Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen | solitude.dk

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.

Lately I've bought a lo of movies. Not because I have time to sit down and watch them but because movies are cheap and it's great to have a couple of new DVDs to bring every time I have to take he 4,5 hour train ride to Copenhagen. Makes me wish I was taking the train to Milan for VlogEurope as I would be able to do a Planet of the Apes and a Tarantino marathon. Here's the unseen DVDs I've got on the shelf/lying all over the place right now. If you've got any suggestions as to what I should be watching first, let me know.

• Goodfellas
• Strangers on a train
• Saboteur
• Shadow of a doubt
• The trouble with Harry
• The man who knew too much
• Psycho
• Scarface
• Planet of the apes
• Beneath the planet of the apes
• Escape from the planet of the apes
• Conquest of the planet of the apes
• Battle for the planet of the apes
• The Yards (going to suck)
• City of Ghosts (this too)
• The Machinist (borrowed)
• The Deer Hunter (borrowed)
• Battle Royale (borrowed)

For my birthday I got a box with seven Hitchcock movies. I've only gotten to watch two of them so far, but it's all good. A box like that is something I will enjoy stretching out over several months. The first I picked out was Rope from 1948, Hitchcock's first colour film. I had seen it before when I was much too young to appreciate it. The movie is filmed like a stage play with the entire wall of an apartment never seen. It also uses very long takes of 7 to 10 minutes throughout the movie. We never once leave the apartment of our main characters and all these experiments with form is something I enjoy very much. Hitchcock is of course the master of suspense and while this movie is primarily about the undoubtedly homosexual relationship between Brandon and Philip, Hitchcock will have you sitting on the edge of your seat.

They just don't make movies like Rope anymore. Or rather Hollywood don't make movies like Rope anymore. There are a heap of interesting independent films being made these days, but Hollywood has thrown the towel in. Back in the old days (or perhaps “less recent days”) Hollywood would actually fund controversial, inspirational movies that provided food for thought. Not anymore. Everything is weighed on the altar of market analysts and the result is a bunch of movies that only provide fleeting entertainment. The movies have planned obsoletion like all other products in this day and age.

So do yourself favour. Take the money you were going to spend on a ticket for The Guardian and find your local art cinema of independent movie theater instead. My brother tipped me about Das Leben der Anderen which is currently playing in Denmark. Go see something non-Hollywood, then go buy Rope on DVD. I bet it's cheap.

Tonight I went to see The Omen. Normally I find scary movies rather tedious, but watching Julia Stiles' attempt at acting sure was frightening.

Derek Powazek reports that the MPAA took a bashing at SXSW. One answer from the MPAA representative peaked my interest:

One guy moved to the UK and all his DVDs stopped working because they were region-encoded (as most are). Her answer? That was in the contract you agreed to when you bought the DVD.

I got out the last DVD I purchased located the legal stuff on the back.

This is the only legal text on the case — there is no text on the disc itself apart from “© 1940”. It carries words to the effect of: "Warning: The rights of this disc are owned by Poulin A/S. The movie may only be shown in private homes. Illegal use or copyingwill result in prosecution.

Somehow my disc is missing the part where I'm not allowed to watch my movie in a different country. Perhaps it's written in invisible ink (I wonder if that holds up in court).

I'm a little late because the university is literally sucking 12 hours of work out of me every day this week.

Friday the whole country was upside down because the Crown Prince got married to Mary Donaldson from Australia. It was a very nice wedding and of course it brought forward the debate about monarchy again. The people who want a Danish republic were on the barricades shouting to get rid of the monarchy. Naturally it's more than a little odd to have the country formally run by a Queen even if she doesn't have any real power.

Despite that I would like to keep the monarchy because it is a defining part of Denmark. I'm a Dane, a citizen in that little fairy tale country in Scandinavia where princes and princesses really do exist. A place where Julia Stiles becomes a princess. Sure it might be nostalgia and romanticism. It's definately not cost-effective, but to me it's still worth paying for. Denmark just wouldn't be the same place without the monarchy — it would just be yet another small country. I would rather live in the fairy tale.

Just for the record: I haven't watched The Prince and Me where Julia Stiles falls in love with a Danish Prince. Judging from the plot summaries on IMDB it is not an accurate picture of the Danish monarchy. Princes don't come to the USA to quench their thirst for rebellion. They come there to attend Harvard. A gap year is something an Amish person has, not something a Prince in a modern monarchy has. And my favourite part from the previews on tv: Danish royalty do not run around every day wearing their formal, military uniforms with all their medals. What can you expect from a movie with Julia Stiles…