Helix Studios in collaboration with Matt Lambert – Flower (2017)
(The link for the title connects directly to the clip. The comments below refer more to the video than the above stills.)
Okay, so the trend where image-makers place some object super close to the camera so that it blocks part of the scene but is so completely out of focus that you can’t tell what it is–I guess it’s supposed to contribute a fly-on-the-wall immediacy?– is really super irksome to me.
Moving beyond that: I don’t understand 90% of the composition choices in this video. Don’t get me wrong it looks reasonably good–a broad dynamic range between shadows and highlights, naturalistic color fidelity and an attention to enhancing light to set the tone for scenes. (Erika Lust could learn a fuck tonne from this–although admittedly her compositions tend to be far more thoughtful.)
I do like the attention to sound design–the way heavy breathing was recorded and mixed is awesome. I don’t like the unnecessary fragmentation–I think it’s supposed to be diegetic; I think the scenes that don’t happen at the party, in the bedroom (the night exteriors) represent fantasy that one of the participants in the foursome is having. (Formally though that doesn’t work since all the participants are featured more or less equally, there’s no way for the viewer to identify who is experiencing the fantasy.)
This clip also ties into something else I’ve been realizing recently: visually differentiating between celluloid and digital. It’s a bit like the question of whether a zebra is black with white stripes or white with black stripes.
The emulsion on a film strip is exposed to light, creating a photochemical reaction where darker areas appear brighter (on the negative) and brighter areas appear darker. Essentially what the emulsion does is burn away where things are brightest–leaving only a thin layer of textured residue, if any, behind. Similarly, where things are dark, the emulsion experiences less of a photochemical reaction, leaving more of the emulsion in place.
When you pass light through the film strip the places where there are still emulsion block light passing through–thus looking at the film strip it appears that light and dark are reversed. But when you shine light through the image onto a sheet of photo sensitive paper, light shining through the thinner patches of emulsion appears brighter than the darker areas where the emulsion blocks light passing through the film. (Also, because most modern film emulsions utilize some sort of layering in their manufacture, an expertly exposed frame possesses a dimensionality in the grain structure formation that if one is an astute printer, can actually contribute a nearly impossible depth to the printed image.)
Or, to be succinct–something at which I am almost always abyssmal: photography studies light by documenting shadows.
In digital formats, you have 255 gradiations between your brightest highlight and darkest shadows. Thus, when you are shooting any scene, you are essentially recording the available light by placing it into whatever cubby hole between 0 and 255 the pixel on the sensor deems the light to be.
As such, digital is a record of luminosity (light).
Back to the zebra analogy: A simple way to discern celluloid from digital is to ask: whether black dominates or whether white dominates–the former is a indication of film, the latter indicates digital. (The exception to this is Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin.)
The above video is a great example of highlights being dominant because that vast majority of the scenes are brightly backlit. But, if you are interested–and keep in mind that it’s less clear watching a digital version of something as opposed to going to a screening where film is projected–compare this video with Blade Runner and my point will become astonishingly clear to you.
Acetylene Eyes 