Losing my points of reference

[Ozzie Alfonso]

Originally Posted by Jim Andrada

"I have a question - if YOU were asked to write the same paper re digital and analog, what would you say (of course in 25 words or less ("fewer" for the grammar police amongst us))

I guess after re-reading this thread it isn't clear what aspects of analog vs digital is problematic with the students. In one sense, if you think of it narrowly, there is very little difference except in the tools used for editing, ie tape splicing vs NLE's. ..."

Jim,

The problem is not with digital or with analog; the problem is with the awareness that two technologies exist that yield much the same results, and one is rapidly being replaced by the other, and we are at a point where both exist side-by-side, at least for now. We used to make "dupes" or "dubs", now we "clone" or just don't bother to ask "...how many generations down is this copy?" Ansel Adams used to "expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights". Now we talk about HDR. A drop out was a drop out, now it's anything from a freeze frame to a pixillated frame.

Is any of this worth knowing anymore? Perhaps not, but I have to deal with the fact that our studio is a combination of analog cameras, digital monitors, we record digitally, and in analog. I have a choice - to ignore the differences or point them out. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift when it comes to media in general. A "TV show" is only one of many visual inputs available to us. The old college FM radio station I used to work at went from 3500 watts to 50k while I was there - boy were we happy of the extra reach! Now that station is heard around the world on the internet (wfuv.org)! So yes, our points of reference are rapidly changing, and we need to keep on top of it all, especially if we are passing our expertise to a young audience.

[Jim Andrada]

Yeah, "Expose for the shadows develop for the highlights." How many people would even know what he meant by "develop". My fear is that soon they won't know what highlights and shadows are either.

Our grand-nephews (10 and 14) spent a couple of weeks with us recently. The 10 year old had a little digital camera that he took everywhere. In the time they were here he took over 500 photos. I made some comment along the lines that if he had to send them out to be developed it would have been enormously expensive. He just looked at me like I'd suddenly grown a third ear in the middle of my forehead or something - he had no idea what I was talking about. Of course photos all just magically appear on the display in the back of the camera, right? Develop?????

The good - the economic disincentive to experiment is gone. The bad - the need for planning/conceptualizing before you push the button is - gonzo!

I remember walking down a little street in Tokyo many years ago and looking at the blank side of a commercial building where someone had carefully painted another Adams quote - "There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept."

He was wrong - there is something worse. A brilliant image of a nonexistent concept.

Let's face it - there was a lot of analog trash produced as well, it's just that the efficiencies of a digital workflow let us produce more trash with less effort, but don't really much speed up the production of real art.

Another one from AA - "Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop"

[Ozzie Alfonso]

Originally Posted by Yoshiko Okada

I wanted to ask a lot of professional if digital has possibility to make the latest art as valuable as paintings or other arts.... When people Krosawa's film, they are impressed with the beautiful scene in it though the raindrop is black actually. But film makers at the presnt day don't need China ink for a scene of the rain...So I want to ask you if digital can made more artistic films than analogue.Do you think digital end to all analogue films?
Will digital be able to develope films, or make just video games?

Yoshiko,

I have no doubt the new technologies will in time imitate and surpass the old ones. It's all a matter of time, but more importantly - it is a matter of visual subjectivity and creativity. Video games exist because the technology is there, it is cheap, and accessible. I am impressed with the kind of interactivity Wii is able to offer. People can even do real exercise with it - play tennis, or destroy and entire army. The possibilities are endless. Take the concept of 3D; in the 1950s when 3D as we know it first came out, it was nothing but a gimmick. It soon died a well-deserved death. Now with the help of CGI and polarized lenses there is a new 3D that comes close to real depth. I won't like 3D until it can be seen without spacial glasses, and the directors stop trying to impress with things coming at me.

So yes, in time there will be Vermeers that are created in iPhones or iPads. As I said earlier, storytelling will never die, and beauty runs along with it. It's not technology but us who do the real creation.

