From: Anna Biller (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Jul 02 2006 - 08:47:22 PDT
Nobody ever said that people should or would ever refer to a feature
motion picture as a video. But people are suggesting that one might
want to qualify the word "film" by saying it's a film shot on video or
an HD film or an HD movie. What we're seeking is clarity, not more
confusion. You're the one conflating terms. If you mean film, you
should say film. If you mean HD movie, you should say HD movie.
Sundance doesn't say she made a video, it says she shot her film on
video. But they do think it's important to make the distinction.
If you were shooting an HD movie, you would probably not want people to
think it was a quicktime movie. And if there was a festival where
people were mostly showing quicktime movies on their laptops, you might
want people to know that yours was an HD movie that was being projected
on a video projector. And if you were accepted to a festival where they
promised to show your HD movie but ended up screening it on a laptop as
a quicktime movie, you might be disappointed. And if the festival
directors had not considered the difference and had to be educated that
there was a difference, you might not respect that festival anymore. I
am not making value judgments about what's a better or worse format, I
am just suggesting that vague language may not suit the needs of the
filmmaking community.
On Jul 2, 2006, at 8:15 AM, Mitsu Hadeishi wrote:
>> I don't think video has to have that connotation. People usually refer
>> to HD video as HD, which makes people know that it's not low quality
>> video. Festivals themselves refer to works they screen which are on
>> video. Sundance gives percentages of how many films they screen each
>> year which were shot on video. They don't seem to think it's
>> ridiculous
>> to call Miranda July's work a video. Because they are not making a
>> value judgment of film or video, they are just describing what it is
>> they're showing.
>
> Again, you're conflating two things --- obviously people will say
> something
> like "this was shot on film" or "it was shot on HD" but no one says
> "Miranda
> July's video" to refer to her movie. In other words, context makes
> the use
> of the word clear: if you're specifically referring to format, people
> will
> say it was produced with or shot on HD or film, but if you're talking
> about
> the work as a singular noun, you don't say "it's a video" when
> referring to
> HD work.
>
> Nobody at Sundance or Cannes or anywhere else referred to Miranda's
> movie
> as "a video", or any other movie shot on HD as "a video" -- in rare
> cases
> slomeone might say it was presented as an "HD video" but that's it.
> To call
> it a "video" would obviously have confused people, notwithstanding the
> protestations of people on this list --- they would have assumed that
> you
> meant it was an SD video. In fact, you can find numerous references to
> her "film" --- which is, as should be obvious to anyone paying
> attention,
> common for most other HD features.
>
> I mean, come on --- this is just obvious stuff. How can there be a
> debate
> about what is common usage? Just look out there and read and see.
> Google "Miranda July filmmaker". Try to find anybody calling an HD
> production "a video" out there in the world --- it just doesn't happen.
>
> Again --- note that I am not making an argument about whether this is
> good or
> bad (though I think it's perfectly fine) --- I am however pointing out
> the
> simple fact that this is how these words are used.
>
> Mitsu
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
Anna Biller Productions
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Office and Fax: (323) 953-0507
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.