read + respond

Live Cinema: language and elements, Mia Makela.
Media Lab, Helsinki University of Art and Design
April 2006

The most interesting section of this reading for me was 4.4 Composition.
I have viewed live cinema (until now) as pure output- a circumstantial experience of layers of video and animation against audio; I hadn't considered it for its many layers of input and that there are structures to these inputs. Even though Live Cinema can appear as though it has been freed from all structure- it has in fact been liberated from linear coordination but still holds an inherent framework that binds these pieces of input footage together (be it audio- or visual- governed).

"As live cinema artists tend to use various clips or visual layers simultaneously, mixing them
together is similar to musical composition, in which various instruments are meant to be
played together, in different combination of rhythms, volumes and patterns. Abstract visuals
could be better analyzed as if they were music, including their compositional strengths and
weaknesses, rhythmic structure, beauty etc...Unfortunately, we are not used to listening to
visuals but rather to watching them attentively, looking for a story." p60

The point I'm trying to make is that unlike [most] traditional film, the binding structure of a Live Cinema presentation does not have to be narrative but can be its almost musical qualities such as rhythm, intensity and hierarchy.

How this will affect my project is I wish to analyse the footage samples I'll have in terms of their structure: rhythm/flow, intensity, speed, brightness, position, clarity; perhaps even create a manuscript language for them, so that whilst their live mixing may be improvisational, it can be a better crafted collaboration of imagery.