The development of loop based cinematic techniques in twentieth c

University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2008 The Development Of Loop-based Cinematic Techniques In Twentieth Century Motion Pictures And Their Application In Early Digital C David Scoma University of Central Florida Part of the Film Production Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.edu This Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact STARS@ucf. STARS Citation Scoma, David, "The Development Of Loop-based Cinematic Techniques In Twentieth Century Motion Pictures And Their Application In Early Digital C" (2008).

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019.edu/etd/3803 THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOOP-BASED CINEMATIC TECHNIQUES IN TWENTIETH CENTURY MOTION PICTURES AND THEIR APPLICATION IN EARLY DIGITAL CINEMA DAVID SCOMA B. Loyola University New Orleans 1990 M. State University of New York at Buffalo 1994 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2008 Major Professor: Blake Scott Copyright 2008 David Scoma ii ABSTRACT For centuries, repetition in one form or another has been seen as a significant element in the artistic palette. In numerous formats of expression, duplication and looping became a significant tool utilized by artisans in a multitude of creative formats.

Yet within the realm of film, the Griffith and Eisenstein models of cinematic editing techniques (as the most popular-- and near-monolithic--narrative aesthetic criteria) effectively disregarded most other approaches, including looping. Despite the evidence for the consistent use of repetition and looping in multiple ways throughout the course of cinematic history, some theorists and practitioners maintain that the influx of the technique within digital cinema in recent years represents a sudden breakthrough, one that has arrived simply because technology has currently advanced to a point where their utilization within digital formats now makes sense both technologically and aesthetically. This situation points to a cyclical problem. Students of film and video frequently are not taught aesthetical or editorial options other than standard industry procedures.

Those who are interested in varying techniques are therefore put in the position of having to learn alternative practices on their own. When they do look beyond visual norms to try applying different approaches in their projects, they risk going against the views of their instructors who are only interested in implementations of the standard methods which have been in the forefront for so long. Yet the loop’s importance and prevalence as a digital language tool will only likely grow with the evolution of digital cinema. With this is mind, the dissertation addresses the following questions: To what extent can various forms of repetitive visuals be found throughout film iii history, and are not simply technical manifestations that have merely emerged within digital cinema? How might current educational practices in the realm of film and video work to inform students of techniques outside of the common narrative means? Finally, what other sources or strategies might be available to enlighten students and practitioners exploring both the history surrounding--and possible applications of--techniques based upon early cinema practices such as the loop? iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For lending technical expertise to this project, I would like to thank Sean O’Brien, Jason Lange and Casey Capshaw.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the members of the committee: Glenda Gunter, Melody Bowdon, Karla Kitalong and Anthony Grajeda. Most especially I would like to thank my committee chair, Blake Scott. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES….1 CHAPTER ONE: THE LOOP TAXONOMY – VARIETY IN FORMS AND PRAXIS…………….18 CHAPTER TWO: THE LOOP IN THE 20TH CENTURY – AN OVERVIEW.48 CHAPTER THREE: DIGITAL VIDEO PRACTICES IN CURRENT CINEMA.77 CHAPTER FOUR: THE STATE OF DIGITAL VIDEO PRACTICES IN INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION.………………………………………………………………………101 CONCLUSION: THE TEN MINUTE FILM SCHOOL.142 LIST OF REFERENCES.……………………………………………………………146 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: CLASSIC LOOP…………………………….11, 143 FIGURE 2: SUPERIMPOSED LOOP…………….……12, 143 FIGURE 3: DIVISION LOOP……….13, 144 FIGURE 4: ICONIC LOOP.14, 144 FIGURE 5: HOMAGE LOOP…………….15, 145 vii INTRODUCTION In 1915, D. Griffith released his film The Birth of a Nation.

This movie proved to be important not only for its controversial portrayal of the Klan and the Civil War-era South, but also for its use of visual techniques. Griffith is credited with introducing elements to motion picture production such as the close-up, the long shot, and the medium shot. To the technique of mis-en-scene, he is credited with framing the action so as to facilitate concise editing procedures that would eventually lead to smoother “storytelling” on the screen. To the field of montage, he is given credit for utilizing a close-up of a face looking away, before cutting to another object that the face in the first shot must be gazing at (Gianetti 41).

Griffith, of course, was not solely responsible for bringing these techniques into existence. Nor was he even close to being the first director to put into practice the individual elements listed above within the realm of film making. What Griffith brought to the cinematic equation, for which he has thus been given his due for over ninety years, was the way in which he captured and arranged those elements sequentially through both production and postproduction. In other words, Griffith was instrumental in the fusing of these rudimentary units to become interdependent.

