Sword in the stone brief. Concentrating on the sword, Excalibur, instead of Arthur. Set in a forest (possibly Hampstead) early morning, different shots, possibly on the last shot an actor (who will play Arthur) walking towards the stone.
The Age of the Image and the Trend of the Lens
James Fox is a British historian who specifically studies in 20th-century art. Fox is also known for his presenting documentaries on BBC.
While as a student, Fox would at the production company ZCZ along side the art critic, Waldemar Januszczak. In 2008 Fox and Januszczak co-curated the Statuephilia exhibition at the British Museum; this displayed the work of Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley and Marc Quin.
In 2010, his career as a presenter would kick off with the BBC ninety-minute film The Art of Cornwall. Fox would later go on to present other documentaries such as A Very British Renaissance(2014) and Age of Image(2020).
Above : Art critic Waldemar Januszczak.
Left : 50k solid gold statue of model kate Moss by Marc Quinn at the Statuephilia exhibition.
Age of the image: A New Reality Review
In this episode James Fox goes throughout the decades of the 20th century by comparing and connecting artists (Paul Cezanne, Latrigue, Picasso, Salvador Dali, Keaton) and scientists (Einstein, Edison, Harold Edgerton) about their approach of time and movement: The 4th dimension. How science also helped the growth of modern technology and transformed imagery but also how imagery transformed science. But also asking these questions: Why do these images gives us pleasure? How do we make sense of them?Where do they get their power? And can we trust them?
In the first few scenes of the documentary, we see groups of people taking selfies with Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum. Which makes us ask why do we do this? Maybe it's our narcissistic nature and/or we need to feel the need of being close to something famous and to show it off.It could also be for memories and to prove to others we were actually there. The problem with this is we no longer take the time to appreciate art, we no longer analyse it and wonder how and why it was painted. Instead we care about how many likes we get on the selfie. As Fox says we are in the age of the image, and I believe this is true. With technology always growing it is so easy to take your phone out and snap a picture, where as before it would take half an hour just to get a perfect picture. Also phone companies (such as Apple) keep bringing out new phones with better cameras and advertise the camera more than certain specs on the phone. Social media such as Instagram is the most downloaded app in the world, and with instagram being a photo based app and with the help of celebrities, we are in this vicious spiral of taking a perfect picture or "selfie".
Professor Emeritus of Art History, Cinema and Media Studies Tom Gunning would introduce us to the expression "cinema of attraction" in the 2006 book :The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded. This expression means instead of having the audience concentrate on the narrative of a film, films that fall into cinema of attraction genre, the concentration of the audience will be more on the animation and the thrill of images.
As we know, film was invented when a series of photographs which captured the movement of a subject were played on loop. Because of technology back in this era was limited, these short films wouldn't last very long and there wasn't much of a narrative, so audiences were only captivated by the possibility of having images move in front of them. Thus creating cinema of attraction.
A great example are the films created by the Lumiere brothers.
Eadweard Muybridge was probably one of the most important photographers to have ever existed. Thanks to his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and motion picture, he paved the way for future film makers. Muybridge first experimented with motion photography in 1872, when he was hired to prove that during a horse's trot, all four legs could be off the ground at the same time. This experiment would give Eadweard Muybridge most famous animation sequence: The Horse in Motion. He would later do animation sequences such as: Two Men Boxing. For the horse in motion Muybridge used 12 cameras with trip wires on a track which triggered once the horse trotted by. These cameras created by Muybridge had a faster shutter speed which made it possible to capture the movement of the horse.
Harold Edgerton took another route to study objects in motion, he did this by adding stroboscope to a camera. The stroboscope would release high speed flashes, so when taking a picture the flashes would overcome the restrictions of a camera shutter catching movement that would not be seen otherwise. As Harold Edgerton once stated that his invention granted “time itself to be chopped up into small bits and frozen so that it suits our needs and wished.”
