cinema2020

Frame

The f. cinematographic (frame), taken independently from the concatenation of images that make up the film, does not differ from a simple photograph and can be considered as the minimum unit of the cinematographic frame. And it is precisely at this first level of analog reproduction that cinema highlights its links with photographic technique. Every single f. it contains a portion of the image, a fragment of action that only in the projection phase will it be recomposed as a unicum thus originating the illusion of movement and composing itself in a frame . In most cases f. they are separated from each other by a horizontal line (frame line). Line spacing does not exist in 16 mm film and in Cinemascope format (see). On the sides, however, the f. it is delimited by perforations, the number of which varies according to the film format (one perforation in 16 mm, four in 35 mm, five in 65 mm and 70 mm). The speed of execution of an action and the overall duration of a film are given first of all by the scrolling speed (cadence) of the f. for each second (f./s) in the projection phase. From the cinema of the origins to the appearance of the sound, this scanning speed was variable (in most cases 16 or 18 f./s); with the advent of sound it has increased to 24 f. per second. If a film is telecinemed (ie transferred on electronic medium) for the television broadcast, the cadence must finally be 25 f. per second. In the case of accelerated or slow-moving sequences already in the shooting phase, the number of f. / s in shooting can decrease or increase. There are sophisticated cameras that can expand the recording speed up to thousands of f./s (think, for example, of the car accident sequence in Quattro feste di grigio velvet, 1971, by Dario Argento, or images for the video installation of Bill Viola The greetings, 1995).

Each single shot corresponds to a series of photogrammatic units whose number varies with respect to the impressed film footage corresponding to the length of the shooting. Each f. it therefore contains within its borders all that the director has decided to cut out of the part of reality that he has before him, the so-called condom . Everything else consequently becomes off-screenand can be documented from a still photograph. But this highlights the difference between cinematographic reproduction on one side and photographic reproduction of a shot on the other. A photograph taken on the set may in fact simulate a shot, but it can never correspond exactly to the point of view of the camera. Only an image printed from f. a film can guarantee that it is the exact reproduction of a shot. The f. in short, it is the documentation of a precise point of view, of a choice made by the director, with respect to the multiplicity of the glances implemented in the film. There are cases where a series of photogrammatic units contains multiple shots, for example when reproducing the cross fade (see fade), or the simultaneous and fluid moment of passage from one frame to another. Always within the same series of f. two or more clearly separated frames can also coexist (split screen), recorded at different times and places. it can vary in size, according to values ​​determined by the basic ratio for height. The classic size corresponds to 3/4 (1: 1.33). Subsequently other formats were imposed such as 1: 1.66, 1: 1.75 and 1: 1.85 (commonly called panoramic), 1: 1.88 (Vistavision), 1 : 2.35 and 1: 2.55 (Cinemascope) and others. In the case of Cinemascope, a format that provides for the compression of the image in f. and which gives rise to an elongation of the figures, an anamorphic lens that corrects the image is applied during the projection phase, so that the elements inscribed in f. regain their natural form.

In the past, a particular film format such as the aforementioned Vistavision (soon replaced by the 65mm) was based on the horizontal reproduction of the frames. It was double f. 8 perforations that had a higher yield than the Cinemascope thanks to the double exposure surface. The double f. it was once used on formats such as 8 mm (in practice a 16 mm) and 16 mm (or a 32 mm). Once developed, the film was cut into two parts and then spliced. This procedure - adopted to reduce the size of the equipment and the processing times - in certain cases has stimulated aesthetic choices. Some experimental filmmakers built their films on f. doubled: an example is Ciao-ciao (1967) by Adamo Vergine, in which 4 f are seen simultaneously in the frame. (2 for the left shot and 2 for the right shot). During the projection, the various formats described correspond to as many types of matting able to hide everything that is extraneous to the representation (the space beyond the edges of the f, the sound band etc.) further framing the edges of the frame. So there is a gap between the image actually printed on the surface of the film and the actually projected image. Very often, when the projectionist makes a mistake, the microphones used on the set for direct recording appear on the field. The f. therefore it may contain within it an element that reveals the nature of cinema as artifice. We are faced with a real paradox of the f .: a portion of the out of scope included in the image,

