Douglas Trumbull, "Slit Scan" effect for 2001: A Space OdysseyAccording to Scott Bukatman ("Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen Space"), how did the development of new visual and immersive entertainments such as the kaleidoscope, panorama, large-scale landscapes, and diorama during the nineteenth century help acclimate the body to new urban environments and transportation technologies? What is the “end of off-screen space”? For Bukatman, what are the implications of new virtual technologies on embodied experience?
Ron Film 301:
ReplyDeleteThe development of these new visual entertainments allowed people to get used to the idea of new types of technology that were being created. The idea behind this was to prevent people from being too overwhelmed with these new advancements in technology. A good example of this is the rise of railroad travel. The new ways of travel started to show the advancements or ‘progress’ our society started to make. The entertainment industry used panorama and diorama which ‘incorporated the lighting, sound, and temperature’ which was aimed moving the audience in one way or another. This gave the people in the audience the sense they were actually there in that particular scene in the film.
The end of off-screen was basically the rise of effects in films that take way the narrative part of the film. The space that can be seen on screen has been improved through the use of widescreen effects. The implication of these new virtual technologies is the fact they would also have to adapt to the current technological societal demand. This demand was met by creating simulator theaters one of which was the ‘Back to the Future’ ride which was a great success. Bakatman points this out in his essay when it is stated that Hollywood is ‘multiplexing itself to death’ in which it continued to develop newer technologies and ultimately ‘expand on the cinematic experience’ which as led to large 3-D imagery production. These new ideas focus on sense of the first person experience in these simulator-theaters.
Clarissa P. Ramos
ReplyDeleteFilm 301
According to Scott Bukatman in “Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen Space” the development of new visual and immersive entertainments such as the kaleidoscope, panorama, large-scale landscapes, and diorama during the nineteenths century have helped acclimate the body to new urban environments and transportation technologies. The kaleidoscope was an “important model of modernist perception, and its ephemeral collages possessed an immediate metophorical value” (256). The kaleidoscope served as a tool that transformed any normal perspective and allowed for a changed point of view. A kaleidoscopic point of view, which was made up of a combination of “delirium, kinesis, and immersion-characterized many popular entertainments in later years of the nineteenth century, from expositions to magic lantern shows and phantasmagoria” (256). Panoramas and museums were immersive atmospheres that created the basis of a contemporary society. Dioramas and panoramas utilized clear effects which impacted film and photography. “Of all the arts, none combined spatiotemporal solidity with metamorphic fluidity and sustainedly as the cinema, and cinema documented and, in some ways, liberated the ephemerality that lay latent in the urban field” (256-257).
The end of offscreen space seems to be approaching due to the focus of effects in films, the lack of storytelling, the reappearance of film attractions, the continuation of film through sequels, and the presence of imitations. “The space that can be viewed on-screen has expanded through widescreen effects, IMAX films, simulator theaters, and all of their forms of direct address, while real space is increasingly penetrated by filmic realities” (267). Bukatman believes that new technological effects continue to be depicted and offer a variation in the way that a film is viewed. Conversely, Bukataman explains his distaste in the way that most of the visuals are portrayed, explaining how “most of what is offered is less poetry than play. Immersive environments offer something less than that transcendence of the flesh so often envisioned by New Agers and cyberpunks” (267).
Scott Bukatman writes in his article entitled “Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen Space,” that “The Meaning of science fiction films is often to be found in their visual organization and in their inevitable attention to the act of seeing, and this is where special effects of begin to take on a particular importance.” (page 250)Typically when people leave a movie theatre after seeing a science fiction film, there is much discussion on the special effects in the movie they have just seen. Special effects have a tendency to take away form the narrative.
ReplyDeleteDifferent effects include the kaleidoscope, panorama, large-scale landscapes, and diorama. In science fiction films theses effects are typically used in the mise-en-scene. This allows the viewer to grasp an understanding of what the world around the main characters is like. That also helps from seeing a film versus a play.
