tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post6616606728892668403..comments2024-03-22T21:02:55.051+13:00Comments on Bat, Bean, Beam: The Death of CinemaGiovanni Tisohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-15590400506442692042009-08-31T17:51:48.585+12:002009-08-31T17:51:48.585+12:00And- finally veering momentarily onto topic! I don...<i>And- finally veering momentarily onto topic! I don't think the analogy of lost celluloid and photographed artworks is quite right. Noone gets to see the 'original film' - except in very rare cases where it's shot on reversal. There are typically many 'slash-prints- and then layers of grading- before a master neg is produced. Copies are all that people see.</i><br /><br />Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-69597186589217871892009-08-31T17:48:33.932+12:002009-08-31T17:48:33.932+12:00Thanks, Rob (thread-hijack alert); it was good to ...Thanks, Rob (thread-hijack alert); it was good to be at the meetings last week. I considered whether to say hello but didn't want to distract from the matters at hand! However I will surely remedy this next time. [end hijack]<br /><br />With regard to my failed USB drive, I was impressed with the care with which the technicians handled it, considered it was so utterly kaput by then. They Megan Claytonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03584562106579704547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-62595483837597731932009-08-31T17:15:27.915+12:002009-08-31T17:15:27.915+12:00But they also see the film digitised: dvds and tap...But they also see the film digitised: dvds and tapes and youtube clips: and now blu-ray. For me, all the celluloid that tells a story can be destroyed and leave the story quite intact. (More: from an appropriate high definition format, another high-quality film copy could be made. Perhaps not 'losslessly': but so good that the loss is very hard to detect.) <br />If your interest is in therobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11518548366478775367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-862747913643566642009-08-31T17:14:50.980+12:002009-08-31T17:14:50.980+12:00I found a pen-drive on the road, crushed by cars. ...I found a pen-drive on the road, crushed by cars. I thought at first: I want the cap! (it was unscathed, and the caps on usb-drives seem to vanish like ball-points and socks and other tangential but vital-when-they're-missing things.)<br />But I picked over the remains as well, the tiny, battered circuit-booard, and thus took them home and- bandaged and un-bent- inserted into usb slot. And robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11518548366478775367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-25063823614921144272009-08-31T09:18:36.089+12:002009-08-31T09:18:36.089+12:00Oh, commiserations, even if it turned out okay.
...Oh, commiserations, even if it turned out okay. <br /><br />I recall being very nervous ahead of my first ever tutorial (film history), but then the tutor before me informed me on his way out of the room that all the audiovisual equipment was kaputt and just like that all my careful plans about scene comparisons (which barely required me to be there, really) went out the window. It was for the Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-41107081782158721602009-08-30T22:06:51.603+12:002009-08-30T22:06:51.603+12:00Dear pen drive, little USB-stick,
dear data in a t...Dear pen drive, little USB-stick,<br />dear data in a thumb-sized stub,<br />your final mutability<br />was an irksome transformation.<br /><br />Dear cluster of plastic and metal<br />whose end was abrupt and which <br />consumed some files I needed that day:<br />I don't suppose it matters.<br /><br />I improvised my talk, recurred to<br />electronic sources for my handouts;<br />I'd Megan Claytonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03584562106579704547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-71617742516314110692009-08-29T10:20:05.080+12:002009-08-29T10:20:05.080+12:00Cripes, sorry for the long comment. Also, I realis...Cripes, sorry for the long comment. Also, I realise I opened up another can of, let's say wasps, by making a comparison with books, since it was after all writing first and print second that allowed us to consider content, a <i>text</i>, independent of its carrier in the first place - my implicit claim that the Golder books are artefacts unlike any other contemporary first edition is thus Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-79809458263095402012009-08-29T09:41:12.391+12:002009-08-29T09:41:12.391+12:00Probably my approach in Usai's shoes would hav...