There are some cinematographic areas in which f. acquires a particularly significant role. For example, animated cinemawho has always worked on single f., adopting the technique of step one (single frame or stop motion shot): depending on the speed you want to give to the movement, each drawing is taken for the duration of a certain number of frames. The field where you work directly on the needle. it is, however, that of cinema made 'without a camera', or hand-painted on film. The author is forced to measure himself with the narrow space of the frame, using a magnifying glass. This is possible mainly in the case of 35 mm film, whose f. they have an amplitude greater than 8 mm and 16 mm. In the example of abstract cinema, however, f. it can be conceptually neutralized, if the scan line is not respected. The painting on film thus becomes a continuous flow not circumscribed by the rigid cage of the single frame. Some examples are the films of the Canadian Norman McLaren (Begone dull care, 1949) or the American Stan Brakhage (Mothlight, 1963, made with flowers and moth wings pressed between two layers of transparent film inserted in the optical printer). Brakhage among other things said that his films could be seen at both 16 and 24 f. per second. Regardless of the figurative or abstract nature of an image, it is possible to create an iconographic flow that severely tests the observer's perception; respecting the frame of f. it is sufficient to inscribe a different image in each frame. This technique was adopted by Robert Breer, the leading exponent of experimental animation, in films such as Recreation (1956-57) or 66 (1966). As part of the work on the individual f. in a certain sense cinema approaches painting, as each f. represents a unicum (even more than an animated drawing sequence that constitutes a variation on the theme), and at the same time constitutes a return to photography, as each frame is a snapshot in its own right so that the movement is given exclusively by the rapid succession of the images.

Work on the individual f. - regardless of the use of techniques based on the staged shot - it is also the connecting ground between animated cinema and a certain experimental cinema (see), generally called structural. These are films, according to the definition of P. Adam Sitney (Structural film, in "Film culture", 1969, 47, pp. 1-10), based on some characteristics such as the immobility of the camera, the effect stroboscopic (i.e. the decomposition of the movement of a subject in its various phases, often invisible to the naked eye, obtained by repeatedly illuminating it with special flashers), the exact and consecutive repetition of the same shot, the re-recording of images projected on the screen. In general, this type of cinema explores the infinite possibilities of film as a support and as a basic structural element. Many works are even conceived around precise mathematical rules. Also for this reason the exact number of f. it is extremely important to make sense of the experiments. The abstract films of the Italian artist Luigi Veronesi, made between the late 1930s and 1950s (mostly scattered), were precisely based on the Fibonacci series, applied to the number of f. which make up the different shots, and in which each term, fixed the first two, is the sum of the two that precede it (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 ...). Also for this reason the exact number of f. it is extremely important to make sense of the experiments. The abstract films of the Italian artist Luigi Veronesi, made between the late 1930s and 1950s (mostly scattered), were precisely based on the Fibonacci series, applied to the number of f. which make up the different shots, and in which each term, fixed the first two, is the sum of the two that precede it (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 ...). Also for this reason the exact number of f. it is extremely important to make sense of the experiments. The abstract films of the Italian artist Luigi Veronesi, made between the late 1930s and 1950s (mostly scattered), were precisely based on the Fibonacci series, applied to the number of f. which make up the different shots, and in which each term, fixed the first two, is the sum of the two that precede it (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 ...).

It is clear that the loss of even a single f. in a copy obtained from the original it compromises the correct vision of the work. Thus a film like Serene velocity (1970) by the American Ernie Gehr is built on an exact calculation of f. and mounted directly in the car, i.e. in the recovery phase planned in this sense. The lens frames the corridor of a modern building, geometrically aseptic, from a point of view placed at a median distance, then continuously zooms in and out by shooting 4 f. at a time. At the end of the film the viewer - now completely dazed by this obsessive and hypnotic alternation of near / far - will see the two opposing views overlapping due to the persistence of the image on the retina, the total of the corridor and the close-up of the background.

