Still image film

Last updated

A still image film, also called a picture movie, is a film that consists primarily or entirely of still images rather than consecutive still images in succession, forgoing the illusion of motion either for aesthetic or practical reasons. These films usually include a standard soundtrack, similar to what is found in typical sound films, complete with music, sound effects, dialogue or narration. They may also use various editing techniques found in traditional films, such as dissolves, zooms, and panning. [1]

Contents

History

This filmmaking technique is more common in historical documentaries, where old photographs may provide the best documentation of certain events. Ken Burns is well known for having used it repeatedly in his films in the last decades. [2] But it was also common before as highlighted in a 1961 letter to The New York Times , where Louis Clyde Stoumen surveyed earlier uses of the technique by him and other documentary filmmakers. Stoumen mentions the German Curt Oertel and his ‘Michelangelo’(1938) (later re-edited into Robert Flaherty’s ‘The Titan’ around 1949); the Belgians Henri Storck and his lyric ‘World of Paul Delvaux’ (1947) and Paul Haesaerts and his ‘Rubens’(1948); the Americans Paul Falkenberg & Lewis Jacobs and their ‘Lincoln Speaks at Gettysburg’(1950) made entirely out of nineteenth-century engravings; the also Americans Berg & Block and their documentary ‘Goya’ (1954) made out of paintings and prints. Stoumen said to have been developing this form for more than a decade.

This still image film technique is less common in narrative films, but has been done occasionally. Such films are typically considered experimental or art films. Perhaps the best known narrative still image film is Chris Marker's 1962 film La Jetée , which was the inspiration for the 1995 film 12 Monkeys . [1] In narrative filmmaking, the vast majority of still image films are short films. Many student films are still image films, and the making of these films is a requirement in some film school courses. George Lucas's first film, the short Look at Life , was made up of only still images heavily influenced by films from Arthur Lipsett like his Oscar-nominated Very Nice, Very Nice . [1] Robert Downey Sr.'s 1966 feature film Chafed Elbows is constructed primarily from still photographs, with a few live-action sequences. Additionally, the 2007 Mexican film Year of the Nail is made up entirely of photographs taken by the director, Jonás Cuarón, over the course of one year. It is perhaps the only feature-length narrative film consisting exclusively of still images. [3] However, many narrative films still employ this technique for individual scenes. Some notable examples are John Cassavetes's Husbands (1970), [4] Gordon Parks Jr.'s Super Fly (1972), [5] Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View (1974), [6] Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run (1998), [7] and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010). [8]

Style

Filmmakers working with still images may do so out of necessity, such as when resources are limited and they are only able to shoot still photographs, rather than moving pictures. However, it is also sometimes chosen for stylistic reasons, and can allow the filmmakers to do things that would be impossible with traditional moving pictures. In Chafed Elbows, for example, the filmmakers had the freedom to improvise their lines during post-production. Additionally, the use of still images made possible a scene in which one character appears to throw another out of a high window, while the actors remained safe. Additionally, in Year of the Nail, the director pieced together unstaged photographs from his real life and was able to build a fictional story from these. Furthermore, still image films may decrease the filmmakers' limitations, as dialogue and sound effects need not be synchronized with moving images.

Burns has credited documentary filmmaker Jerome Liebling for teaching him how still photographs could be incorporated into documentary films. [9] He has also cited the 1957 National Film Board of Canada documentary City of Gold , [10] co-directed by Colin Low and Wolf Koenig, as a prior example of the technique. [11] [12] [13] Winner of the Prix du Documentaire at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for an Academy Award, [14] [15] City of Gold used animation camera techniques to slowly pan and zoom across archival still pictures of Canada's Klondike Gold Rush. [16]

Perception

As most audiences are unaccustomed to still image films, many viewers are initially turned off by them, but one study has shown that people adjust to the style after about seven minutes, as long as the story is engaging. [17] There is some debate about whether or not still image films should in fact be considered as genuine motion pictures, since they do not in fact employ the illusion of motion, with some considering them more akin to the slideshow.

The terms photomontage and collage have also been used to describe still image films, although those words actually refers to entirely different things.

Notable non-fiction examples

Notable fiction examples

Notable still image filmmakers

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Marker</span> French filmmaker

Chris Marker was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La Jetée (1962), A Grin Without a Cat (1977) and Sans Soleil (1983). Marker is usually associated with the Left Bank subset of the French New Wave that occurred in the late 1950s and 1960s, and included such other filmmakers as Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda and Jacques Demy.

<i>La Jetée</i> 1962 French film

La Jetée is a 1962 French science fiction featurette directed by Chris Marker and associated with the Left Bank artistic movement. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the stable time loop story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. It is 28 minutes long and shot in black and white.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Burns</span> American documentarian and filmmaker (born 1953)

Kenneth Lauren Burns is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS.

