Eisenstein Dynamic Frame

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Soviet Cinematographer Eisenstein was defending a dynamic frame for cinema which aspect ratio continiues to change.
How one can do this ?

Best,

Umut
Istanbul

[holmburgers]

Is he also the person who said that he would've preferred that the panoramic aspect was used vertically instead of horizontally?

A dynamic frame is a fascinating idea!

[Diapositivo]

Soviet Cinematographer Eisenstein was defending a dynamic frame for cinema which aspect ratio continiues to change.
How one can do this ?

Best,

Umut
Istanbul

You have a normal screen but, on certain scenes, you put a black frame on the frame .
Not difficult at all. Doesn't require any modification to projection hardware as well. The public might be a bit disturbed by the effect, though, and I think I would as well.

A cinema film is not a series of frames. It tells you a story and you end up being "inside" the story and thinking that it is reality. A "corner" of your brain takes it for real, while the other corners of your brain know that it is just a film.

The success of any form of "fiction", be it prose theatre, opera, or cinema, depends on this mechanism of fooling (one part of) your brain into believing what it sees.

Whatever distracts you will prevent this "fiction" to fool your brain. Any time the projection format changes (by use of simple black frames in the frame) your brain is reminded that you are not seeing something happening but only a projection of a film.

[Ross Chambers]

As a once post production supervisor I would have the optical printer in the lab, under instruction regarding the director's desires, insert the appropriate masks. It would be assumed that the cinematographer had been informed when original photography took place that this framing would be happening. I certainly wouldn't expect or trust a projectionist to undertake it.

As a viewer I suspect that I would find it very disconcerting and distracting, but Eisenstein was working in a time of extensive experimentation, some of which worked, some not: how often do you see his more extended dialectic theory of montage these days?

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

What I do see from HollyBollywood is not at the level for judging Eisenstein negatively.

[Diapositivo]

As a once post production supervisor I would have the optical printer in the lab, under instruction regarding the director's desires, insert the appropriate masks. It would be assumed that the cinematographer had been informed when original photography took place that this framing would be happening. I certainly wouldn't expect or trust a projectionist to undertake it.

If your answer is in relation to my post, I will clarify what I meant in my previous post.

The projectionist does nothing but his usual work. The projected "frame" (the film surface) has a certain standard height, and a certain standard width. When a different orientation or side "ratio" is desired, the film frame is partly occupied, on the film itself, by a black area, a "black frame", so that the image which gets projected is the entire film frame, but the image that the public sees is only what is inside the "black frame".

The misunderstanding arises probably from the fact that in English frame (fotogramma, the single shot) is the same word as frame (cornice) the thing you put around a painting.

The projected fotogramma when needed includes a black cornice which surrounds the "new oriented frame" so as to give the impression of a different orientation.

This can be done on the cinecamera by using masks in front of the film when needed.

[holmburgers]

I am seeing this technique in my head, used to good effect. It would require a very dynamic frame, that is, one that is animated. If the cornice just suddenly changed, it would indeed be very unsettling. But imagine if our cornice moved in a fluid motion from one orientation to the next; almost as though you were looking through the viewfinder of a camera and switching it to portrait from landscape, or vise versa.

Ideally you'd shoot on a square format, and the manner in which you actually add these frames would be somewhat immaterial. The projection screen would ideally be square format as well, and to really use the technique to best effect, the expansion/contraction/rotation/reorientation of the frame would have to be used sparingly and with good taste; making it a surprise and a treat, not the norm.

I think it's important to use a larger format, like IMAX. Otherwise, I think the viewers will feel cheated out of resolution, size, etc. But, imagine watching a movie for 20 minutes and nothing seems out of the ordinary, and voila, suddenly the world in which you are engaged expands and becomes more salient, present and encompassing; literally as if the 'blinders were taken off'.

[holmburgers]

Umut, where did you read this by the way? I'd like to see what he says about it.

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Chris,

I can send the book if I can find. I have thick two Turkish translations. Wait , let me find at internet.

Umut

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Eisenstein lived at extreme years , saw ww1 and ww2 and been in the soviet revolution. His priority has been never a new Love Story , he wanted to give strong mesage. It was not for lazy people but a people surrounded by many contradictions. It was fast years and peoples moral , aims , lives were needed a punch.
And Marx , Engels , Lenin , Stalin ideas were important. Thats why he build dynamic frame , dynamic color and montage ideas. For example Czars Soldiers hit the workers and after that a animal slaughtery scene had been put.