Re: Why film is cool

From: Jack Sargeant (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Mar 06 2006 - 07:46:48 PST


>
> I think nobody mentioned so far, that film is also a special SOCIAL
> experience. You sit in a dark room with certain people to share an
> experience with your senses and your intellect, which is unique to
> other media. Digital media does not need that space, and it mostly
> feels odd to sit in a dark, calm space to watch video. Why not go out,
> fetch a coffee and a snack and come back, why not rewind a bit if you
> missed something while talking to your neighbour? What I mean is,
> video and other digital media has a different social mind-set, and it
> might be that setting up a dark room for a VIDEO screening really is
> the nostalgic setting that some people are talking about, here.
> (Setting up a "home theatre" like it is now being promoted in all the
> media departments of department stores picks up on the same nostalgia,
> I feel).
>

in terms of an audience watching a projected image the format is
largely irrelevant, what would be truly sad would be if people stopped
watching work together at the cinema socially and only watched it at
home.

while i personally love film it strikes me that so many films are
actually made on video or in the digital realm (I think somebody
mentioned Collateral but also 'epic films' like Lord of the Rings and
Harry Potter and so on are all dependent on computer generated images)
that at this point it's largely unimportant unless you are working in
the industry or with a format for aesthetic reasons.

jack

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