The Black Maria: Film Studio, Film Technology (Cinema and the History of Technology)
Published in History and Technology, 2011
Download (.pdf) Technology and the GPO Film Unit
In Scott Anthony and James Mansell (eds.), 'The Projection of Britain: A History of the GPO Film Unit', Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan (2011), pp. 188-198.
This chapter considers the unique approach to technology taken by John Grierson's GPO Film Unit. The handheld... more This chapter considers the unique approach to technology taken by John Grierson's GPO Film Unit. The handheld Newman-Sinclair camera, the Visatone-Marconi sound system, colour processes that were either experimental or heavily modified from the form in which they were initially marketed and distirbution and exhibition on 16mm were all innovations that were developed by this group of filmmakers. The chapter argues that this was primarily a case of invention (or, strictly speaking, adaptation) being the child of economic necessity, but that the influence of these technologies on the resulting films has all too often been dismissed by earlier writers as simply restrictive. In conlcusion, I suggest that these technologies presented the GPO's filmmakers with opportunities as well as constraints.
The State of the Archive
In 'Archive Zones', no. 81 (Spring 2012), pp. 33-34.
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at... more This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at a primarily non-academic readership of archivists, footage researchers and technicians. It discusses the technological landscape facing audiovisual archives, and argues that we are currently in the middle of a 'digitisation gold rush', prompted in part by the impending obsolescence of photographic film.
The tableau, film and the ‘ground’ of technological struggle: the case of D.W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat and silent film.
Paper presented to World Cinema Now Conference
Second Biennial Conference from the Research Unit in Film Culture and Theory, Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Australia, September 27-29, 2011.
This paper uses the concept of the tableau – the frozen configuration of gestures – as a means of tracing the figural... more This paper uses the concept of the tableau – the frozen configuration of gestures – as a means of tracing the figural in specific films in terms of their openness to absolute possibility or ‘any-space-whatever’ (Deleuze, Cinema I, p. 109). D. N. Rodowick has characterised the figural as ‘a distinct mutation in the character of contemporary forms of representation, information, communication’ (Reading the Figural, p. 49). By following this lead, and through consideration of the work of Brenez, Lyotard, Benjamin and others, I make use of the figural and the tableau to show how D. W. Griffith’s Corner in Wheat(1909) can be read as part of an historically transforming configuration of images, revealing tensions between competing modes of dramatic presentation on the horizon of developing film and audiovisual technologies (in this case between stage melodrama and the emerging visual autonomy of the silent film image). My aim is to develop an historical grasp of film’s possibility through struggle between emerging and fading technologies marked on the film text itself. The paper points to a broader project of genealogical mapping of the film image in terms of precise analysis of figurations ‘grounded’ within films themselves, but drawn transversally across film history and inflected into ‘contextual’ issues of industrial, technological, ideological and social change. n Wheat
The emergence of visual objects in space–time
Co-authored with M. Kubovy; published in PNAS 2000
It is natural to think that in perceiving dynamic scenes, vision takes a series of snapshots. Motion perception can... more It is natural to think that in perceiving dynamic scenes, vision takes a series of snapshots. Motion perception can ensue when the snapshots are different. The snapshot metaphor suggests two questions: (i) How does the visual system put together elements within each snapshot to form objects? This is the spatial grouping problem. (ii) When the snapshots are different, how does the visual system know which element in one snapshot corresponds to which element in the next? This is the temporal grouping problem. The snapshot metaphor is a caricature of the dominant model in the field—the sequential model—according to which spatial and temporal grouping are independent. The model we propose here is an interactive model, according to which the two grouping mechanisms are not separable. Currently, the experiments that support the interactive model are not conclusive because they use stimuli that are excessively specialized. To overcome this weakness, we created a new type of stimulus—spatiotemporal dot lattices—which allow us to independently manipulate the strength of spatial and temporal groupings. For these stimuli, sequential models make one fundamental assumption: if the spatial configuration of the stimulus remains constant, the perception of spatial grouping cannot be affected by manipulations of the temporal configuration of the stimulus. Our data are inconsistent with this assumption.
Buy gold or granite optical discs for longest life ... or destroy a cheap version in a car on a hot, sunny day
'Archive Zones', no. 74 (Summer 2010), p. 14.