Edgerton's most famous work (and the inspiration behind Salvador Dali's signature) is the Milk drop coronet.
John Gaeta's most famous work, The Matrix's Bullet time scene would not have been possible if it hadn't been for Eadweard Muybridge and Harold Edgerton work. Even though the technology was more advanced when Gaeta created the scene, he still used some of the techniques from Muybridge and Edgerton. It was acheived in the same way as Muybridge's Horse in motion, by a set of camera that surround Keanu Reeves and were triggered sequentially. The frames would then be then be arranged to create an orbiting frozen in time viewpoint of Keanu Reeves dodging the bullets. And a technique that would and could be used to manipulate time for other film creators.
It is important to note that technology and art is forever evolving and the trends of visual effects are changing, however as the saying goes "fashion repeats itself" and as we can see Eadweard Muybridge's technique re-appeared over a century later in John Gaeta's work. So even though we are seeing new trends, the old ones keep coming back but more evolved.
The Photographic Truth Claim: Can we believe what we see?
Age Of Image: Fake News Review
In this episode, James Fox takes us on a journey where the distinction between reality and image is blurred. Fox talks about artists such as Luciano Ventrone, Charles Bell and Audrey Flack who's paintings are so realistic that they can be confused as photographs, which makes you wonder why were they trying to copy reality? when they could have just took a photograph of it, instead of painting for hours with such precision to disguise the fact that they are in fact paintings. Or were they trying to represent the fact that not all that everything we see is real? Paintings wasn't the only form of art that were trying to copy reality, so were sculptures especially ones by Ron Mueck. Fox also brings up John knoll, the creator of the tool of trickery and manipulation: Adobe Photoshop and how easy it is with this software to completely change an image. Films play a big role in this subject. Georges Melies, the grandfather of visual effects tricked the very eyes of his public with his effects and editing. If you compared Melies films to The Lumiere brother's films, you can see that Melies wanted to trick us and create illusions. The techniques behind the illusions of films have continued to evolve which has made it possible for films like Mary Poppins, Who framed Roger Rabbit? and Bedknobs and broomstick, and later films like Star Wars and Jurassic Park. However the better the visual effects, the less impressed the public is now. But there are films that represent that we could be living an illusion such as The Matrix and Inception. This documentary makes us wonder what can we really believe in.
Top: Jolie Madame by Audrey Flack (1972–73)
Middle: Le Voyage dans la lune (1902)
Bottom: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
Top: Luciano Ventrone (2010)
Middle: Ron Mueck
Bottom: Star Wars Episode VI (1983)
The Allegory of the cave is a theory created by the philosopher Plato on perception of knowledge. Plato explains that in a cave there are prisoners who are chained together and behind them there is a fire and in between there are puppets that cast a shadow on the wall. However these prisoners watch the shadows and believe they are real and not puppets. But for the prisoners to be set free, they have to realise that the shadows are fake. Once they did, they were set free into the world. When one of the prisoners is set free, he tried to return to set the others free however his eyes had become accustomed to the sunlight, would become "blind" when he entered the cave just like he was when he saw the sun for the first time. The other prisoners would see this and believed that if they left the cave with the freed prisoner that they would be in danger of blindness too if they ever left so would kill anyone who tried to make them leave.
What Plato is trying to explain is that whatever knowledge we get from our senses is only just an opinion, but to get real knowledge we must learn it through philosophical reasoning.
This allegory is important still today. Everything we see is not always real and our senses can betray us, especially in film and media. We watch our screens and in the moment we are too involved about what is going instead of questioning if it's right or wrong.
What is the Photographic truth-claim?