The Naked Eye is a 1956 American documentary film about the history of photography directed by Louis Clyde Stoumen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Experimental film</span> Cinematic works that are experimental form or content

Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Lipsett</span> Canadian collage filmmaker

Arthur Lipsett was a Canadian filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada. His short, avant-garde collage films, which he described as "neither underground nor conventional”, contain elements of narrative, documentary, experimental collage, and visual essay. His first film, Very Nice, Very Nice, was nominated for an Academy Award.

The Ken Burns effect is a type of panning and zooming effect used in film and video production from non-consecutive still images. The name derives from extensive use of the technique by American documentarian Ken Burns. This technique had also been used to produce animatics, simple animated mockups used to previsualize motion pictures, but Burns's name has become associated with the effect in much the same way as Alfred Hitchcock is associated with the dolly zoom.

<i>Sans Soleil</i> 1983 French documentary by Chris Marker

Sans Soleil is a 1983 French documentary film directed by Chris Marker. It is a meditation on the nature of human memory, showing the inability to recall the context and nuances of memory, and how, as a result, the perception of personal and global histories is affected. The title Sans Soleil is from the song cycle Sunless by Modest Mussorgsky, a brief fragment of which features in the film. Sans Soleil is composed of stock footage, clips from Japanese movies and shows, excerpts from other films as well as documentary footage shot by Marker.

<i>Look at Life</i> (film) 1965 American film

Look at Life is a 1965 one-minute short student film by George Lucas, produced for a course in animation while Lucas was a film student at USC Film School. The film's running time of exactly one minute was required by the course. This was the first film made by George Lucas, and was heavily influenced by Canadian filmmaker Arthur Lipsett.

Emmanuel Lubezki Morgenstern is a Mexican cinematographer. He has worked with many acclaimed directors, including Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Michael Mann, Joel and Ethan Coen, David O. Russell, and frequent collaborators Terrence Malick, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

City of Gold is a 1957 Canadian documentary film by Colin Low and Wolf Koenig, chronicling Dawson City during the Klondike Gold Rush. It made innovative use of archival photos and camera movements to animate still images, while also combining narration and music to bring drama to the whole. Its innovative use of still photography in this manner has been cited by Ken Burns as the source of inspiration for his so-called Ken Burns effect, a type of panning and zooming effect used in video production to animate still images.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photoanimation</span> Filmmaking technique

Photoanimation is a filmmaking technique in which still photos, artwork or other objects are filmed with the use of an animation stand.

<i>The True Story of the Civil War</i> 1956 film

The True Story of the Civil War is a 1956 American short documentary film directed by Louis Clyde Stoumen.

Louis Clyde Stoumen, known as Lou Stoumen, was an American photographer, film director and producer. He won two Academy Awards; the first in 1957 for Best Documentary Short Subject, and the second in 1963 for Best Documentary Feature.

<i>Chafed Elbows</i> 1966 American film

Chafed Elbows is a 1966 still image film directed by Robert Downey Sr.

Collage film is a style of film created by juxtaposing found footage from disparate sources. The term has also been applied to the physical collaging of materials onto film stock.

Non-narrative film is an aesthetic of cinematic film that does not narrate, or relate "an event, whether real or imaginary". It is usually a form of art film or experimental film, not made for mass entertainment.

Faceless is a 2007 Austrian/British science-fiction film directed by Manu Luksch that is constructed entirely from CCTV surveillance camera images, obtained under European data protection legislation. It is part of what film theorist Elizabeth Cowie describes as a 'multi-platform project that [Luksch] developed between 2002 and 2008, exploring London as "the most surveilled city on earth"'.

<i>Year of the Nail</i> 2007 film by Jonás Cuarón

Year of the Nail is a 2007 Mexican film written and directed by Jonás Cuarón. The film is told entirely through still photographs that the director took of his real life over the course of a year.