In more modern times, the implications of new virtual technologies, give the filmmaker the opportunity to have the viewer more immersed in the theatrical experience. 3-D film is one of the ways that the film gives the viewer a chance to become a part of the experience.
Theresa Ennis
Film 319
Blog #7
New visual entertainment technologies of the time helped to bring the viewer an escape from the very technology that was used to create such an effect, as Bukatman states. "Perhaps this was (and is) a technology redirected against itself and against the rationalist control that usually adhered to it (Pg 237)." By this, Scott means that by using these scientific tools such as the kaleidoscope, panorama, and diorama, the motion picture has the ability to contradict it's own dissection of irrationality and create effects that are beyond the imagination that it has dissected. The article quotes Geoffrey O'Brien, "Upon the motion picture--the most alluring mechanism of the age of mechanical reproduction--would devolve the task of reconstructing the imaginary worlds it has helped to dismantle."
ReplyDeleteWith new technologies to create distant landscapes and endless backgrounds, the settings and locations that must usually be implied off-screen were now fully computerized and created on-screen, technically as well as visually. New advancements of technology permitted the creation of on-screen visuals as well as the expansion of screens, quality, and viewings (IMAX, widescreen, etc.). Bukatman goes on to describe "theme park movies" which take you into a film's environment and expand the experience rather than just leaving one with a visual representation. This also contributes to off-screen environments. Theme park rides and behind-the-scenes adventures build off of a movie with virtual technologies and provide more physical attributes to the concept/film. "In the 1980s and 1990s, films became rides, which is to say that they became less narrative than they used to be and more spectacular, with their spectacles more compressed one atop another but also more extended."
Matthew Balz
Film 319
The development of new visual and immersive entertainments during the nineteenth century, according to Scott Bukatman, helped to acclimate the human body to new environments and transportation by showing people the familiarity that existed within the fantastic science fiction scenes that they were experiencing in the cinemas. Films like “Star Wars” showed viewers a believable, charming, and humanistic culture that they could relate to while also showing them the technologies and alien landscapes that, now, no longer felt hostile and mysterious. Bukatman also states that the aspect of movement in science fiction cinema, as exemplified in the sweeping panning shots of “2001” and the gliding shots through futuristic LA in “Blade Runner”, seem to prepare us for the new advances in faster and faster travel, just like the experience of the locomotive train surpassed that of the horse drawn cart.
ReplyDeleteFor Bukatman, the “end of the off-screen space” is brought about by the increasingly common trend of simplifying the narrative in order to (ironically) make sure the viewer can follow the plot while still being fully engrossed in the special effects. This idea fails because, as Bukatman seems to emphasize: the vast visual effects are part of the plot, not merely fancy fluff and frill.
As for new virtual technologies, things like virtual reality and 3D rides expand and immerse us in the visual experience of cinema, but at times these technologies fall into the trap he illustrates of “effects for the sake of effects.” The internet, he states, fails completely to expand the visual experience because it confines itself within many borders, windows, and screens.
Toby Staffanson
Film 319
Developments such as the kaleidoscope, panorama, large-scale landscapes, and diorama allowed a controlling expansive vision of the immensity of new urban and kinetic surroundings and make them more familiar and less threatening. Also Bukatman says immersive media serves as a physical and conceptual interface with new technologies and the life world they produce.
ReplyDeleteThe end of off screen space happened with the rise of effect-centered films, the decline of narrative, and the return of cinema of attractions. Also it is a result of the domination sequels, simulation, and spectaculars. Screen space is widened by grander theatrical and Imax presentations, while the off screen world is dominated by t-shirts, fan clubs, merchandising, and theme parks. So even off screen space has become screen space, hence the disappearing of off screen space.