[Yoshiko Okada]

Thank you for your messages, Jim and Ozzie.
Jim, I was impressed with your Japanese.
And I'm very glad to read your valuable experience.

Well Ozzie, I don't know if Vermeer or Rembrandt wanted iPad.
But I can guess tendency of Japanese audience.
Of course a lot of Japanese enjoy playing video games recently.
But surprisingly most Japanese don't like Hollywood movies with CGI.
I guess one of reasons is that most CGI movies are just action or very violent movies.
Eventually a lot of Japanese audience returned to domestic movies from Hollywood movies.

One of the greatest director of animation in the world, Hayao Miyazaki made a new animation titled "Ponyo" with analogue three years ago after making some animations with CGI.
At that time so many audience in Japan supported his animation.
Unfortunately I didn't think the screenplay was very good, but I was impressed with wonderful images made by analogue.
I guess some directors still insist analogue in Japan.

Of course I also know all analogue films are not necessarily great.
And they will have a headache of money and time when they will make analogue films.
In fact most Japanese audience want more emotional and impressive films than thrilling or exciting movies.
I still wonder digital will make timeless movies or they will be able to have Zeitgeist.

[Jim Andrada]

Thank you Yoshiko. I really like Japan - I worked there for a long time and all of my consulting clients are in Japan - and my wife is from Nagoya.

And I also want to compliment you on your ability to express yourself clearly in English - I wish more Americans could do likewise;-}

Interesting thought - would Vermeer etc have liked an iPad? Would Bach have liked a synthesizer? My wife was a concert pianist and she absolutely hates electonic pianos and keyboards and thinks the sound is "heartless and cold" But she very much likes electronic harpsichords.because it is easy to switch from well-tempered to other temperaments and because you don't have to re-tune it every three minutes. In other words, the workflow offers advantages. Maybe like digital editing.

My guess would be that Picasso would have loved the iPad (or a PC) but someone like Jason Pollock would have hated it because his style was to become so physically involved with the medium.

And CGI - well it depends because after all there is more to CGI than bigger explosions and more disgusting aliens and more realistic blood and gore.

I think in fact Japan is one of the leading producers of digital animations, but very often they are 2-dimensional in character and very minimalist - even something silly but fun like Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. More or less digital Manga.

By the way, I'm not sure CGI is that much cheaper than using human actors - rendering requires so many thousands of hours of computer time. And some applications (like, for example, Massive that is used for crowd simulations using programmed "intelligent agents") were developed as part of the making of such films.

Anyhow, yes I think timeless movies can be made digitally. But I think it is important for digital artists to understand analog and vice versa.

At some level of course the distinction between analog and digital is invisible - for years and years now movies have been shot on film, digitized for editing, and re transferred to film for distribution. And at some level analog and digital are visibly different.

[Ozzie Alfonso]

Originally Posted by Yoshiko Okada

One of the greatest director of animation in the world, Hayao Miyazaki made a new animation titled "Ponyo" with analogue three years ago after making some animations with CGI.
At that time so many audience in Japan supported his animation.
Unfortunately I didn't think the screenplay was very good, but I was impressed with wonderful images made by analogue.

Yoshiko,
We have landed on common ground - "Ponyo". I won't say more, just send you to my son's blog:
Arabesques: Wonderful Movies You May Not Know About: Ponyo

My son introduced me to "Ponyo" and I introduced him to "After Life". Arabesques: Wonderful Movies You May Not Know About: After Life

Happy reading.

[Yoshiko Okada]

I want to say thank you so much for your messages again, Jim and Ozzie.

Jim, I was very glad to read your message again because I regreted that I have not written about your friend Ansel Adams.
I'm sure people can't forget them if they look at Adam's works once..
I wondered if his works were photographs really when I found them first.
They were so wonderful like paintings, and I thought they evokes black and white paintings in China or Japan.
I also wondered how he could take those photographs.
You seemed to tell me an answer.
So I appreciate your message about your experience with the great photographer.
I'd like you to tell me about your valuable experiences in the near futre if you don't mind.

