Connection to film (needs to be edited)

In Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows focuses on how the Internet affects the human brain and it’s ability to retain information or stay focused on something. He discusses his problems that have developed over the past few years from the Internet. The main problem he has is reading. He mentions how distracted he gets when trying to read and does not have the attention span to get through an entire book. In applying this affect to film in some ways there are similarities. Many people are not interested in older films; they lack something that keeps the audience interested. A clip from the movie “The River,” an older Indian film, shows an Indian woman dancing to what sounds like a traditional music played from Indian men. She is dressed in tradition Indian clothing and dances in a way this is different to what many people have seen, but the film quality is lacking. It looses the audience’s attention a little easier than say a more recent film. Compared to the newer movie “Slumdog Millionaire,” it lacks a story. A clip from “Slumdog Millionaire” depicts two young boys on a train without a ticket trying to survive. The scene has background music that grabs the audience’s attention and tells a story. It has different views and little tidbits that keep the viewer more at a place of interest. If someone were watching the clip from “The River” they could look away and not miss much, but if they miss some of the other clip, they wouldn’t get the full story.

Like books or any written piece today, there is a lot of information to cover and in order for our brains to comprehend it all, we have to get it all in by reading it. In Carr’s book, it points out how reading is very difficult because he has been exposed to a newer form of receiving information. Unlike the movie however, the Internet allows someone to skim over things and maybe get the gist of what is going through pictures. It is easier for the human brain to digest information when it is delivered in a newer and easier way. The newer movie has dynamic scenes and is easier to comprehend as opposed to the older film.

Jack Cardiff: The Man Behind the Man Behind the Camera

Last week in my Color Design class we watched the documentary Cameraman, a movie that goes inside the works of a cinematographer, Jack Cardiff. He was the first director of photography in the history of Academy Awards to receive an Honorary Oscar in 2001. The documentary zooms in on Jack’s becoming of age and the development of color films using the effects of Technicolor. Jack was a specialist in Technicolor and was considered the only person to truly understand how it works and how to use it to its advantage. The film breaks down his work on the many classic films like “Matter of Life and Death,” “Black Narcissus,” “The Red Shoes,” “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” and many many more.

Jack Cardiff greatly influenced the film industry and was hugely wanted for his skill. He was not just a cinematographer, but was a consummate painter, photographer and photo “collector.” In everything he did, he did it with greatness and as the documentary claims, he was the fastest and the best.

This movie greatly opened my eyes to the art of filmmaking and the art of color. It is to Jack that we, the audience, owe about 90% of the history of cinema to. Literally; pretty much all films made today are done in color. Because of Jack the art of color films flourished and people knew the potential of using color.

Jack lived to be 94 (died in 2009), dedicating 89 of those years to his work in films, and lived to make a name for himself. His work significantly influenced filmmaking in the 21^st century and his work lives on to this day and shows the growth of cinema.

Films are a huge part of the entertainment industry today that has actually lost much of its authenticity and ability to be a true form of art. Computers override the need for people like Jack. In many cases he manually had to invent ways to make a scene work visually; today the computer takes care of all of that. In one specific case cited in Cameraman was that the director of a film wanted a scene to start off blank and fade into the scene as if it was fog, but they did not yet have filters or program effects to do that. So, Jack himself came up with breathing on the lens of the camera to generate this effect. Yes, computers can do that today but it all started with man himself. Filmmaking was literally an art and much of that art is dedicated to Jack Cardiff.