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...

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...