Richland Digital Video Spring 2019

While reading the excerpts of In the Blink of an Eye there was a lot that I found very interesting. I was amazed at the amount of film can be produced when shooting. The narrator went on and on about how much long in length and how many shots it takes to capture a certain scene. Instead of doing everything digitally he would do it by slicing and placing film manually. He also mentions how on certain shots it would have more splices just for shadows. Overall this was a very interesting read and it definitely makes you appreciate the craftsmanship of editing film. 

The author makes some interesting points about art in the book. He talks about how in the past, people looked for realistic, true to form depictions of life and the world in paintings, sculptures, and other art forms. This limited artistic expression in art because artists would have to create strictly within the boundaries of reality in order to satisfy that hunger for realism. He then talks about how cameras, and the art forms associated with them, have come to satisfy the hunger for realism that many people seek in art. Since consumers of art could now get their fix of realism from photographs or film, this freed artists in other art forms from their boundaries and allowed for more stylized and out-of-the-box creations. As someone who consumes art in today's world, I have definitely observed an emphasis of realism placed on film and other camera art forms that is not necessarily placed on other forms as heavily. Painters can create really abstract works that don't exactly r

This series of excerpts was very 'out there', and I found it kind of hard to read-- but I did like this one quote from the book talking about photography, and it reads,  "Every image is to be seen as an object and every object as an image. Hence photography ranks high in the order of surrealist creativity because it produces an image that is a reality of nature, namely, a hallucination that is also a fact." I'm not sure I like the idea that there could be a subjective ranking of "surrealist creativity" but I like how the author goes on to explain, and that makes it make more sense.

I like how in the preface there is a quote that says "most of us are searching-- consciously or unconsciously-- for a degree of internal balance and harmony between ourselves and the outside world, and if we happen to become aware" I think that it is so true. Another thing I thought was interesting was the "unseen" minutes aspect of it. Back then-- film was not how it is now.. it was not as easy to cut because they had to watch everything first and of course it took a slower time because it was not easily on a file in front of them.

Blink of an eye showed some of he struggle that film editors and directors went through. It really gave an insight on what actually went into creating a project like a film, there are different angles, methods and directions a project can go. The read also gave us an idea of the way editors took so much film and spliced it to become their vision, it made me appreciate the film making process even more.

This excerpts from Blink of the Eye is quite a multifaced and thought-provoking essay on film editing. With the starting question line of basic film editing question, “Why do cuts work?”, this intrigues every reader and even me to a wonderful rise of the aesthetics and concerns of cutting the film. There is so much to learn about continuity and discontinuity in film editing, reality, the criteria of a good cut. That is why this served as an emotional cue, digital editing and so much more. This is formally organized, and the short chapter is understandable. This offer a historical perspective particularly on the development of digital editing. The early part of this chapter offers an intriguing explanation on why film cuts work at all . The actor can use the blinks in every cuts of the film to select his in or out points in the film.  This excerpt is quite informative and interesting even just an opening spill to the rest of the world of film editing.  This chapter teaches every fi

Although this excerpt was very informative and interesting, it revolved heavily around certain films that I, and probably others, have not seen. That being said, it does make me want to see such films like Apocalypse Now and Ropes just to see what techniques were used to better understand this excerpt. I can't say I am surprise at the amount of film that had to be used since the time period was before digital editing was popular, but just putting it into perspective really makes you think about how easy we have it nowadays with everything being digital. However, personally, I still spend hours upon hours editing together anything I do; even if it is a minute long video - I can spend up to five hours editing it together. So, in a way, I see how time consuming editing really can be and how much time and effort these editors put into their films. As for the cuts/shadow cuts, I realized I make these cuts without even thinking about it or realizing I am doing so at the time, but I belie

In the Blink of An Eye made me realized that when I was spending couple hours editing my highlights, it wasn't even close to how much work these film makers have to put in. I thought me putting couple hours in my highlights videos was unnecessary and a waste of time but now I realized that I should've put more time into editing and learn more about editing. I didn't realize that there are so much more editing techniques then just the ones that I was using, after reading this, I feel like I can improve much much more than what I already know.

This reading really makes me appreciate the time, concentration and energy filmmakers use to have when making projects. Millions of feet of film seems unimaginable, yet these filmmakers found a way to get it done. Going through the steps of physically cutting and putting together film seems so taxing and repetitive and to top it off you could screw yourself if you make a mistake; seems very difficult and not something I could do. I am struggling to even make a film out of still pictures; much respect to anyone that has worked with film.

The part of the reading that really stuck out to me was the fact that when Apocalypse Now  was made, 1,250,000 feet of film was printed, but we only get too see a very small portion of it. I'm interested to know what criteria the editors had to determine what footage made the cut. Even film productions that shoot a lot less footage have a large ratio between seen and unseen footage. I understand the desire to shoot as much as possible in order to find the perfect take, but how does a filmmaker know when they've found it? How does an editor know? What if they are unable to find it? What happens to all the unseen footage? Is shooting tons of footage actually helpful or efficient? Also I never really thought about how accustomed we are to cuts in movies. I don't even think about them when they occur. I totally accept that as a logical reality when I watch a movie.

After reading Walter Murch's In The Blink of an Eye, learning how all these old films were put together and the effort to get them done amazes me. The fact they did all this cutting and shadow cuts without using a computer like I can can truly show dedication. Reading the part about how they used to cut was probably the most influential part to me as they had to remove a part of the film out and then forge the other two pieces back together to make it flow naturally again. Reading this excerpt has made me want to learn about the old forms of film editing and the whole process of it.

Welcome to Digital Video at Richland College! This blog will be where you will post your responses to some readings. Keep an eye on the syllabus and listen for prompts in class to read certain articles (posted to eCampus) and post your responses here as a new post (not in the comments of this post). These articles are provided to get us thinking about different aspects of working with images and to help us along the way. Think of this as a place to record your thoughts and share with one another before we discuss the articles in class. Looking forward to a great summer term with you all!