Steam Age Digital

[carllooper]

Tarrantino says he doesn't like digital.

He describes film in terms of a magic that occurs in film, where the motion is not in the film itself (because it's a set of otherwise still images) but as if to suggest that digital was somehow different, as if digital did not use the same magic. It may very well be that what he is referring to is the motion based compression that occurs in the digital distribution pipeline: that what we see on the screen is synthesised from optical flow encoded data (whether camera encoded or transfer encoded: MPEG, H.264 etc).

However this argument (against digital) implies that film, in terms of motion, was somehow not digital.

But this is entirely incorrect. In the time domain film is fundamentally digital. It is only in the spatial domain that film is not (is analog).

Film decomposes motion/time into discrete images. This is the very definition of digital - this discretisation. The sprocket holes in a film are a digital signal, albeit a steam age version of such. In other words Tarrantino's "magic" of film is fundamentally digital in nature. The very thing he loves about film is precisely it's digital component.

If anything it is the digital delivery pipeline that introduces something approaching analog motion/time - albeit a digitally synthesised version of such. The pioneers of motion picture film couldn't work out a way to encode motion/time images in an analog way. They invented digital methods instead (discretised images, sprocket holes). Today, we now have a way of, if only synthetically, using a form of analog motion/time, and if only to facilitate compression of motion pictures.

So basically Tarrantino doesn't know what he's talking about in this domain. Or what he is really saying is that it's not the digital he doesn't like, but the analog.

But otherwise he makes great films and I love his work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BON9Ksn1PqI

[S8 Booster]

Digitally instructed analogly sampled, film that is.....;)....?

Remember those punch hole paper strip reels of those early "computas" or "calculatas"?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_tape

Seen the interview with Tarantino before and although his intentions were good his arguments were like fishing wild in a rapidly sinking row boat, fish rod without a line hand and a paddle in the other.

Ive seen some of his work and although i can understand why he gets some recognition for his work it in my view lack totally the finesse of for example Fassbinder.

More on digalog sampling from Jan Luc Godard:

Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second.

All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.
Journal entry, May 16, 1991.

And even more or less quotes on film from him here:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Godard

Shoot.....;)

[etimh]

He's referring to what happens as we process projected film information vs. projected digital information. The magic that he is referring to occurs in your body and in your brain.

Tim

[carllooper]

He's referring to what happens as we process projected film information vs. projected digital information. The magic that he is referring to occurs in your body and in your brain. Tim

I think this is very true, however the magic (which occurs in the brain), is the same magic (same brain) whether the medium is film or digital. The brain infers (sees) movement where there is no movement - nothing but a succession of otherwise still images (be they film images or digital ones).

The difference between film and digital exists on a number of very diverse levels, but Tarrantino's distinction (or attempt at such) represents what is the least different between film and digital: what they share in common. I think he was caught off guard and ended up digging himself into a hole. I'm sure he realises, in retrospect, how silly he was at that particular juncture. The defense of film is a difficult subject. Perhaps if he were more poetic rather than attempting a technical reason it might have been a better moment for him.

Nevertheless I think Tarrantino's films are excellent. If he's not up there with Goddard or Fassbinder, then he's certainly on some other cloud at the same altitude.

Carl

[carllooper]

Nice.

[etimh]

...however the magic (which occurs in the brain), is the same magic (same brain) whether the medium is film or digital. The brain infers (sees) movement where there is no movement - nothing but a succession of otherwise still images (be they film images or digital ones).

Not even going into the other unique qualities of film that involve its information density and the quality of light when being pushed through a real physical medium, a lot of the experience of film really has to do with its projection. When watching projected film, you are processing information that is essentially presented to you as variances in light determined by a mechanical apparatus that involves individual still images advanced and interrupted by the mechanism of a shutter (image, black, image, black, etc. etc.). While there continues to be debate exactly how the human eyes and brain process this unique presentation of visual information, there is no doubt that it entails a very particular kind of physiological and psychological "work" on the part of the human organism to achieve, most notably for example, the illusion of movement.

Digital projection does not present visual information in the same way--the variances in light are "streamed" to your system in an uninterrupted flow of stimuli that lacks the alternating information inherent in the working of the mechanical apparatus. Of course there are individual frames in the digital media that can be accessed via the media player, but those "frames" are not being presented in digital projection--pictures only change due to the variation in the individual pixels in the projected image. This is recognized as being a much more phenomenologically "passive" experience for both the ocular system and cognitive processing. So while the "magic" of film is certainly dependent on it nature as physical film, and the apparatus by which it is presented, the magic ultimately happens in the human body and mind.

Tarantino might not have been expressing this as lucidly as possible, but that is part of what I've taken from that particular bit of his.

Tim

[carllooper]

Digital projection does not present visual information in the same way--the variances in light are "streamed" to your system in an uninterrupted flow of stimuli that lacks the alternating information inherent in the working of the mechanical apparatus. m

I think I agree with you. The digital pipeline performs a kind of predigestion of the information. It seeks to convert a fundamentally digital movement/time (whether film source or digital source) into an analog version of such, as "an uninterrupted flow of stimuli". Film projection, on the other hand, actually keeps the motion/time component of film in the digital domain - as a discontinuous signal - leaving the brain to perform the final digital to analog conversion (if that is what the brain does indeed do - but who knows).

I'm pretty sure, too, that this is what Tarrantino means.

The issue for me was ultimately one of semantics - that if a discontinuous signal (film projection) is a value, then it's actually the digital that is being valued. But Tarrantino was attempting an argument against the digital, through an argument against a particular form of digital (digital recording/projection), but ended up assigning a value to what is the fundamental meaning of the digital. You can almost see him realising that as he spoke - that the digital isn't actually the problem.

The digital has existed in many forms throughout history. It's current electronic form is no more a part of it's definition than paper tape, mechanical gears, or beads on an abacus. The digital is ultimately about numbers (the digit) irregardless of the medium used. Film, on the other hand (I'd argue) maintains a relation to both.

[etimh]

Ah, I see what you're getting at. The digital analogy in the binary "image/dark" alternation. Interesting, and I do understand what you're saying about Tarantino's assertions. Still, the "magic" remains mysterious, as I think you'd agree.

Tim