For Bukatman, new virtual technologies are a way to provide a wide-angle controlling view of cyberspace, which is new and foreign to people just as urbanization once was. However Bukatman cites failed experiments with 3d cinema in the early 50s that to him suggest that enhanced experience is only acceptable to us when the apparatus remains apparent. When it is no longer a natural body negotiating unnatural surroundings it is not enjoyable.
joe steigerwald 319
Scott Bukatman delved into the ways in which effects had achieved to accept new advancements in technology. The way in which I feel that Bukatman’s statement is supported is seen in the film, “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Particularly with the space travel excerpts we saw in class, exuding the diorama lighting to signify motion. This concept translates to society that these abstractions of speed coincide with collages of motion giving reality to fiction in a sense. This sense is seen by how films over the years have been advancing in technology to create more realistic images for the future.
ReplyDeleteFrom the expanded reality created by this new technology, specifically in special effects, the resulting effect was the, “end of the off screen space.” Reason being that through the special effects ability to pull back one of the layers of reality, the audience became aware of such advancements. Thus creating a competition in some ways to one-up the audience into believing into the environment created on the screen. Due to this, the narrative of the story was also affected by being adjusted from the ability to convey imaginative surroundings. With such implications to the screen as 3D film, and interactive theme rides, the audience’s connection becomes that much more transcendence.
As Bukatman notes, the movement of technology, from wagons to trains changed the way people viewed the landscape. People could no longer look at and study every passing blade of grass, they had to look out across the expanse of land into the distance. This is much the same as what technology has done to the way we view things on a larger scale, including film. After Star Wars, sci fi film could now be thought of as a plane for expressing an intangible scale or view. This new ‘panoramic perception’ allowed for a new “kinetic exploration and revelation. Language yields to mute fascination.” In a sense, film could once again show you something you’d never seen before. The more people saw, the more they began to identify with these digitally created landscapes even inserting themselves into them through various means and editing processes. This new ‘terminal identity’ allowed for the new generation to depart from the old styles of communication and create a utopist version of the future, but it was one that could never be fully realized without the help of technology. While the old systems remain intolerably clunky, the new systems were just as flawed in their inability to function in the real world.
ReplyDeleteFilm 319
Jon Elliott
ReplyDeleteFilm 319
New kinds of visual technologies gave people to expand there imaginations to concepts not thought of before, or the way these visual technologies are presented. For example; “Cinema extended panoramic perception through its own emphasis on objects and movement” (234) Two very well known examples of this is the opening of Star wars (episode 4) after the title and story is moving away from us, we are then presented with a rebel ship trying to escape its counterpart, a significantly larger star destroyer. “The visual was now separated from the confirming experience of the haptic (bodily orientation, the physical), and the visual became hyperbolically self-sufficient” (234)
The end of off-screen space started to occur with the different visual effects that started to appear in science fiction movies. This in essence takes away from the narrative of the film, and is more effects driven. For example, one could look at 2001 a space odyssey, I saw that movie as all effects and little narrative, granted it was a cinematic achievement, but at the same time I would have preferred more narrative. According to Bukatman “a reliance on vision within a detailed simulation of the real world has been supplemented by bodily experience in order to produce a more deeply rooted understanding of the world” (235) relying on technology and effects in a sense would be the end of the film narrative.
Vision was put into motion with the rise of railway travel. Travelers are turned into spectators as technology, quite literally, speeds up. The viewing of proximate objects while traveling by horse-drawn coach is replaced by the distant panoramas afforded by speeding trains whose inhabitants are “separated from the world by velocity, closed compartments, and a sheet of glass.” Immersive entertainments of the nineteenth century like kaleidoscopes, panoramas, and dioramas have helped to acclimate the body to some of these “inhuman and overwhelming space[s].”
ReplyDeleteAccording to Bukatman, the “end of offscreen space” is suggested with the rise of special effects, declines in narrative, sequels, simulations and spectaculars. The on-screen space of film has become expanded through the use of effects while “real space” has become filled with the merchandizing of the on-screen space.
With the inception of the Information Age, “the invisible workings of electronic technology are made perceptible and physical.” With virtual technologies, the lines between perceptible and physical can become blurred, but the physical objects needed for the successful immersion into the experience consequently limits that amount of immersion. For a complete embodiment within the experience, the apparatus of that “enhanced experience” needs to remain transparent to the viewer.