The Austrian Peter Kubelka is another of those filmmakers who attributed great value to both the materiality of the film and its structural harmony. Adebar (1956-57, composed of 1664 f.) Or Schwechater (1958, containing 1440 f.) Are the result of an in-depth study on the values ​​of rhythm, duration, composition in relation to each single f., Even if they start, first of all , from the need to rethink the concept of movement. The Viennese filmmaker questions precisely the idea that cinema is made up of moving images. For him, "the frame, while being projected, does not move" (Masi 1995, p. 17). We could say that Kubelka focuses on f. and conceives neither the shot nor the sequence (which already belong to cinematographic dramaturgy). The fact that in almost half a century Kubelka has made just over 50 minutes of cinema makes it clear how much importance he attaches to a simple frame as a basic element of film language and totalizing compared to the entire cinematographic aesthetic. Another famous film by Kubelka, Arnulf Rainer (1958-1960, formed by 9216 f.) Represents an even more extreme stage in the investigation of this minimal unit. It is a work based solely on f. alternating whites and blacks. It can be joined by Tony Conrad's The flicker (1966), also composed of a series of black and white frames, positioned however at a much greater distance and with different perceptual effects. In the same year the American Paul Sharits realized Ray gun virus, another experiment based on f. monochromes of different colors. This and other Sharits films, under the abbreviation 'Frozen film frame', have on several occasions been displayed in the form of film strips on the wall. The same fate has fallen on the films of Conrad and Kubelka. The static and spatial fruition of these 'film-objects', instead of their dynamic and temporal vision on the screen, in addition to highlighting the rigidly mathematical structure of the films, attributes to f. a completely new relief that goes beyond simple support. The f. monochromatic was then adopted in two cases outside the strictly experimental cinema: Blue (1993), the last feature by the English director Derek Jarman (a brave narrative film without images, where the uniform blue of the screen is filled only with dialogues, sounds and music) and Branca de neve (2000) by the Portuguese João César Monteiro, composed largely of f. blacks, interrupted from time to time by shots of the sky, on which a text by Robert Walser is recited. Such an operation had already been attempted in 1930 by Walter Ruttmann with Weekend, defined at the time as a radio film. Using f. transparencies that in projection translated into the pure space of the luminous screen, the German filmmaker was able to narrate a Sunday trip only through sound effects.

The fact that each instant of a film is reducible to an f, or to a fragment isolated from the context, is in some cases evident thanks to the still image. The English counterpart, freeze-frame, has however acquired a wider connotation in recent decades (and always in relation to an experimental use of the image). We are not faced with a simple block of f., But with a technique that proceeds with f. frozen, capable of showing only a few steps of an action. This type of freezing operated on the reproduction of a real movement has the purpose of making the sequence unreal, of marking its timeless dimension, or of detailing the various phases of an event in detail. The more classic still image is usually used at the end of the film as, for example, in the

Not unlike is the inclusion of a real photograph within a film sequence. Here too it is a question of stopping a flow of moving images. What Rosalind Krauss would call the photographic (Le photographique, 1990; trad. It. 1996) is given in this case by the marking of the photogrammatic status of cinema, by the return to a zero degree of film writing, therefore by a linguistic and historical reset ( pre-kinetic phase). However, there are works composed exclusively of snapshots that necessarily reproduce the combination of photography / frame. La jetée (1962) by Chris Marker is the best known example of a film made with many photos. The singularity of the French filmmaker's medium-length film lies in the fact that it is a narrative work, unlike documentaries on the type of Processions in Sicily (1964) by Michele Gandin, based on the photographs of Ferdinando Scianna, or experimental films such as Anonimatografo (1972) by Paolo Gioli, in which vintage photographs are 'animated'. All these procedures are obtained through truka, re-photography techniques, optical and printing devices, etc., and impose a further reflection on cinema intended as the art of photogramming (see alsophotography ).

The metariflexing component of cinema in many circumstances is highlighted precisely through the unveiling of the frame structure. Wolf's gag, which emerges from the frame overflowing beyond the perforation of the film in Dumb-hounded (1943) by the famous American cartoonist Tex Avery, represents a splendid break in the scenic illusion. In Onboro firumu (1985, Film badly in tool) by the Japanese designer Tezuka Osamu, the good cowboy and the bad bandit chase each other climbing the spacing that separates an f. on the other. In the 7 days music video (2000) directed by Max and Dania, the singer Craig David, by pressing a simple button, interrupts the action, exits the film, rewinds the film, then returns to the scene and can remedy a gaffe that it would have been fatal. Different is the case of Morgan Fisher's Standard gauge (1984), entirely dedicated to the analysis of the different types of film. In addition to f. of films, scraps, codes, starts flow on the optical bench, commented by the voice over of the filmmaker, who reconstructs his personal idea of ​​the relationship between research cinema and consumer cinema.

With the passage first to electronics and then to digital, it no longer makes sense to speak of f., But one should only think in terms of framing. The frame gives way to still. The f. understood in a literal sense, as a visible trace on the support, it is now destined to disappear, being irreparably linked to the analog phase, to the relationship of printing on film. Only its virtual, numerical trace will remain, captured through software and infinitely editable.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PA Sitney , The avant-garde of American cinema , in New American Cinema. American independent cinema of the 1960s , edited by A. Aprà, Milan 1986, pp. 77-114.

R. Tritapepe , The words of cinema , Rome 1991, pp. 100-102.

S. Masi, Peter Kubelka , Naples 1995.

B. Di Marino, Space machines , in "Segncinema", 1997, 88, pp. 2-5.

JL Burford, Robert Breer, Paris 1999.