The Future of Film

The debate about the future of the film industry is currently focused on digital filming techniques versus the traditional film. Unsurprisingly, there are people such as Christopher Nolan in the industry holding on to film and herald all its advantages, but increasingly “studios are moving to replace film with digital technology” (Howard Stringer as quoted by Frontline, 2001).

There are advantages and disadvantages with both filming techniques. Film is said to be “better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for 100 years, and it’s extremely reliable” (Christopher Nolan as quoted by Lhooq, 2012). It has a certain texture to it, which both film makers and audiences have got used to and cherish. It is, however, considered more expensive and film can only be used once compared to SD cards and other forms of digital storage.

The question of quality is subjective; there are people in both camps utilising the quality argument to make their point. Some directors have tried digital and 3D filming techniques and wowed never to touch it again. Others have delighted in the possibilities offered by this new medium. Although digital is on the rise, film “will always be a part of the industry” (Eisenberg, 2012).

Similarly to architecture, there is a wave on uncertainty in the film industry. Just as SketchUp, Grand Designs and other mainstream design tools and programs have made architecture more accessible to the public, anyone can now be a film maker. All they need is a cheap digital camera, or even a camera phone or tablet, and some computer software if they want the ability to edit the raw material. The Canon 7D and other DSLR cameras capable of video recording have made it possible to “shoot cinema-quality imagery for less than the price of a computer” (Eisenberg, 2012).

Hence, the digital technology makes film making readily available to the masses. It is no longer restricted to an exclusive club of white men hidden away in Hollywood. But the digital process can also make film watching more accessible, as it is possible to distribute a digital picture directly to a projector via satellite. Cinema will be possible even in remote places which have previously suffered from badly scratched and damaged film transported a long way in undesirable conditions. This has the opportunity to “develop the enthusiasm for movies in faraway places” (Howard Stringer as quoted by Frontline, 2001).

Digital film making has the power to level the playing field between amateur and professional film makers and make the industry more accessible. It also enables audiences in remote locations to enjoy high quality screenings through relatively cheap technology. Peter Bart, editor-in-chief of Variety, sums this change up in a couple of sentences;

“When you consider the fact that the basic process of shooting a movie was exactly the same between 1920 and 1998, you know, nothing changed. Now all of a sudden everything has changed” (Frontline, 2001).

Not only people will be affected by these changes, places and infrastructure will have to adapt as well. A number of industry professionals, including chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation Howard Stringer, question the need for “the infrastructure, the superstructure of yesterday’s Hollywood to sustain a digital vision. It’s not clear that you do” (Frontline, 2001). Digital media does away with the need for large film archives, cutting rooms and dark rooms. All these are replaced by computer suited and server rooms allowing for digital manipulation, editing and storage.

Digital film making allows for increased application of special effects and animation. The use of greenscreens is extensive, simply because of the vast cost associated with building complete sets and the employment of crew and equipment. Using greenscreens and digitally recreating the surroundings gives the director complete control of light, noise and content.

There is, in addition to the film versus digital debate, also an ongoing bluescreen versus greenscreen argument. Although not as simple, the general consensus is that bluescreens are better for film and greenscreens more suitable for digital. The reason is the design of sensors in digital cameras. The green channel is the clearest channel, has the highest luminance and can therefore deliver the clearest picture with the least noise. The Bayer pattern, the pattern of sensors in the camera, mimics the colour sensitivity of the human eye. It has a “filter arrangement on its pixel array that actually records twice as many green pixels as red or blue. So the actual recording resolution of the green channel is double that of the other channels” (Weigert, 2010).

To emphasise the shift from film to digital, parts of the building facade will provide a greenscreen rather than bluescreen backdrop.




The Internet – Distribution, Crowdfunding and Social Networking

Returning to the advantages of digital media, another reason for its success and accessibility is the widespread use of the World Wide Web. Industry people have different opinions on how or why the Internet is useful, ranging from easy distribution to a mass audience on sites like YouTube to file sharing, communication and direct audience feedback. Some of these views are reflected in the quotes below;

“I think broadband would probably allow the public a way to see some movies, for instance, the best of the festival movies that never come to their town and never come to their theatre” (Lucy Fisher as quoted by Frontline, 2001).

“I don’t think broadband is necessarily a direct threat to the business unless they lose the ability to protect their content. […] If anything some of the video stores are more at risk than the studios from broadband because it does allow them to bypass both the video store and also allows them in some cases to bypass the cable operator.” (Larry Gerbrandt as quoted by Frontline, 2001).

