Looking back on four years of non-blogging.
Reading these first two (and only) posts on this website is not unlike reading the work of a total stranger. I recognize the ideas and a familiar language and tone, but feel they were produced by an alien mind. But before I launch another possibly pitiful attempt to write with consistent impunity there should be a moment to reflect on what has passed and what potential lies before. For from this vantage point in time, surveying thoughts as distant as the seam of the horizon, I feel I can better begin to lay the course of my pen.
My work and research for many years now has been a lonely endeavor. This is not paradoxical in light of the fact that I teach an undergraduate class and work on set with large numbers of fellow people. Rather, I have found more generally in my life that the ideas of interest to myself are confined to a few people I know, and only rarely to many that I meet.
Frankly, I live with a lot of disappointment when my hours of research, testing, and data-collection end with someone decrying “I don’t think this really matters to artists.” (Students are the exception in this case, but that is because we encounter each other in an environment designed for learning and discovery.) This comment especially rankles because I am an artist who feels that my consumption of technical matters stems from a direct desire to understand and control my medium to produce an aesthetic result. If the type of brush, the material and shape of the bristles matter to the painter, than why not the intricacies of digital signal compression matter to the cinematographer? Perhaps the overbearing amount of information that must be digested by the cinematographer these days has produced a technological ennui, or denial as a psychological defense mechanism to hold back the flood of technocracy. To this attitude I can only simply reply that research and tests always matter. There is always some light to be shed into the dark corner of the camera obscura even if it only weakly illuminates the subject of study. We should never let our minds become dark rooms.
Another frequent comment I receive is “I don’t understand” which is easily remedied through education. I only have the opportunity to teach a handful of students each semester about information that is diffused between too many, and frequently hard to find, sources. This fact confronts me into admitting that I live in rarified air and should try to reach a wider public. For the education that exists today for aspiring cinematographers is piecemeal necessitating that students must learn largely through practice and experience in the industry. I am not criticizing learning through praxis, but wish for a harmony of systems that also includes solid scientific theory. Sadly, the cinematography texts that exist today are too frequently haphazardly organized, poorly researched, and riddled with mistakes. I hope these writings can help shore up a rickety scaffold of knowledge.
Also, I have also encountered increasing dismissiveness to certain facts that have become cornerstones to my teaching. Having worked hard to first locate these facts, and then to continually subject them to the crucible of testing only for a colleague to deem them “not relevant” takes the wind out of my sails. I believe this attitude stems from too narrowly defining the concept of what cinematography is, and how to use photographic tools in order to create art. As I resume my studies of physics, logic and philosophy I hope to illustrate how even these ancillary and abstract topics are relevant to the cinematographer (or at least to me). All knowledge is a form of tool, and once we understand our tools than we can understand the relation between our craft to the greater world. For the entire span of the imaging chain must be considered from the photons streaming through the universe to the phenomenology of our visual system. All subjects that relate to visual art of cinematography, whether physical, psychological, physiological, mechanical, chemical, electronic, or otherwise, are relevant. By standing atop the mast we can begin to observe the curvature of the Earth.
My original intentions of this blog from four years back still stand, but must be augmented by the following: to write frequently about the topics and questions I grapple with in my research. Also, to discuss at length the tests that are performed in Science of Cinematography because they succeed and fail in interesting ways and the lessons they produce could be of greater use. To correct this need I am creating two new groups concerned solely with research and testing methodology.
One thing that has not changed about this blog is that fundamentally these writings are not so much a declaration as a forge by which to shape my ideas. I suppose the purpose is ultimately self-serving since I hope to observe the changing nature of my thoughts. This gazing-stone intention is why I have failed to include buttons to link to social media and allow comments. (I assume if you have a comment you can contact me in person and I will address you personally. If the comment sparks interesting ideas than they should be transformed into a piece of writing and not left moldering at the bottom of a post.) The self-reflexive nature of my efforts is not in conflict with posting publicly because I expect certain types of people to find them and respond. This blog has very little purpose as an advertisement for myself, a way to sell a product, or convince others of a doctrine. Rather, this is a quiet space for ideas, a safe harbor in a digital morass. My hope is that in time the right travelers can find shelter and engage in the commerce of ideas without the heightened tone that too commonly defines discourse on the internet.