And thank you for Ozzie, a blog of your son interested me very much..
I am very pleased about knowing American also like Japanese animation, "Ponyo".
Of course we can say it is one of digital animations if we mean a difference between digital and analogue is just using films or not..
But as I said most Japanese don't think it was a digital animation.
A reason is that Hayao Miyazaki and his staffs drew all of scenes by hands, as your son explained.
And whole scenes of this animations always moved.
It is not a technique of digital animations.
Personally I guess its technique is similar to old animations.
But I can't explain it well in English.
I searched for some websites about "Ponyo", but all of them were written in Japanese.
So if your son is still interested in "Ponyo", please tell him to read those websites, and let someone transrate them from Japanese to English.

Well, I think we had a nice discussion about films.
So are you teaching your students about analogue now, Ozzie?
Would you like to report me about your students again?.

[Jim Andrada]

Hi Yoshiko

I was just watching NHK today after dinner and something occurred to me about your comment that Japanese audiences don't like American CGI films so much.

Today's show on NHK was about history - specifically the battle between the Roman general Scipio and Hannibal in the battle of Zama in the Second Punic War (202BC)

What struck me was the way the battle was "re-anacted". Instead of an American style animation with everything happening in 3 second bursts, it was done on a tabletop with a few small wooden figures very much like chess pieces, and as the speaker described the action, people used long handled pieces of plastic (almost like the little rakes a roulette dealer in a casino might use to move the gambling chips) to move the pieces around on the table. It was actually very effective given the accompanying verbal description. Very calm and low tech, but very interesting. I even found myself thinking of how stories are told in Bunryaku or with old stick puppets. Anyhow, 1) I doubt there are many American channels - even on public TV that would devote so much time to something like this, or 2) would approach it in such a simple and yet effective way.

I really enjoy well done CGI. But I don't think I'm a fan of much current CGI animation because it seems that people use dramatic CGI effects instead of telling a story - and the more dramatic the effects and the faster the scene changes, the less drama in the result. In other words, so much CGI these days seems to be used so as to avoid having to actually tell a story.

Of course, I don't think many Americans these days have an attention span much longer than 3 seconds. I often watch my nephew watching TV - surfing between three or four channels at once and paying little real attention to any of them.

[Yoshiko Okada]

Hi Jim, thank you for your inetresting information.
I guess you like Japan really.
I also know NHK made many intriguing documentary fprograms with CGI.
And a lot of Japanese (most of them are men) enjoy using iPad or iPhone around me.

Recently I asked my friends if they think "Ponyo" was a digital animation or not.
Most of them answerd they didn't think it was just a disital movie because Miyazaki and his staffs drew all scenes by their hands.
Of course if people should call movies that use computer digital movies, "Ponyo" is also digital.
But most Japanese audience don't think so.
I found there is difference of view between American and Japanese.

One of my favourite sci-fi movies was "Blade Runner".
In it SFX never destroied the story nor the performances of actors.
Rutger Hauer played a robot (I think his performance was great), but his character was not mechanical.
Also in "Jaws", a derector didn't use much SFX.
He didn't make fright by an appearance of a shark.
Audience were frightened by an atmosphere of the shark during watching the movie.
I believe most Japanese don't like movies with much CGI, such as "The Incredible Hulk".

Jim you agreed with me that people should have studied analogue.
Probably some Japanese professionals still think so.
And I also think so.

[Jim Andrada]

Yoshiko-san

I think if you look at the original Disney cartoons and the newer ones you can see some doifferences in how rhe characters' faces look - in the old cartons there is nicer feeling about the areas around the corners of the mouths - in the olds of "skin". It looks so much more smooth and organic in the older movies and crisper and more artificial in the newer ones. The newer ones look "digital"

[Yoshiko Okada]

Jim san,

Absolutely I like early Mickey Mouse in a black and white movie better than recent Disney movies.
I don't know a reason why, but I love black and white movies or photographs very much.
So your memory of a practice about black and white balance was very intreresting for me.