“But one thing that I think has the greatest advantage to both change the financial underpinnings of the business and create a wider circle or a wider orbit of audience, and differentiated audience, and a wider orbit of talent that can feed that audience, is World Wide Web broadband” (Peter Guber as quoted by Frontline, 2001).

Howard Stringer made an accurate prediction of film on demand and Internet based film streaming services. He said “I think there will be huge audiences for movies that people want to see when they want to see them” (Frontline, 2001). Today, services such as Lovefilm and Netflix hold a large share of the film rental market. Netflix have even divided their subscription methods in two; the more traditional DVD rental and purely digital, instant access to streamed videos online. The diagram above (Figure 2) shows the success of this new approach.

Despite the addition of new modes of visual consumption, traditional TV consumption is growing. “People are watching more video content not only on TV but across all platforms” (Marshall and Venturini, 2011:7) as indicated by the above diagram (Figure 5).  This offers further opportunities to amateur and professional film makers alike, opportunities to make use of “multiple platforms to tell their stories, engage with millions and build new types of businesses” (Rosenthal, 2009).

A new type of business increasingly common in the film making industry is the use of online crowdfunding. With large production houses preferring to invest their money in accredited professionals, crowdfunding is “a growing necessity for independent filmmakers” (Pozin, 2012). It does not only offer money and continued independence for the filmmakers, but an increased interest and word of mouth advertising, especially in an online community of social networking. Pozin goes as far as asking “Is crowdfunding the next step the industry needs for a higher success rate to underfunded films?” (Pozin, 2012)

Social networking does not only enable word of mouth advertising, but instant feedback and discussion about what is shown on the screen. It has brought along a “new audience which is no longer made up of passive viewers of media -they are active creators, collaborators, distributors and even financiers” (Rosenthal, 2009). Clever filmmakers make use of this platform to find out what films and topics are well received not by critics, but the general public.

The Internet has enabled instant distribution, access and discussion, contributing to make the film industry more readily available to the general public. The importance of community has been highlighted through crowdfunding, discussions and feedback. It is therefore important to ensure excellent community involvement in this project, both with the local people in Bradford and the global online community. A good community hub with computer and Internet access must be provided to allow people to interact not only with their local film studio, but also with the online film community.

Moreover, profit made from larger productions should be fed back into independent community projects supporting local productions economically as well as with knowledge and facilities.



New Technologies

With the change from film to digital, a number of new technologies have become available. They include pocket-sized digital cameras, enabling filming in difficult locations (showcased in films such as 127 Hours), multi platform access on tablets, mobile phones and computers, laser projectors, mini projectors, interactive web based films, improved sound systems and so-called “second screen experience apps”, apps which synchronise with the film shown on screen and provide trivia, extra video clips and more information about the plot and characters (Lhooq, 2012).

This explosion of facilities for broadcasting is exciting, but will not necessarily replace the TV or the cinema. Instead, Marshall and Venturini argue for a broadcasting culture that does away with the linear thinking and adapts to a “connected, interactive, consumer-centric world” (2011:2). The new forms of technologies are complements, not replacements. Care must be taken in how these different media are treated; audiences respond differently to each of them. Eisenberg, however, is positive about the expansion of media and claims that audiences “evolve just as fast as the technology presented to them” (2012). Care must be taken when venturing into this new, exiting territory where the audience and filmmakers are brought closer together than ever before.

 “The task now is how we can reach and build audiences and use that unprecedented potential for exposure to create and extend the value of content. The key to a digital future resides in the relationship with audiences. In a congested marketplace where competition for audiences is fragmented over multiple new platforms, games, online activities, TV and real life, the film industry must find new avenues to make films available easily and to engage with future audiences in more meaningful ways” (Rosenthal, 2009).