This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at... more This article, published in the house journal of the Federation of Commercial Audiovisual Libraries (FOCAL) is aimed at a primarily non-academic readership of archivists, footage researchers and technicians. It outlines some of the issues and challenges involved in preserving optical disc media (principally CDs, DVDs and BDs).
A Real Brake on Progress? Moving Image Technology in the Time of Mitchell and Kenyon
In Vanessa Toulmin, Simon Popple & Patrick Russell (eds.), The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon: Edwardian Britain on Film, London, British Film Institute (2004), pp. 21-30.
This book was produced to mark the rediscovery and restoration of a collection of 800 early films from the basement of... more This book was produced to mark the rediscovery and restoration of a collection of 800 early films from the basement of a shop in north-west England. The short actuality films were made between 1898 and 1911. The book is an edited collection of introductory essays, each intended to explore the significance of the collection to the history of film and as primary source material in the wider study of social and cultural history. My essay discusses the camera, lab and projection technology used in their production, and explains how its strengths and limitations influenced the form and content of the finished films.
Have Digital Technologies Reopened the Lindgren/Langlois Debate?
In 'Spectator' (ISSN 1051-0230), vol. 27, no. 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 10-20.
This essay examines the increasing use of digital imaging technologies by film archives to provide access to their... more This essay examines the increasing use of digital imaging technologies by film archives to provide access to their holdings. It argues that two distinct forms of this technology are emerging: low quality, online access (as epitomised, for example, by video sharing sites such as YouTube and Google Video) and high quality offline media, principally the DVD and its higher resolution successors. In conclusion, I suggest that archivists are increasingly having to battle the myth that vast quantities of footage can be made available at little or no cost using digital media, and that they remove the need for long-term preservation. By comparing the current debates over the use of digital technologies by archives with the Lindgren/Langlois debate of the 1950s and '60s, I hope to show that the issue of whether preservation or access should take priority when their needs conflict is as relevant now as it was then.
De Forest Phonofilms: A Reappraisal
In 'Early Popular Visual Culture', vol. 4, no. 3 (November 2006), pp. 273-284.
This article argues that existing research on the film industry's conversion to sound largely overlooks the... more This article argues that existing research on the film industry's conversion to sound largely overlooks the contribution of Lee de Forest and the 'Phonofilm' system. Informed by research in De Forest's personal archive, it suggests that to a certain extent, the development and commercial exploitation of De Forest's technology contradicts one of the principal implicit assumptions made by historians of this period, that when technology became available which fulfilled certain economic and cultural criteria, its widespread adoption quickly and inevitably followed. Rather, it was De Forest's refusal to conform to established and increasingly dominant business models that ensured Phonofilm's failure, even if the technology itself was very similar to that used by the major Hollywood studios in the eventual wholesale conversion.
The Film Industry's Conversion From Nitrate to Safety Film In the Late 1940s: A Discussion of the Reasons and Consequences
In Roger Smither and Catherine Surowiec (eds.), This Film is Dangerous: A Celebration of Nitrate Film, Brussels, FIAF (2002), pp. 202-212.
This chapter investigates the circumstances of the technical research and development which led to cellulose... more This chapter investigates the circumstances of the technical research and development which led to cellulose triacetate film base superseding nitrate in the professional film industry. Citing evidence in hitherto overlooked files in the British Government's archives, I argue that the seizure of equipment and materials in Allied-occupied Germany may have been the catalyst. If so, this suggests that the Nazis may have made more progress in the development of safety film technology than had previously been thought.
Electronic Enlightenment or the Digital Dark Age? Anticipating Film in an Age Without Film
'Quarterly Review of Film and Video', vol. 26, no. 5 (October 2009), pp. 415-424.
This essay discusses the impact on archivists and the academy of the impending obsolescence of photochemical media a... more This essay discusses the impact on archivists and the academy of the impending obsolescence of photochemical media a mainstream technology for production and exhibition. In it I argue that the word 'film' has already become a generic, as distinct from a technologically specific, noun in common usage, and that this is symptomatic of the fact that cinema is in the process of losing its medium specificity. In conclusion, I suggest that this has major implications for archival practice and method, and call for a renewed emphasis on the use of historical approaches rather than textual or theoretical ones in order to understand how the empirical characteristics of obsolete technologies shaped the economic and cultural effects of their use.