Blog Post:
In Tom Gunning's chapter What’s the Point of an Index? or, Faking Photographs, we are first introduced to the theory of the photographic truth claim. Gunning used this term to describe the belief that photographs that were took with traditional methods are the ones that accurately represent the truth. Gunning then goes on to say : “The wonderful playfulness celebrated in the digital revolution remains parasitic on the initial claim of accuracy contained in some uses of photography”(Gunning,2008). However, I disagree. Considering only a minimal percentage of the medium as art is just presumptuous. The July 14th 2018 exhibition of six Chicago based artists (Kioto Aoki, Aimée Beaubien, Stephen Eichhorn, Alice Q. Hargrave, Mayumi Lake, and Barbarita Polster) had this to say about the photographic truth claim in it’s summary: “Here, the philosophical condition of what the truth is hinges on the concept of perception as a tool to measure veracity.” (The Visualist, 2018)
In a simple sentence, the Carrie secrist gallery managed to explain what Tom Gunning failed to grasp: Art, and that includes photography, is subjective. Artists and audiences alike will find meaning and truth in the art whether tempered with or not. This argument goes towards visual effects as well. A shot using green screen does not make its artistic truth or intent any less valid than a “real” shot.
References:
The Visualist (2018) Truth Claim. Available at: http://www.thevisualist.org/2018/07/truth-claim (Accessed: 20 October 2020).
Gunning,T (2008) "What’s the Point of an Index? or, Faking Photographs" in Beckman, K; Ma,J. Still Moving:Between Cinema and Photography. Duke, Duke University Press. pp 39-49
Faking Photographs: Image manipulation and computer collage
Blog post:
Definition of VFX compositing: What is it and how does it work?
We can technically trace the origins of compositing to early 1920s cinema, but for explanations sake, let’s use a film that is fresh in everyone’s minds: Star Wars. Obviously, George Lucas and the ILM team did not have access to actual spaceships. Models filmed atop matte painted backgrounds were the next best thing they could do. Overtime as technology developed, most filmmakers turned to CGI (computer generated imagery). There are numerous ways to composite, one of them is using a background plates you can combine a foreground and a background together, this was mainly used in older films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds and north by north west. Green screen and blue screen are wildly known and most recognisable before it’s edited, a technology mostly used to composite an actor(s) onto a digital background. In Steve Wright’s 2011 book: Compositing visual effects: Essentials for the aspiring artist, he states “I mentioned earlier that digital compositing is growing […] First is the steady increase in the use of CGI for visual effects, and every CGI element needs to be composited. The reason CGI is on the upswing is because of the steady improvement in technology which means that CGI can solve more visual problems every year”(Wright, 2011). Meaning that the technological advancements in CGI increasingly reduce the amount of obstacles film makers would face during production. We are already at a point where we can make anything, time and further improvements will only increase the realism of what we make.
References:
Wright, S (2011) Compositing visual effects: Essentials for the aspiring artist. Taylor & Francis Ltd
Finding the Properties' of Photorealism in visual effects
Blog post:
Photorealism
Originally an art trend in the 60’s and 70’s in America, photorealism was the art of recreating an image with different mediums such as paints, pastels and pencils and sculpture to question what was real and what was fake. With technology advancing, digital artists are now able to blur the distinction between the digital world and the real by creating photorealistic shots. The tricky thing with photorealism is should anything look odd or out of place it can break the illusion, as Hannah Collins states “Like all magic tricks, our relationship with CGI depends entirely on whether or not the illusion works”(CBR,2019). A couple of notable of “failures” would be:
- The polar Express: Achieving photorealism in a full CG production can be the hardest. The polar express unfortunately drastically suffered from symptoms of the uncanny valley, ruining the experience for certain viewers.
- Van Helsing: As much as matching the realism of CGI with “actual” footage sounds harder to achieve than to a full CGI environment, most productions will use CGI in that way. Van Helsing used this technique however the end result of the CGI stood out obviously in contrast of the actual footage, breaking the illusion.
Well known usages of photorealistic CGI are films such as the Lion King but also King Kong, even though the concept of a giant gorilla fighting T-rexes isn’t “realistic”, the audience buys the illusion based on the quality of CGI/Compositing combo.
