Just something to think/debate about.
Walter Murch is a famous film editor who came up with 6 guidelines for deciding when to make a cut in a film. I was thinking his guidelines could be re-worked for any artistic endeavour, including composing a photograph or deciding how to vote on one ;-P
His main idea is to preserve above all else the emotion of the scene/image - even if this means breaking all the technical rules. And his first 3 guidelines are non-technical.
Here is the text from his book:
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"The ideal cut (for me) is the one that satisfies all the folowing six criteria at once.
1. It is true to the emotion of the moment.
2. It advances the story.
3. It occurs at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and 'right'
4. It acknowledges what you might call 'eye-trace'- the concern with the location and movement of the audiences' focus of interest within the frame
5. It respects 'planarity'- the grammer of three dimensions transposed by photography to two.
6. It respects the three dimensional continuity of the actual space (where people are in relation to one another).
Emotion, at the top of the list, is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs. If you find you have to sacrifice certain of those six things to make a cut, sacrifice your way up, item by item, from the bottom.
For instance, if you are considering a range of possible edits for a particular moment in the film, and you find that there is one cut that gives the right emotion and moves the story forward, and is rythmically satisfying, and respects the eye-trace and planarity, BUT fails to preserve the continuity of three dimensional space, then by all means, that is the cut you should make."
So re-working the rules for photography - you'd preserve these attributes - over all others ...
1. It is true to the emotion of the moment (or the challenge ;-p)
2. It tells a story / has context
3. It feels interesting and 'right'
... Then all the other normal "technical" rules
Message edited by author 2003-07-07 21:37:53. |