<i>Probably my approach in Usai's shoes would have been more outlining the incredible possibilities that digitalizing a movie would open if done right</i><br /><br />What would those be? Assuming you're talking about digitisation, and not digital restoration of film prints (which is a whole different set of issues), from an archivist or curator's point of view there really is no Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-21649237931329864782009-08-29T03:35:32.197+12:002009-08-29T03:35:32.197+12:00I guess my unwavering optimism in similar situatio...I guess my unwavering optimism in similar situations pushes me towards exciting people into action, instead of scaring them. Probably my approach in Usai's shoes would have been more outlining the incredible possibilities that digitalizing a movie would open if done right, instead of theorizing the demise of cinema.<br /><br />As I said though, I don't know anything about his world, and Taramochttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04997006655488913070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-13082843597225402172009-08-28T08:19:56.872+12:002009-08-28T08:19:56.872+12:00Migration back and forth to other lands, other tim...Migration back and forth to other lands, other times, digital travel on waves of heat.<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLCNIZTzg9w<br />How else could I transport back to Sister Europe, tight black stovepipes, a rat pony tail and cheap speed.<br />I have a phaser on my shoe gazing gat rig, digital Gothic.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04424066726955708314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-68372051909761645942009-08-27T18:32:15.572+12:002009-08-27T18:32:15.572+12:00I love digital too. The alphabet is a digital tech...I love digital too. The alphabet is a digital technology, isn't it?<br /><br />That video reminded me of our earlier discussion on <a href="http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.com/2009/06/pixel-years.html" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow">video games</a>, in that having instant access to a library of material like that without having to pay for it (in the case of coin-ops) or wait for MTV to include Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-50403542039136178152009-08-27T15:26:47.309+12:002009-08-27T15:26:47.309+12:00If not for digital,love us you say well Love My Wa...If not for digital,love us you say well Love My Way I say,<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P09gm_I5RI<br />And all praise the Auto Image Adjustments in Photoshop, for otherwise I could not digi my drawings and post them on Love Is A Symbol (well rounded plug on Love theme, I love you too man).<br />I also play a digital emulator Vox amp, that has a valve in it! 5 amps in one! And I don'tAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04424066726955708314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-6793004209634536102009-08-27T15:05:08.070+12:002009-08-27T15:05:08.070+12:00@Taramoc The Y2K hype and subsequent fizzle it’s a...<b>@Taramoc</b> <i>The Y2K hype and subsequent fizzle it’s another example of predicting doom and gloom for the future, while the problem was fixed behind the scene and efficiently resolved. I got the same feeling reading about Usai’s book.</i><br /><br />They won’t get fixed if we are not aware of the problem. At a digital preservation forum I went to recently one of the speakers said outright Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-56911439996457120202009-08-27T15:04:41.743+12:002009-08-27T15:04:41.743+12:00One could quibble about the quality of the bloggag...One could quibble about the quality of the bloggage, but the comments are just terrific and I love you all. <br /><br /><b>@Jake</b><br /><i>(and it's a problem that both Chartier and Mckenzie address in different places, although they did so in the early nineties).</i><br /><br />That McKenzie lecture is another text I kept referring to again and again, much like Cherchi Usai's book. Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-19911173039915940882009-08-27T04:13:20.834+12:002009-08-27T04:13:20.834+12:00I guess I didn't make myself clear enough. Whe...I guess I didn't make myself clear enough. When I say I'd be more excited as a film conservationist, I wasn't implying that I would just jump in without analyzing the problems and looking for solutions. I agree with you, Giovanni, black-and-whitism doesn't belong here.<br /><br />Change is not good or bad, it's just change. If it happens, there's a reason, and that reason Taramochttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04997006655488913070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-90424982423918893502009-08-27T02:23:10.572+12:002009-08-27T02:23:10.572+12:00"That said, you shouldn't confused the me..."That said, you shouldn't confused the medium (disks) with the type of information (digital)."<br /><br />As a historian of the book, I find this claim a little dubious. Don McKenzie and Adrian Johns tell us, convincingly I think, that the methods of production of books in the seventeenth century are as important as the words themselves, and that in fact the historical meanings of Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11926193718680225217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-73521354592272211782009-08-26T14:35:34.300+12:002009-08-26T14:35:34.300+12:00Modern monk.