Joseph Michals – Film 319
Greg Borkman, section 319
ReplyDeleteAccording to Bukatman, just as "a modern man registers a hundred times more sensory impressions than an eighteenth-century artist" (256) so do movies that incorporate new visual and immersive entertainments such as the kaleidoscope, panorama, large-scale landscapes, and diorama. The kaleidoscope, for example, became a tool with no set perspective and became a new point of view. These new visuals liberated the mind from the old fashion point of views in previous movies and opened up a world of unlimited possibilities for film makers to explorer while still remaining believable.
According to Bukatman, the end of offscreen space is the beginning of showing space on the screen to audiences.
For Bukatman, the implications of new virtual technologies on embodied experience are kind of bad. The rise of effects-centered films brings about the decline of narrative films and thus film takes a step backwards to a return of the cinema of attractions such as the vitascope theaters in late 1800s and early 1900s.
Visual entertainments of the 19th century accommodated the distortion of the urban atmosphere as well as the new mass transportation means most notably the steam engine train. Panoramic and moving pictures were a few results of this age. The panorama enabled the individual to embrace the new surroundings of massive city-scapes while the moving pictures being on of the (not directly) result of train travel due to speeds at which the masses were now able to move at. Kaleidoscopes were also an interesting product of this time period. It “disintegrated any fixed point” creating a type of perception that now only symbolized the kinesis, and immersion that was transcribed into later media of the time periods, but was also a perception to strive for in the manner of “the lover of universal life”. It was also this “immersion” that contributes to what could be called “the end to off-screen space”. Star Wars for example, does not just invite the viewer to watch, but inhabit the world in which it displays. This is later reinforced by movie rides, conventions, and newer immersion mediums like internet chat rooms. Star Wars is not the only story line that creates this sense of inhabitance. Other such immersion worlds can be seen in the Star Trek franchise as well as the X-Files. The newer immersion technologies, such as the internet chat room and CGI, work on the new invisible playing field rather than the urban as with the past panoramic technologies. With cyber space being all but invisible these new technologies (including VR) map out the invisible for the individual to grasp much like the panoramas and kaleidoscopes of the past.
ReplyDeleteNicholas Lawrence 319
Science Fiction Cinema has opened our minds (and bodies) to strange new things. They say seeing is believing right? Film has given people the ability to see the world from a point of view other than there own. So not only has Science fiction been able to help ease humanity into the technological age, it has also been fuel for the imagination of inventors to come up with things straight out of the movies. This seems to be the end of off screen space, the place where reality and sci-fi co mingle. We can physically experience what we see on the screen, and everyday new technologies surface that we once only saw on the big screen. One example from recent news is the child robot. It reminds me of the movie "A.I" (Spielberg). This robot child has be programmed to learn and starting at a basic level it is learning to understand facial features. People accept this as reality and are not scared of it (well it creeps me out a bit). Science fiction has been an instigator and a tool between writers and scientists. They play off each other and I think this is the most intersting part.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Scott Bukatman’s article “Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen space” he discusses how the development of new visual and immersive entertainments have a new part in science fiction films. This theory that Bukatman talks about can be seen in the movie Star Wars, “with the first shot new cinematic technologies redefined space, displaced narrative, and moved cinema into revived realm of spectacular excess” (248). Movies like Star Wars were able to incorporate large-scale landscapes, panorama, and diorama into the film which can be depicted on a fictional scale of the new environments and transportation technologies America was facing. Incorporating these new ideas into science fiction films like Star Wars where the main characters are humans who are engulfed in a world of new technologies and environments through the screen clips of large-scale landscapes, panorama, and diorama audiences are able to relate to the movie on a higher level.
ReplyDeleteBukatmans idea of the “end of the off-screen space” is discussed that visual effects started to take major roles in science fiction movies. This means that more of the movies are being filed with special effects, new technologies, and new environments. A good example of this would be the wide screen effect which he states is starting to take place in these films and in IMAX films. With films having both virtual effects and 3D effects more time is being spent on special effects which relate to sci fi films starting to have simpler plots and narratives so audiences can easily follow along while they get lost in the special effects.