Stopover in Dubai is a short documentary that uses found footage to reconstruct the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a key figure in Hamas, who was killed in a hotel in Dubai in January 2010. The documentary is based on CCTV footage provided by the Dubai State Security Service, which captures the meticulous operation carried out by a team of 26 assassins, allegedly Mossad agents, who planned and executed the hit.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Video Editing Using Pictures and Still Images". VashtiVisuals. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  2. ↑ Tibbetts, John C. (1996). "The Incredible Stillness of Being: Motionless Pictures in the Films of Ken Burns". American Studies. 37 (1): 117–133. JSTOR   40642785 – via JSTOR.
  3. 1 2 "If You're Making Films with Still Images, Here Are a Few Things to Consider". nofilmschool. 27 December 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  4. ↑ Snart, Stephen (August 17, 2009). "Husbands, PopMatters".
  5. ↑ "Super Fly | Larsen On Film". January 11, 2013.
  6. ↑ "DVD Savant: PARALLAX VIEW: The Incredible Montage". www.dvdtalk.com.
  7. ↑ "Run Lola Run - Film Education" (PDF).
  8. ↑ "Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives - The Culturium -". The Culturium. April 8, 2016.
  9. ↑ Kennedy, Randy (2006-10-19). "The Still-Life Mentor to a Filmmaking Generation". The New York Times . Retrieved 2007-10-11. In fact, spend any time watching the films of Ken Burns, or those of the legions of documentary makers he has inspired, and you will see Mr. Liebling's work, in a sense, even if you have never laid eyes on one of his photographs.
  10. ↑ City of Gold on YouTube, full movie, uploaded by the National Film Board of Canada.
  11. ↑ Vause, Mikel (Fall 2006). "Capturing the American Experience: A Conversation with Ken Burns". Weber Studies. 23 (1). ISSN   0891-8899. OCLC   11872924. Archived from the original on October 13, 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-12.
  12. ↑ Williams, Charles (1997). "Historical Photographs and Multimedia Storytelling". Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2007-10-12.
  13. ↑ Tibbetts, John C. (c. 1997). "All That Glitters: City of Gold Revisited" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-10-12.
  14. ↑ "City of Gold (Capitale de l'or)". tiff.net. Canadian Film Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 26 December 2013. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
  15. ↑ 1958|Oscars.org
  16. ↑ Glassman, Marc (1 December 1999). "Filmmaker of vision". The Free Library. Retrieved 24 December 2013. Take one's interview with Colin Low, part 2
  17. ↑ "Cuarón's son makes picture perfect film". CNN. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
  18. 1 2 “Television Mailbag.” New York Times, 2 July 1961.
  19. ↑ Canada’s Documentary Essentials: ‘City of Gold’ – POV Magazine
  20. ↑ "Beyond the Photo Album: Relocating Varda's Salut les Cubains". cléo journal. 11 April 2018.
  21. ↑ Walsh, M., (2021) “From Nations to Worlds: Chris Marker’s “Si j’avais quatre dromadaires””, Global Storytelling: Journal of Digital and Moving Images 1(1)
  22. ↑ Case Study LSD (audio commentary) (Art & Trash Miniature 11) - Art & Trash on Vimeo
  23. ↑ Visionary Film - Google Books (pg.356)
  24. ↑ One Second in Montreal - Michael Snow - The Film-Makers' Cooperative
  25. ↑ "From These Roots". WILLIAM GREAVES.
  26. ↑ "From These Roots". November 27, 1974 – via Internet Archive.
  27. ↑ From these roots. November 27, 1974. OCLC   5557089 – via Open WorldCat.
  28. ↑ Home To Harlem: America's Black Metropolis – maysles documentary center
  29. ↑ UCLA's Festival of Preservation Unearths From Thom Andersen to James Cagney, Among Others - LA Weekly
  30. ↑ Provenance and Early Cinema - Google Books (pgs.287-88)
  31. ↑ Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer | NW Film Center
  32. ↑ Killed|Viennale
  33. ↑ Review of Lasting Marks|IFFR
  34. ↑ Field of Vision - Lasting Marks on official Vimeo channel
  35. ↑ Caricaturana|Gijόn City Council
  36. ↑ Cinema Almanac: continuing transition - Films in Frame
  37. ↑ Experimental Ethnography - Google Books (pg. 254)
  38. ↑ ARTHUR LIPSETT – Spectacle Theater
  39. ↑ "The films that influenced Cindy Sherman's 'Untitled Film Stills' series". Dazed. July 16, 2019.
  40. ↑ "2001: A Space Odyssey & 9 Other Classic Avant-Garde Films Fans Need To Check Out". ScreenRant. January 18, 2021.
  41. ↑ "La Jetée". The Criterion Collection.
  42. ↑ La Jetee 1962, directed by Chris Marker|Time Out
  43. ↑ Wickman, Forrest (March 23, 2012). "Watch the Early Art-House Documentaries of George Lucas". Slate Magazine.
  44. ↑ "Chafed Elbows". The Criterion Collection.
  45. ↑ "Chafed Elbows". The Criterion Channel.
  46. ↑ "Santa's Christmas Elf (Named Calvin) - The Cinema Snob". 4 December 2017 – via www.youtube.com.
  47. ↑ "Santa's Christmas Elf (Named Calvin)". December 4, 2017 – via IMDb.
  48. ↑ SANTA'S CHRISTMAS ELF (NAMED CALVIN)|The Bedlam Files
  49. ↑ "DOGS' DIALOGUE (1984 review) | Jonathan Rosenbaum". jonathanrosenbaum.net.
  50. ↑ "MIFF Archive". MIFF 2021.
  51. ↑ "IFFR Archive". IFFR 2008.
  52. ↑ "SCIFI 4 EVER". www.scifi4ever.com.
  53. ↑ Cuban Cinema Classics: Santiago Álvarez|UC Berkeley Library
  54. ↑ The Incredible Stillness of Being: Motionless Pictures in the Films of Ken Burns on JSTOR
  55. ↑ Ken Burns Fights City Hall Over His New Film on the Central Park Jogger Case - Vulture
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.