Ah, you would have loved Cherchi Usa...<i>Modern monk.</i><br /><br />Ah, you would have loved Cherchi Usai's presentation in Wellington, then, the last part was all about how archivists and curators have to think like medieval monks. I'm going to write in a future instalment about that idea, which is also put forward by Stewart Brand. Both of them, I strongly suspect, will be in the crowd at Ise in 2013 when <a href="http://Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-78609098766110319032009-08-26T11:16:37.211+12:002009-08-26T11:16:37.211+12:00What can I say, my friend calls me a very Modern M...What can I say, my friend calls me a very Modern Monk, or an evil Daemon, depending on the day.<br />You'll want to know about the paper stock we used on Mercurius, it's pearlized, opalescent and shifty...like me.<br />The publisher said..we want to do a number on this one. I said, mmmkay.<br />My obsessions know no bounds, including press passing the proofs just so I could see a Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04424066726955708314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-46300098485439516802009-08-26T11:01:46.793+12:002009-08-26T11:01:46.793+12:00@Merc My first book was handset and printed on 100...<b>@Merc</b> <i>My first book was handset and printed on 100 year acid free museum quality archive paper, on a hot letterpress machine.</i><br /><br /><i>The Death of Cinema</i> is printed on acid-free Fineblad Smooth 130gsm, meeting the requirements of ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence, and American National Standard ANSI/NISO Z Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-52931247556893305932009-08-26T10:23:25.889+12:002009-08-26T10:23:25.889+12:00I recall an arcivist saying once a cd or dvd bubbl...I recall an arcivist saying once a cd or dvd bubbles the entire thing is useless.<br /><br />That said, you shouldn't confused the medium (disks) with the type of information (digital). But I suppose the problem is to preseve the information people aren't actually trying to keep.<br /><br />And of course, human languages seem to last longer than (many) digital formats. Most of the text Lyndonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05622953598107216261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-25433406109318225652009-08-26T08:20:18.011+12:002009-08-26T08:20:18.011+12:00My first book was handset and printed on 100 year ...My first book was handset and printed on 100 year acid free museum quality archive paper, on a hot letterpress machine. I had an understanding independent publisher, the Govt. would not be so kind.<br />The second I wanted to use a re-constituted 16th century Fell font (used for the King James version of the Bible, heh), this meant going digital. I did not hesitate.<br />The third book I did not Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04424066726955708314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-18248033358835536962009-08-26T06:45:46.721+12:002009-08-26T06:45:46.721+12:00I tend to agree with Paul. I find the digital age ...I tend to agree with Paul. I find the digital age much more naturally equipped to preserve than to lose.<br /><br />Also, I'm not sure about the issue of ever changing format. A blue Ray disk looks as good as possible to the human eye, and its weight/volume is so low that I'm not sure more sophisticate and improved formats will be necessary from a practical/technical point of view.<br /><Taramochttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04997006655488913070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-17561094380608731662009-08-25T22:38:58.709+12:002009-08-25T22:38:58.709+12:00Yes, digital media is more durable than film. I us...<i>Yes, digital media is more durable than film. I used to do data recovery, among other things, for a living. People in the film and television industries would pay me large amounts of money to recover footage which they had not backed up. But it was only a tiny percentage of their work which had become corrupted, and had they backed up they would have had no problem. In most cases I was able toGiovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-11993268740661545022009-08-25T22:04:27.384+12:002009-08-25T22:04:27.384+12:00Yes, digital media is more durable than film. I us...Yes, digital media is more durable than film. I used to do data recovery, among other things, for a living. People in the film and television industries would pay me large amounts of money to recover footage which they had not backed up. But it was only a tiny percentage of their work which had become corrupted, and had they backed up they would have had no problem. In most cases I was able to Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08024440694895271805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-85258287236258000682009-08-25T21:38:55.076+12:002009-08-25T21:38:55.076+12:00I study West Papua in Indonesia, and a similar pro...<i>I study West Papua in Indonesia, and a similar problem exists - a complete lack of images in the last 50 years, meaning human rights abuses and minor armed conflict occur(ed) in darkness.</i><br /><br />Another question is why do we need images in order to understand and believe. Why is it that things have to be put in front of our eyes, when narration and testimony used to suffice. Cherchi Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.com