"More and more with experience, I'm understanding that director really is director - directing the energies of others, rather than so much creating or imposing"

-- Alexander Payne in Millimeter, October, 2004, p. 60.

I think there's a lot of truth to that statement and as someone who has come from a 'hands on' background in filmmaking (cinematography, editing) - I feel a little... weird... about directing. I like being involved in the design and doing stuff on set cause then I actually feel like I'm MAKING something as opposed to being a conductor.

To address the point about early cinematic authorship.. well (apparently) the assumption in American copyright is that the *operator* of the camera is the author of an image. I assume that comes from that 'early' cinematic time. Most directors - griffith is an exception - during that period seemed to be little more than foremen. The styles were often imposed by the studio e.g. Warner Brothers' grittiness. The DoPs usually with the Art Directors (!) designed the camera coverage. Writer's wrote 300 pages treatments which were meticulously detailed in action, emotion, and design... and the Producer was the unifying force. The Director just said 'action' and 'cut'.

Even on modern films, that STILL can happen. DoPs set coverage, actors give their own self-direction, writers give detailed 'business' in the script... and the director just kind of watches what happens.... Unless you -really- know whats happened on a movie, I think in most cases its a guess to what extent someone is an auteur. Mira Nair has made nine (I think) movies with the same DoP and its HIM (not her) that designs the coverage. To the casual observer, she has a consistent visual style - but its actually his!

What about Jack Fisk? He has done the mise en scene for everyone of Terrence Mallick's movies. Mallick's "consistent style" is heavily influenced by one of his regular, significant, collaborators. Based on my own experience, the more you work with someone the less and less you actually need to talk to each other about what you're doing. Its an organic creative relationship.

My beef with auteur theory is that it belittles all the wonderful creative influences of - lets face it - a spectrum of artistic geniuses.

But what about digital cinema? I don't think its a networked system. I think what digital cinema does - for better or worse - is enables directors to disassociate from the industralised cinematic process. You don't have to understand film and exposure to shoot something. You don't have to know how to cut on a steenbeck or how to drive an Avid Symphony to cut something. As a Director you can be MORE of a "hands on" artist - MORE involved in a creative process than being mere talker. Doesn't mean its a good thing, or produces better art, but you can do it far more easily than it was when shooting film.

(This was a response to an ongoing discussion over at Digital Poetics regarding auteurism and 'real time cinema' e.g. surveillance footage etc.)

Australian movies = the suck

There's no doubt we need government support. Our population isn't big enough to support a local industry without some form of subsidy. But we have to earn that right by making movies that people want to see - whether it's a big commercial movie or a small arthouse or niche-audience film.

-- Bill Bennett in "Earth Calling Film backers"

While I'm a little skeptical about Bill's taste in mainstream films (Cut, Deck Dogz), he IS right that we need to make films people want to see... and we need to do it NOW. Why? Because people are already refusing to see potentially good films because they're Australian. The longer you go without producing something worth seeing - a real watercooler 'Have you see Willis' latest? FUCK. You need to. Its amazing!!!!' cultural moment - the more ingrained the " Australian movies = the suck " mentality will become and thus the harder we'll have to work to overcome it... and its a we. Once upon a time, George Miller said "there is nothing wrong with the Australian film industry a good film can't fix". I'm afraid in 2005 the situation is that "there is nothing wrong with the Australian film industry that a whole succession of great films can't fix".

I've written about this before - I think we should be ashamed that we have failed our audiences. If no one likes what you're making then odds are you aren't an artistic genius but rather you're a talentless hack. Our film industry is one talentless hack per se.

I’m unashamedly biased towards Macs, but I don’t have a problem with that. Its like preferring a good single-malt whisky and being called biased because you don’t like Johnny Walker Red Label. Windows is the house scotch of the computer world, except they don’t make a Gold or Blue label.

... and I think Linux probably represents all the Islay single malts. Those who drink thhem swear by them - and have their own preference of Islay malt - but not many people are willing to deal with it.

In which case, OS X is probably Talisker. An Islay-like single malt that isn't quite as obscure or complex but still packs a punch.

Wow. I just had three flashes of inspiration for the new music video. I've been dry for weeks then WHACK WHACK WHACK. And y'know what inspired it? Thinking about the clip's metanarrative. For me - the way I'm connecting to it - is that the villian is like a film director. He's someone who doesn't DO anything himself, but has an army of people to do it for him (and it MUST be a him) yet he still thinks of himsefl as an artist. But if you know longer actually make the artifacts with your bare hands, can you really call yourself an artist? Or are you merely what Gore Vidal would describe as a hustler-plagarist?

Quickly, the ideas were:

1. A scene which I scrapped earlier for having no importance needs to be reinserted, otherwise we won't appreciate that Bossman does NOTHING himself... he's like a conductor... supervising... approving... but not DOING.

2. One of his assistant's is going to be filming him using an old camera (I'm worried about this only because it might place the film in a set period). This comes from an old story about Jerry Bruckenheimer and one of the guys shooting behind the scenes footage. He was basically told that whenever the big J was on set to film him NOT the action (even if it involved aerial stuntwork). I think its a very curious thing when the artist becomes more important than the art. I can always intercut the actual telecined handcranked 16mm footage if I want.

3. The Richman purchasing the living sculpture can be told in two shots. Want narrative compression? Dot on glass (CU). OTS from behind richman onto glass-cage. Then CU on Richman smiling. You can probably do without the OTS in the middle, but I feel spatial relationships are VERY important in telling stories. I also like ending scenes with CUs :)

Of course, for the plenty of you who've never read the treatment this will make little sense. Consider it a teaser also :)

I've been working on a response to a question raised by a blog called Digital Poetics:

Does the digital camera evoke more "realistic" or naturalistic performances from actors, who are accustomed to home video cameras in private life? . . . To take this a step further: does the shape of the performance correlate to the shape of the camera?

Its taking much longer than expected because I kind of detour into a rant about the importance of accuracy when making grand generalisations about art movements (the author of said blog asserted that Russian Ark was shot " on DV". Having been involved heavily in academia (I have two honours degrees!), I am skeptical of academics focusing so much on their theory that they overlook, deliberately or otherwise, the actual reality*. Sometimes this is just an amusing mistake, my Cyberlaw tutor claimed that Netscape invented the WWW, in other times I consider it dangerously mislead (equating a largescale HD production as being in the same 'creative vein' as a small scale DV production).

... and then getting into the meat of the issue (construction of "naturalistic" performance) is quite involved itself.

Anyway... I've set myself somewhat of a task. When I finish it, I'll post it. Consider this a teaser.

* Although, I admit, sometimes their inaccuracy becomes an excuse to not engage with their ideas. Digital Poetics, for its few flaws (particularly when assessing interactivity in cinema), is a blog worth reading. The ideas are challenging and intriguing even if you don't agree with them. Which is what academia should be doing.