As a result, it was the way this melding ended up being viewed as an early stab at a coherent narrative “language” that is perhaps Griffith’s primary contribution to the field of cinema. As just mentioned, numerous film makers had put these various individual elements to use within their films before 1915. Close-ups, medium shots, and long shots can be found in works ranging from those of Zecca in drama and Porter in early documentary, to the comedies of Mack Sennett. Prior to Griffith, though, the individual elements were implemented by directors primarily as tools for simply capturing the individual shots.

In essence, before Griffith, directors 1 would strive to get the scene on film and then worry about how those shots would be thrown together in editing later. Within this mindset, the concern for capturing the action via the framing of the actors dictated where the camera was put--either right up beside the talent, or backed up far enough to take in a large panorama. If the initially desired original shot was not captured during principal photography, an alternate narrative solution would have to be found during editing. These approaches to mis-en-scene and aesthetics appeared to rule the day.

Under that format, chaos, it seemed, was often the order of the day. For example, Lillian Gish recounted in her autobiography that when battle scenes were staged and shot in movies previous to Griffith’s, it was nearly impossible to distinguish one opposing army from the other within the bedlam onscreen (Gish and Pinchot 141). This changed with Griffith, she said, because during the shooting process he began to implement his ideas regarding how the final assembled shots would appear to the audience in the ultimate version of the film. By organizing the action on the set, Griffith could figure out how the scenes could best be filmed in order to facilitate, assist, and even enhance the storytelling options in the editing room.

By staging the action so that the Confederate army always entered the view of the camera on the left hand side and the Union always entered on the right, the audience would be given a much greater chance to keep up with the unfolding battle scene (Gish and Pinchot 140). While shooting with this template opened up numerous stylistic options for Griffith, it also saddled him with a number of aesthetic rules for the editing phase. Since the Confederacy had always been filmed from the left, Griffith needed to continually assemble the individual clips so that they matched up to that directional flow. This he did--from the closest hand-to-hand combat to the longest possible shot of the battlefield.

When audiences went to see the film, they eventually became used to this left-right pattern, as well as the ease it provided in distinguishing armies. 2 However, other innovations of Griffith in this film--though they are now part-and-parcel of the narrative toolbox - did not catch on quite as easily. A number of Griffith’s camera innovations were startling for the time. Take, for example, digging a hole deep enough to place a camera and operator in, then aiming the lens at the sky before having a group of horsemen gallop right overhead (Gish and Pinchot 146).

Yet it may be the subtler, even preliminarily confusing implementations for which the director will always be remembered. The importance of the close-up technique described earlier was to the overall development of the cinematic narrative language cannot be overstated (Gish and Pinchot 146). Though initial audiences did not always catch on to this right away, Griffith effectively used both the initial shooting and the final sequential editing of the shots in a fresh manner. (For another example, a close-up shows a man turning his face and looking to the right.

The next shot edited in shows a child on a swing. The two shots together leave the audience with the impression that the man in the first shot is looking at the child on the swing in the second shot.) This approach, combined with Griffith’s manner of on-set filming, are well-developed early examples of critical developments within the field of visual narrative techniques (Gianetti 119). Though unknown to Griffith or anyone else at the time, these approaches would all but define the way that cinematic narrative entertainment would be shot, watched, and finally interpreted by both film makers and audiences for the rest of the century (Gianetti 117). Griffith, however, was not alone in this developmental mindset.

Soviet film maker and cinema theorist Sergei Eisenstein began creating the works--both celluloid and written--which would eventually bring him renown only a few years after Griffith completed Birth. Eisenstein experimented with, expanded upon, wrote about, and published cinematic theory based upon these techniques first started by Griffith. Even at that early stage of film history (not yet thirty 3 years in), the narrative traits of Griffith and Eisenstein had quickly developed into standard operating procedure across the cinematic world (Gianetti 42). In the decades since, application of the narrative editing techniques based upon those principles have become universally entrenched in the motion picture industry.

As a result, they have also been “learned” by audience members who have repeatedly viewed the techniques through their consumption of films and television programs alike. The terms that were coined have themselves found their way into the vocabulary of individuals who will never pick up a camera or sit in an editing bay. With this historical framework in mind, we can ask the question “What, in fact are loops, and why are they of any significance?” Though the cinematic “language” tools of Griffith (as well as those initial similar practices used by some of his predecessors, from Mélìes to the short comedic films of Mack Sennet) have been the domineering force in motion pictures for nearly a century, they certainly are not the only ones available, and definitely were not the first. The loop (and additionally, cinematic visuals based upon kaleidoscopic principles) holds a specific and, in fact, vital role in the canon of cinematic expression.

Visuals of this type have appeared consistently in motion pictures ever since the days of the zoetrope. The loop, in its classic pre- cinematic form, consisted of a collection of individual film frames. After running their course from start to finish, the celluloid strand would then repeat, starting again from the very first frame.