As well, photorealistic CGI is extremely helpful, especially when it comes to finances, it’s cheaper to model, texture and render CGI scenes and to alter them whenever you want unlike normal shots.
References:
CBR (2019) From Sonic to Will Smith's Genie, the Problem With Photorealistic CGI Available at: https://www.cbr.com/sonic-genie-problem-with-photorealistic-cgi/ (Accessed: 29 October 2020).
A Digital Index: Bringing truth into VFX via the Capture of Movement
Blog Post:
Compare Motion Capture to Key Frame Animation
Key frame animation and motion capture are both highly used techniques in the industry however there are used for different reasons.
Key frame animation is used to bring inanimate objects to life whether they are a drawing or 3D generated. In the industry, you will use software like Maya who have a timeframe where you can keyframe the character’s position and the frames in between each key will be generated by the software to move the character. Once the animation is done, it will be imported to another software to be composited. Disney’s Mickey Mouse is a prime example of animation. Whereas Motion Capture is used to record an actor’s movement and then translating it onto a Computer-generated model. To get successful footage, actors have to wear a motion capture suit that is tight on the body and has optical markers that are strategically placed. When filming, the cameras will pick up data from the markers and record subtle movements that will later processed onto a CGI model. Actors will also wear a head mounted camera to record facial movements.
Motion capture performance is vastly used in modern video games but to this day the most famous performance to this day is Andy Serkis’ Gollum in the Lord of the Rings.The goal of motion capture is to preserve the indexicality of the subject. What photography is to a moment, motion capture is to movement. The whole point of this technology is to capture the essence of the subject’s movement.
Digital Index: Reality Capture (LIDAR) and VFX
Blog post:
Case Study: Reality Capture
Reality capture is the art of scanning an object, place or building and generating a digital model from it. Techniques such as photogrammetry and laser scanning or Lidar are commonly used. Quantic Dream, a studio in Paris, used a 3D scanner named EVA by Artec for their games Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human. The power behind the facial 3d scanning is that it is quicker to do than to model a 3D head from scratch and the graphics look believable and photorealistic. At Quantic, the scanning would not take place inhouse but instead in a different studio due to lack of room. The scanning team would use the scanner which entailed of taking thousands of pictures of the actor’s face and body. Then they would take photos of the skin to capture the colours and details of it. The information would be used as a base for the modelling team, who would go over the data and model in more detail by enriching it and making it more realistic. Once added to the motion capture data, the results are incredible. Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page’s characters succeeded in giving off a realistic vibe. However, like with a lot of other animated films or games, the eyes can let you down. Digitally replicating the life and emotion that eyes give off is still one of the hardest tasks digital artists have come across.
Reality Capture: Depth Scanning and Photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is the art of obtaining information about objects, environments and the outer bodies of living things by taking 3D information from photographs that were taken either up in the air or on the ground. It is generally used for land surveying, engineering, military, medicine, agriculture and now for film and games.
This scanning technique is very helpful within the film industry since it can be used for both pre and post-production. It can help film crews visualise a certain layout for a scene if you are scanning an location. And the data can be used as a 3D model for a background element. And within games it is now used to provide better graphics. However, how trustworthy can it be? Especially if there is a glitch or if the object moves? Is photogrammetry actually indexical? I believe that we could bring the photographic truth claim and argue that it might not be as trust worthy as we believe and hope.
For this essay, i decided to go with question 2 but specifically keyframe animation and motion capture. This is how I structured the essay:
Introduction
Paragraph 1 : Explain What animation is and the history of keyframe animation
Paragraph 2 : Explain what Motion capture is and the history of motion capture
Paragraph 3 : Argue (for and against) if Paul Delaroche's quote is true in the case of motion capture and keyframe animation
(I originally wanted to do this in two seperate paragraphs but in the end I ended up with one large paragraph with 3 mini ones inside )
Conclusion
Presentation :
