Digital Video Lecture 1 - "The First Films'

Watching the 'First Films' playlist on YouTube itself was the first reminder I had of how much technology has changed. I sit in my office wired to a high powered multimedia personal computer on high speed broadband while the Lumiere brothers had a single film camera that was capable of very little and what do they record? Images of people walking out of a factory, images of a train arriving. No plot, no story and no sound. But in the day legend has it that on premiere of 'Arrival of a Train' that people fled the cinema fearing being struck down by a train.

I have no real critique of the films as there is naught to critique apart from what I have noted above. It is more interesting from a technological view as well as a socio-political perpective. The camera used, the type of film, the lack of audio all very incredible nonetheless when you consider this is over 100 years ago today, I didnt actually realise that we had film that long ago! But why did the brothers film what they did? Look at the subjects in the film, few of whom you can actually see the trepidation in their faces as they stare down the barrel of the camera as if it were about to steal their soul.

Fast forward 80 odd years to the premiers of William Friedkins 'The Excorcist' 1973 and the audience members were so mentally disturbed and frightened by what was happening on screen that the fled screaming and vomiting from cinemas. Why did William chose to shoot such a terrifying yet imaginery movie about demonic possession? It is beyond comprehension but Oscar winning nonetheless.

The 'First Films' playlist is like every first persons film I imagine, and attest too, no real idea why we are about to record what we are recording, rather just an experiment with technology that we dont really understand but must explore and strive to master. I often shoot random images and things without any real understanding of what I am shooting or why until I import the footage into an editing program and start playing with what I see on screen.

That in itself will be my biggest challenge this trimester, planning, drafting, scoping, briefing concepts etc are all very foreign to my understanding of creating film.