Diagrams from:
Marshall, C. and Venturini, F. (2011) ‘The Future of Broadcasting: a new storm is brewing.’ Accenture. [online] [accessed 2013-01-28] http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture_The_Future_of_Broadcasting_A_New_Storm_is_Brewing.pdf. p.4 and 8

Bibliography:

Pozin, I. (2012) ‘Crowdfunding: The Future Of The Film Industry?’ Forbes. [online] [accessed 2013-01-28] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2012/12/20/crowdfunding-the-future-of-the-film-industry

Lhooq, M. (2012) ‘9 Mind-Blowing Technologies Changing The Film Industry’s Future.’ The Creators Project. [online] [accessed 2013-01-28] http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/9-mind-blowing-technologies-changing-the-film-industry%E2%80%99s-future—2

Kemmerle, K. (2012) ‘Do This Year’s Oscar Nominations Signal the End of Celluloid?’ Tribeca. [online] [accessed 2013-01-28] http://www.tribecafilm.com/tribecaonline/future-of-film/Oscar-Nominations-Side-By-Side-Debate.html#.UQZQLGdCnIU

Frontline. (2001) ‘Is This the Future of Movies?’ pbs.org. [online] [accessed 2013-01-28] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hollywood/digital/future.html

Marshall, C. and Venturini, F. (2011) ‘The Future of Broadcasting: a new storm is brewing.’ Accenture. [online] [accessed 2013-01-28] http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture_The_Future_of_Broadcasting_A_New_Storm_is_Brewing.pdf

Rosenthal, L. (2009) ‘The future for film has already been written.’ Screen Daily. [online] [accessed 2013-01-28] http://www.screendaily.com/news/opinion/the-future-for-film-has-already-been-written/5004727.article

Eisenberg, M. (2012) ‘Movie Technology: The Continuing Battle of Film vs. Digital.’ Screen Rant. [online] [accessed 2013-01-28] http://screenrant.com/movie-technology-film-vs-digital-mikee-105167

Installation - Group 6

The purpose of our installation was to explore local and global trends within the city of Bradford. Data was collected from various sources and represented in our model to display relationships normally invisible in the urban fabric.

The global recession, which began in 2007, can clearly be seen within the political economics of the Council’s annual budget and the house prices within each area. The local case study of Leeds Road, however, has no recognisable reaction to the global market. This highlights the separation of the trends when it comes to the social setup of the areas. Leeds Road has a vibrant mixture of different ethnicities from around the world, but their economy works at a more local scale. As a result one can begin to expose the higher level of stability within the more localised area.

Another key characteristic is the separation of trends when global elements are seen within a local context. Global economics do not directly relate to the global society and global politics are torn between the two. Their only real correlation is their simultaneous existence within the local context. Leeds Road has a global society embedded within it and behaves rather stably.  The city centre on the other hand has a global economy embedded, and the current demise of the Westfield site is one example of the aggressive fluctuations it has.

Bradford’s future has to behave at both a local and global scale within the modern day context. Its current approach has occurred out of necessity but without much structure. The instability of the more globally funded city centre offers one possible route, but the local community of Leeds Road portrays an alternative, relatively sustainable model. Neither route can be considered more successful as neither addresses the tension created through the shift to a more global city. Society, politics, and economy must work together within the local context if they are ever to fully function effectively, rather than their current state of independent entities neighbouring one another.

The Adventure of a Lifetime!
The MA A+U is featured in this short film for Education UK, promoting studying (abroad) in the UK to an international audience.

Framing the Future: The Film

The last few bits of editing, including adding the great narration by Max Behr, before it is time to render the final copy of the film. 

A timeline of films, important cultural/historical/political/scientific etc. events and architectural trends all overlayed to explore potential connections.

Thesis Interview

Interview with three MA students in Architecture and Urbanism (S1, S2 and S3 on the 1st of June 2012. All three were familiar with my thesis work from previous studio presentations and did therefore not need an extensive introduction to the topic. Their familiarity with my research may have compromised their objectivity, which I need to keep in mind when evaluating their comments.

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LK: You obviously know what I’m working with. So, what relationship do you think exists, just generally, between film and architecture?

S1: I think I always like to look at the role of the architect as a director in a way. You know, that outlines the boundaries of everyday life and, like, the backdrop for everyday life and its scenography. We’re born in a world that already exists and there are interesting questions that can come out of it, like what happens when you witness a change of scenography through disasters, when everything has to be regenerated and so on. I think there is a very strong connection between them, isn’t it?

S2: Film is all about space and that’s what architecture’s main priority is about; controlling the space of the user so film’s just, it has to use it as a backdrop for what it’s doing and it influences everything in the film. For most people it is a very conscious thing, as part of the film, but if it’s done wrong you know about it. When it’s done well you don’t. 

S1: I think you’re right in saying that it’s manipulative in a way because the same way as a director, sort of, chooses the shots he wants to put together to convey a certain emotion, it’s the same thing with architecture. People aren’t really a part of what’s happening and the major decisions that are being made in the urban fabric so it’s a given.