Alex Moehn
301
In “Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen Space,” Scott Bukatman claims that the use of new visual effects techniques utilizing things such as the kaleidoscope, panorama,
ReplyDeletelarge-scale landscapes, and diorama have helped acclimatize the public to new environments and technologies. Simple new visual effects techniques not only dazzle the audience, but add to the desired sense of reality within film and direct attention away from the technology itself and fully immerse the viewers into the space. Dioramas, for example, were manufactured environments used to present an era, setting, experience, etc. According to Bukatman, film drew from diorama techniques by using them as a way to expand the documentation already desired through the pieces. The kaleidoscope was able to distort reality into an unrecognizable space and altered point of view.
Technology has led to the demise of “off-screen space,” meaning that atmosphere and setting is no longer implied through subtle effect, and is now able to fully present this “space” without much abstraction. There is, however, a trade off due to over use of effects, leading to less emphasis on story telling and rise of over production and film franchising. Bukatman expresses this by stating “most of what is offered is less poetry than play.” He feels that the overuse of new effects technologies has become more of a marketing technique than an art form.
Dave Myszewski - Film 319
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteVictor, Film 319
ReplyDeleteI will start by saying that the grand new effects of this period were, in my own opinion, one of the worst things to happen to sci fi that decade. It made directors start adding ten minute “effect sequences” to all of their film. Victims include 2001, Star Trek the Motion Picture, Tron, and even Disney's Black Hole. Not only were they somewhat asinine in their own time, but they haven't aged well. I have more impressive screen savers.
Anyway, Bukatman seemed to imply that the advent of fancy effects helped acclimate people to the new technologies of the time, which were bringing the world closer to sensory overload.
The “end of off- screen space” refers to the new focus on effects, often at the expense of narrative. Film makers were beginning to take “show, don't tell” too seriously.
According to Bukatman, we have the technology to make for really immersive film experiences, even though at this point they're mainly for novelty.
The advancement of technology such as the kaleidoscope, diorama and panorama helped the audience experience the ever expanding world they lived in from the comfort of their own home or local movie theatre. Many people were not able to see the world (or universe for that matter) and the expansion of technology used in cinema helped bridge that gap. So those who never traveled across the country on a train or overseas via airplane or boat could now see what it was like by purchasing a movie ticket.
ReplyDeleteNew technologies are taking the movie-going experience to new levels (though not necessarily positive ones) for example consider the rise of the “movie rides” at universal studios. Such rides as Jaws, Back to the future and Indiana Jones, take the typical movie buff and throw them into the realty of their favorite film. Their senses are assaulted with visual, audible and tactile affronts which leave them stunned however these rides do nothing to challenge the imagination or further story development. This is Bukatman’s main argument, that people leave theatres talking about the special effects and not the storyline.
This increase in popularity in special effects has lead to the decline of “the narrative” and now we have Hollywood trying to churn out “blockbuster” after “blockbuster” which leaves us with a movie shelf full of movies like Armageddon which are special effects monsters with paper-thin plots.
Mark Semke
ReplyDeleteFilm 301
According to the article by Scott Bukatman, “Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen Space”, there were many new advances in technology when it comes to cinema special effects that expanded the boundaries of what we could see and imagine in film. Or, these effects "exploded the frame beyond the boundaries of a primarily narrative cinema." (p.250) With panoramic perception, vision was put into motion. Such advances as the speeding train altered our status. We stopped focusing on objects in front of us and started looking to the horizon, to distant panoramic contemplation. Cinema only helped to advance these perceptions through the use of the kaleidoscope, large scale landscapes and dioramas to create imagery that captured both the mind and the imagination.
