and our frame of mind to be able to see the bigger ‘picture’, and not get stuck on just the visual aspects, but also have a deep understanding of the process of things.
Sontag’s reading also helped me to re-“frame” my mindset when it comes to cinema.
In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing. (Sontag, p.3)
Sontag states photographs only capture what the photographer wants the audience to see. Within those 4 walls, contains the perspective of the person behind the lens. The viewers cannot see more than what the photographer allows them to see. Framing is all about perspectives. And right now, I’m re-“framing” my perspective so that I’m not being biased with this course and so that I can get so much out of it.
Until the next post. Ciao!