S2: They’re both dealing with perception all the time and they’ve both got to successfully convey atmosphere, it’s all about legibility.  […]

LK: So, how do you reckon they can influence each other? Do you reckon film can influence architecture directly or vice versa? [NK arrives] Sorry, we were just talking about architecture and film in general and how they can influence each other.

S2: I think it’s difficult for architecture to directly say it takes relationships from film. I think it’s a difference in the readings. I think architecture is an older sort of thing, so films come out in order to portray people living as part of architecture and it’s a much newer idea to use film as part in a building.  It’s something that would only be from the last maximum 70 or 80 years. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, it’s not something that’s as common, but there’s things that they both deal with. Things are more cinematic these days we, were saying, with perspective and creating space.

S1: I think another thing they have in common is structure. It’s quite obvious, but if every film has a beginning and it sort of builds up to something…

S2: Sequential experiences

S1: Yes, exactly. Then it fades away and it makes an impression. So I think that’s both their role to create a sensation to a certain perception like you said before.

S2: Both things are a journey. I suppose both are trying to convey similar things about, I mean. Architecture is all through space. Film is drawing you through different environments and that is what good architecture does. Because if you’re in a good building you don’t have to worry about moving through it, it naturally draws you through and that’s what a good film should do as well. It draws you through the story and its environments as well.

S1: And I also think another connection is spatial temporal compression, which can happen, for example in the Trafford Centre where you’ve got a pastiche of thing, a mix match of elements. Film, well it depends on what type of film it is, but you’ve got montage that comes in here and determines the compression rate and everything is it is a long shot or a short shot and so on. That goes back to structure in a way, and the way that temporality is debated. But yes, I think that’s another point.

S2: I think actually the Trafford Centre is a good example, it goes back to your question how does film influence architecture, taking something like a shopping centre, like the Trafford Centre, is probably one of the most direct links to something like that. Because the way they directly try to draw you through and create this experience is probably more cinematic that anything else.

S1: It’s a promenade, almost.

S2: If you’re thinking of a typology, it’s probably a shopping mall more than a shopping centre. It’s probably the closest thing you’d get to it. Now, it’s probably closer to a blockbuster action film than anything else, but there’s definitely a relationship there. 

S3: For me, I look at the two as to what are the main agendas or the main concentration and I find that both of them are film architecture are all visual things. They concentrate more about the appearance. And if you synergise the two, you find out that even in the modern approach to design of the buildings they consider on the how does it appeal to the human eye? I attended one of the lectures in Sandra Burslem theatre where the architect there said, you know, there are some perspectives you don’t want to take a photo of the building to appear on your website. So you need a special point where you can take a photo that can go on the website. So this one is just telling us architecture and film, they are all picturesque. They are concerned with the visual, they are all intertwined in one or the other.

LK: So, how do you reckon then, in order to move a bit closer to where my thesis is at the moment, that disaster films and the idea of the apocalypse, how those kind of films and the ideas of dystopia, how do you reckon that can influence architecture?

S3: I have a very good understanding on how film influences architecture. I will take the example of cartoons, you know the production of cartoons and moving pictures. Do you know that most of the software we are using now developed from the idea of cartoons? So it’s like when they started developing this as film, cartoons, they developed the cartoons, their settings and then the software developer said I think we can use this idea to create software for the 3D rendering. And now it’s like the film industry has developed the architecture industry whereby now you can see visually. You can actually generate a model in a film while you’re moving. The architecture of the 3D moving images is actually coming from the film industry.

LK: So what advantages do you think that brings to architecture? It might be an obvious question, but…

S3: The advantage is that, it influences the efficiency of the field. You see? It’s like, you copy from this field and then you influence the other field. When you produce a product, an architectural product, obviously of these days one of the movie makers will come to say ‘Can we shoot a film from this location?’. So it’s like in both ways and many dimensions these two are interrelated and they influence each other.

S1: Maybe the idea between films and these sort of futuristic Sci-Fi films comes from the fact that we… well there is that sense… there are other things happening and maybe that is just a way for us to subconsciously get ready for it and come out with that sort of trying to imagine, figure it out because it’s something that’s out of our control so maybe starting to define to have control over it by starting to define it by creating the city as we would imagine it in films and maybe that’s just a way to… to prepare for something.

