Shawn Van Every forced his students at ITP to read the lumiere manifesto and watch a few of the videos we have collected on the site. A small handful of them have taken their comments to the blogs. Kacie likes that the barrier to participation is low, but an investment is required of the audience. Matt points out that the lumiere videos often gives a glimpse of everyday life that is overlooked. Stephanie prefers photographs over lumieres, but may give them a shot. Finally, Cameron feels smug and points out some contradictions. I’m thrilled that the manifesto and the videos are being used in classrooms (Adrian and Michael have done the same), but I must admit a bit disappointed that the ITP students have not made any lumiere videos. It is important to participate to understand the practice. I’ll encourage all Shawn’s students to create at least one lumiere video and submit it. Brittany, I and all the viewers will be happy to watch what you create. The lumiere project is a reaction. It is meant to challenge people to think differently about how they produce online video. We use the the lumiere rules as a metaphor, by following the same rules as the Lumiere brothers we hope to instill the same humility towards the medium as they must have had. The lumiere rules work well as a framework as they force you to work with the bare minimums needed to create moving images. Perspective, a camera, a start and an end point are all necessary. Yes, all of those are editorial decisions, but trimming, cutting, special effects are not “merely an extension of that process” as Cameron says. The lumiere rules allows for the filmmaker to choose a paradigm when he or she places the camera and starts recording, but the filmmaker is denied the usual privilege of creating a syntagmatic axis with post-production. That is a massive difference, not a negligible one. As Cameron suspects audio is removed for almost all submissions because most modern cameras all record sound. We have chosen the lumiere rules as a framework so we must go all the way and remove audio. The pleasant side effect is that the videos become more easily accessible across the globe. A similar case is video compression. Most modern cameras record files that are simply too large to be distributed easily and each video must be compressed for consumption. You can create many special effects by changing your compression settings, but doing so would be going against the spirit of the rules. Matt uses a Hitchcock reference to describe what role lumiere videos play and he is spot on: Didn’t Hitchcock say that “movies are like life with the dull parts cut out”? Well, if that’s so, then these are the dull parts — where it takes effort and patience to get something out of it. As one of the poster children for auteur theorists Hitchcock stands for everything the lumiere manifesto does not. Don’t get me wrong: My favourite movie is Rear Window and I think the guy was a genius, but today’s filmmakers still see themselves as auteurs with a vision they must cram into the innocent heads of their audience. The lumiere manifesto is a reaction to that line of thinking. You hear talk about “Internet TV” and cinematic theories and concepts are uncritically applied to video online. For once the world wide web gives the viewers a larger role and filmmakers should pay attention to them. We should not be forced to sit in a cinema or in front of our tv, bound by technical restraints and social norms, forced to accept the action as it unfolds in the order and pace the director has deemed perfect (for him - he does not know what is perfect for me). The filmmaker should acknowledge that his audience are composed of intelligent people who create their own interpretations differently from what the filmmaker intended. Communication theory has long ago realized that treating communication as a transmission in which the recipient is little more than an automaton waiting for input is a flawed and inefficient approach. It is sad that filmmakers and would-be filmmakers still think this way. The lumiere project is among other things a risk-free way for filmmakers to try to think their films differently. A chance to play in ways the regular thinking does not allow for. Enough talk. Here’s a lumiere video. Now you go make one and submit it.
