User:Janis

How the visual representation of dreams has changed due to new technological possibilities in moving images? How media shapes our perception?

+ Technologically

+ Aesthetic complexity

+ Viewers’ perception

How to visualize the shift between a dream and reality?

What kind of technological and aesthetic solutions can be used?

• changes in the content area
• changes of objects in the space
• changes of perspective
• changes of light
• double exposure, overlying images
• slow shutter, motion
• infinite zoom
• dolly zoom
• green screen
• animation
• 2.5 dimension
• 3D

Setting up the sub questions

1)What kind of research material am I analyzing? 2)What are the visual tricks that I am going to examine and create a dictionary of? 3)How are the tricks and technology improved during the time?

WHAT?

My research is praxis and theory based. I am writing a description about my work process and development of it. During this trimester I am interested to explore the vocabulary of visual tricks that are used in moving images to make somebody believe that they are looking into a dream. Cinema is a visual language that shapes our perception of reality and fantasy, basically everything what is around us and also inside us. However, film only presents the illusion of the reality. It is very important to know the conceptual tools of visual story telling to represent ideas and stories. The shift between reality and a dream can be interpreted very differently but representation of it is more or less limited by cinematographic tools. The sublanguages of cinema are: the lens, visual design, composition, lighting, continuity, image control, movement, and point of view. It is a life long learning process to examine all of them in every detail that’s why cinematographers choose subjectively the ones that are more convenient and interesting for them to represent an idea. All the techniques and methods of filmmaking are adding layers of meanings to the content. In my case the content are dreams that are sort of our illusion already.

WHY?

It is interesting to find out how technology and tricks in moving images have been used to make the viewer believe that the displayed content is a dream. Dream world is subjective for everybody but cinema has united the way, how do we interpret the shift from reality to the dream world with technical tools. We perceive the world in a film fundamentally different comparing to our eye perception. What about the reality of dreams?

HOW?

For to understand how cinema makes us think I will create a dictionary of the visual tricks and tools. I am analyzing concrete movies that I have chosen in an time based way for to have the possibility to compare specific visualizations of dreams from 1930s 1960s and 2000s. In the practical part I am testing the tricks with my camera. Finally, I would like to collect single photographs or maybe make a series whose content will be inspired from the reality shift to a dream.

Brown B., Cinematography: theory and practice. Image making for cinematographers and directors. Second Edition, 2012 Oxford

Research inspirations

Moving images:

Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali (1929) http://vimeo.com/25076950

Blood Of A Poet by Jean Cocteau (1930) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeldyzWF6zQ&feature=related

Spellbound by Alfred Hitchcock (1945) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeldyzWF6zQ&feature=related 0:49-3:13

Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock (1958) http://vimeo.com/14854451 5:40 - 7:00

Manchurian candidate by John Frankenheimer (1962) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkP_eYtrF6I

Orange photo messaging ad by Chris Cunningham (2003) http://www.timetrack.com/ttsw_orange.html

Cashback by Sean Ellis (2006)

Sleeping soldiers by Tim Hetherington (2007/2008) http://vimeo.com/18395855

Inception by Christopher Nolan (2010)