DV Info Net - The art of framing.

There is NO rule that says if you drive a car with a manual gearbox and you change down from 4th to 1st while travelling at 50 miles an hour that that is a bad thing. But DON'T try it!

There is NO rule that says placing your head 1" away from the "Tee-ed" golf ball as your friend swings the "iron" is a bad thing. But DON'T try it!

There is NO rule that says making a device from plywood, string and bits from a bicycle to make a lighter than air machine is a bad thing. But DON'T try it!

There is NO rule that says thinking about mass as being pure energy is a bad thing. But DON'T try it!

My point is . . . we - I'll speak for west-world here - are conditioned by environment/nuture and genes/nature to what we know about stuff in a west-world way. We then absorb many MANY influences as we wake up in the morning and pile up on these over the decades. Our visual and audio dictionaries and lexicons are being added to, updated and reassessed each and every moment of the day - waking or sleeping. To "kick-against" these, for want of a better phrase, WITHOUT the knowledge that we are sentient beings, capable of the most wonderful abilities and thoughts, would be making video with 12 arms tied behind our backs. BUT . . there is always a "but" . .. knowing that that which we know and understand, and THEN "contrive" to invite/seduce a viewer along a journey of experience through our videos USING and employing these acquired awareness's and purposefully "twist" those acquired realities through ( deep breath!) :

A) Having a nose poke out beyond a face line

B) Having the eyes 1/8 the way up the screen

C) Having the goodie coming IN from the right

D) Employing a rule of 1/5s! ( hey? just WHERE does Ro'3 fit with 16:9? Discuss . . lol!)

( breath out . . )

.. is what we are about. When it is done without that intelligence, it is all too obvious. However . . and there is always an "however" . . where is experimentation? Where is the opportunity to play? Just where is that adolescent in me pushing the boundaries and wanting to skate board with a camera and a skeletal frame of 56?

If you got this far, thank you. My point is this: Knowing how to employ whatever means to stun/engage/in-passion/instruct/tickle/excite/question is what our craft is about. NOT being conscious/knowing and downright obdurate to these matters means missing out on just soooo much!

But please don't get me started on the DaDa-ists:

"Duchamp?"

"Oh, thanks so much, but no the quails eggs filled me up?"

And John Cage? You think he knows the rules?

Just found this on the web. Kinda brings it "full oval":

--At a Dada exhibition in Dusseldorf, I was impressed that though Schwitters and Picabia and the others had all become artists with the passing of time, Duchamp's work remained unacceptable as art.

--John Cage, Interview, 1973

Oh, don't yah just want to . . . . . . ?

Anybody else thought that that musician's surname was so, so, so OPPOSITE?? Appreciate the rules; know where you/I stand with them and employ those same structures to enhance.

"Great thread!"

" . .. Eh, . . not so much?"

Cheers peeps!

Grazie