Bukatman defines "the end of off-screen space" as a sort of overlying theme that movies have "evolved", if that is the correct term to use, beyond the traditional narrative and now emphasize the use of special effects and inmagery that is pleasing and stimulating to the eye. This "eye candy" can be distracting and can cover up a badly written movie by making the audience "ooh" and "ahh." The advances in 3-D technology and the use of IMAX only further this concept. Perhaps one day all special effect-laden movies will incorporate real storytelling into the plot. Some of the more intelligent ones do now, but there is an overabundance of just throwing fancy visuals at the audience and expecting them to eat it up, which more often than not, they do.
In the 19th century, new technologies changed the way we view the world around us. New cinema techniques such as panorama and large-scale landscapes were able to convey on screen what a modern person would expect to see if they were present at the place and time of the story. Prior to the usage of these special effects, much in cinema was left to the imagination. Now a viewer could be a part of the scene. Two of the examples Bukatman cites are: first, how the slow-moving, open-air horse-drawn carriage was replace with speeding trains with enclosed compartments. This new form of transportation changed the way we look at the world: rather than part of the landscape, we are now outside of it, a kind of spectator. We now look at a panoramic view of a landscape rather than a snapshot of it. The second example is that “travel became the new metaphor for a continuing dedication to ‘progress.’” The ability to move to far-away places faster than before gave people a new perspective on urban environments and redefined “progress.”
ReplyDelete“Off-screen space” is where a film would end, and real life would begin again. In times past where movies were unrealistic or left much to the imagination, it was easy to step out of a theater and resume a regular routine. Now, with cinematic techniques designed to blur the real and the fake, plus the huge amount of merchandising, theme park rides, and online advertisements, “off-screen space” is diminishing.
These new virtual technologies provide us with a new form of escapism. We can watch a film and feel as though we are in it, not just watching it from afar. Bukatman argues that this is not a bad thing at all – rather it gives us a new way to “play” and to be entertained.
Sandra Figueira - Film 301
According to Scott Bukatman, the development of new immersive entertainment technologies such as the diorama, kaleidoscope, distant landscapes, and panorama changed the way we read the mise en scene of a film and opened new doors for effects and their functionality. “With the rise of railway travel, vision was put into motion. The replacement of horse-drawn coach by speeding train transformed travelers into spectators, separated from the world by velocity, closed compartments, and a sheet of glass. Attention shifted from proximate objects to distant panoramas.” (Bukatman, 251) This analysis of how technology of the time impacted cinema shows just what impact new technologies and effects can have on the viewer. The “end of offscreen space”, referred to by Bukataman, states that it is effects such as panoramic shots, landscapes, and abstract representations of the real world are reconfigured in order to give the viewer experiences that they have never seen before. Implications of new virtual technologies were notions of the embodied viewer. New effects and technologies allow for Hollywood to cross over to theme park attraction with rides such as Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park. 3D technologies are even used in attractions such as Spider-Man the Ride, at Universal Studios in Orlando. The viewer is becoming ever more immersed within the film because of these new visual technologies, ever expanding on the notion of the edge of the frame.
ReplyDelete-Alex Sokovich 319
In Scott Bukatman’s article “Zooming Out: The End of Off-screen Space,” he talks about the advancements in technology when it comes to kaleidoscope, panorama, large-scale landscapes, and diorama in the 19th century have helped acclimate the body to new urban environments and transportation technologies. These new technologies were used to create distant landscapes and endless backgrounds. The creation of on-screen visuals and the expansion of screens with the improved quality made a entire new experience for the viewer. An example of this would be Star Wars, which can be depicted as on the fictional scale of new environments and technology that our country was experiencing at the time. By using real human characters combined with the technology and special effects, it took science fiction films to another level.
ReplyDeleteQuentin Hughes
Film 301
Creating these new visual styles/techniques allowed the audience to experience a taste of new technology to come so that they are slowly eased into the idea of progress and perhaps allowed people to develop a numbness to all these fantastic images. Bukatman talks about the end of off-screen space as being a transition to effects carry the weight of the film versus the narrative and simplifying the narrative so that the visual overload would be easier to take in. Completely removing any real narrative and going into the use of virtual technology gives you a very intimate experience that you could otherwise never experience, but it tends to be more of spectacle.
ReplyDeleteNate Theis 319