Digital pictures never shows colours like Autochrome Lumiere.
My favourite digital creater is only Micheal Busselle, a British photographer.
I think his colours were very different from other pictures.
And his composition was excellent.
I guess he also learnt analogue technique.

[Bill Davis]

Just to throw a little more kindling on the fire...

I remember reading a story - I *think* it was in a 1960's issue of Harper's Magazine about a guy who had been granted a very rare opportunity to interview Pablo Picasso late in his life at his home in Spain. The magazine wanted to send a photographer, but the request was politely refused. Writer only. So the editor grabbed the camera bag from one of the magazine's photographers and told the writer to take it along so that the writer could ask to grab a couple of simple pictures - nothing fancy - to illustrate the story.

During the extended interview on Picasso's patio, the maestro agreed to the photo, and while the writer was opening and pulling out the camera a small strip of film fell out. It was celluloid strip containing a few frames at the end of a roll of black and white 35mm film that had been somehow left aside fully exposed. So the frames were fully blacked out.

Picasso noticed the scrap, picked it up, examined it for a while during the interview, and eventually took out his pocket knife and started playing around. When he eventually handed it back to the interviewer - Picasso had scratched into the emulsion a series of studies of Don Quixote on horseback. The article ran the images along with the story in a sidebar to the story.

Reading that I learned that Art is seldom about tools and materials. It's largely about VISION. And the studied ability to use whatever tools you have at hand in order to communicate ideas.

Analog vs Digital? Who cares. Color vs Black and white? WHO CARES. Make something that sparks the brain and makes the viewer's mind come alive with a story. Might be a new twist on a familiar one like that piece of film - or a totally new story. But sorry Mr. McLuhan - the medium IS NOT the message. The Message is the Message.

(leaving to visit the Harpers web site and see if the internet has any links to that long, long ago story...)

[Seth Bloombaum]

That is one pithy story! A very good reminder, thanks for that and do post back if you find it!

Well, for Picasso the medium wasn't the message. I think us mere mortals can aspire to works in which the message transcends the medium. Otherwise, in the day-to-day of mass communications McLuhan's point is very well taken IMHO.

But, my interpretation is that it is more related to Television Network distribution than it is to Analog or Digital. That is, "I saw it on TV; I read it in the Newspaper; I read it in Ebony magazine; my cousin told me; it's in the Bible" all raise different expectations about the message, and therefore do color the message and influence profoundly our perception and understanding of the message.

[Jim Andrada]

I think the choice of medium has to influence the perception of the message as Seth said. No, it isn't the message, but at the same time some media are better for some messages ie reinforce or negate the message. So then one begins to wonder to what extent the medium influences the creator/reporter of the message as much or more than the perceiver/recipient of the message. Would there even be some messages if the creation of the message hadn't been enabled by the medium?

Wow - we're certainly getting philosophical! What really strikes me is that this has become a rather substantial thread and we haven't once gotten into talking about which camera to use or which brand of tape is best. Amazing!

So what is the difference, if any between digital and analogue? At some level it's all to do with how to produce the final result, ie as Bill said, no difference to the viewer.but maybe at some level it really is different.Magnetic tape audio recordings are different in character from digital recordings and vinyl sounds different than CD . The way analogue media react to over-saturation/clipping is different from digital.

One of the great advantage of digital "processing" is that with appropriate computational trickery one can imitate the characteristics of analogue media quite well. But is it the same? At some level yes, at some level, no.

But does it matter?

[Bill Davis]

Just so I don't leave the thread hanging...

Searched the Harpers back catalog but couldn't find the Picasso story.

Damn. I probably got the magazine wrong.

Going forward with Google indexing everything in sight this will cease to be a problem. But right now, those dimly remembered images are lost in the mists....

Rats.