S3: And the other thing is that most of the architects, if they want to copy a design. You’ll find the best design in film. It’s a channel of communication, a visual communication. The film producers are actually particular in the buildings they select to shoot their movie. See? So you’ll find out that just in the watching of the movie’ What is this building?’. You try to find out and with the making of so many movies it’s like, it’s widening the horizon of architects and how to approach designs that appeal to the human eye. So, there’s just a striking link.

S1: It’s a hyper-real world, almost, that’s created through film. It’s sort of an exaggeration of our fantasies…

LK: So do you reckon people are going to start designing buildings that are gonna go straight into film, target their design almost, in order to have their films displayed for free in the cinema?

S1: To have their designs displayed, used as a backdrop for certain films?

S3: For me, I look at it like in the film making, there’s already an exaggeration of architecture. Architecture’s coming behind. You find out that in the creation of those… I’ll still take the example of cartoons. Those people explore and think, come up with their extraordinary shapes. So when you look at the cartoons you think ‘But this can be possible, how can we create it structurally?’, you see? So the film is actually ahead of architecture, so it’s like we’re trailing behind.

S1: Yes, I think it’s great because film doesn’t think about all these functional aspects necessarily; it just lets imagination flow and go to extremes, really extreme places like Jules Vernes for example. He wrote a book about the air balloon and then it actually got realised, everybody thought he was crazy at the time or the travelling in outer space and so on. There are people that foresee this sort of progress. I think in a way that this becomes embedded in the subconscious and people start going towards that direction in a way. It’s just putting things out there and I think that’s what film does.

S2: […] When people are watching film, it’s giving them a visual impression of what things are and what things should be like. Because architecture generally as an education doesn’t come in until later on in people’s lives, their ideas of how things are built and constructed are more and more over the last few decades being based on things in film. And things in film, although until more recently have been real constructs, film has the ability to shape them in its own way, to give them their own feeling and visualisation. Especially, on the side of things the way cities feel. So even, I’ll say like a sequential way, when they’re in a city, we know for a fact that they won’t be going street by street by street doing it. They’ll cut from one area to a completely different area of the city. But it’ll be one shot and the next shot between those and that’s creating a feeling of an urban environment that doesn’t exist. But it’s using real examples to create that contrast and it has the ability to do that, and that’s probably one of the strongest links that’s going to come as people bring their own ideas to the table. Everything is based on experience, so it’s going to be based on viewing things like that.

LK: So, bringing it back again, I’m obviously forcing it a bit but to the idea of things going wrong. Recently we’ve had more and more films, starting in the ’70s with a big disaster film hype and that was based on nuclear fears. Now we’ve had a big hype again with environmental disasters, diseases and all of these things. Do you reckon these things could somehow influence the way we plan our cities? The fact that we can now imagine things on screen, present it via mass-media to a really wide audience; spread this information - these ideas - really quickly, people starting to talk and think about it. How should that feed back into the way we plan our cities?

S3: I think that you can look at the horror films; if they give out pictures. […]

S1: I just think about sin-city, when you say “do you know a really dark environment?” and these topics, societies.

S2: I think it’s difficult to, say, directly learn from film as a medium. Because although it deals with many of the same themes as doing things for different reasons, there are things when you consider the sign of things going wrong in disaster films. Architecture is usually one of the first things, the things that our country covers, that start to go wrong. So, in an action film it’ll be destruction of the building, so even some things like Die Hard it’s all set in a tower block. If you go even further back, you’ve got a tower in Inferno which was probably one of the first ones. Architecture is very important to those films even though it’s at the forefront of it, even though it’s not explicitly talked about. As then you come more forward, as the disasters get bigger it’s more about things on the urban scale. There’s always things like traffic blocking up and things like that. So quite possibly if you’re going with learn[ing] things it’s… creating contingencies from that I think is almost a bit of an extreme idea, but it’s going “Ok, well, what are people’s greatest fears out of these things?”. Not being able to escape a city environment, not having safe areas in the city environment.. I mean there must be lots more to think through there. And it’s maybe looking at those in the urban design aspect and thinking “How could you, in a realistic aspect, alleviate people’s fears if there was a disaster?” So, I guess, in this age we’d be looking slightly different. I mean, everything in films goes on a slightly more science-fiction scale but in a real-life one terror’s a big important thing. If there’s a large-scale attack, how are people able to evacuate safely and create safe communities and, I suppose, rebuild is probably the last important thing from it - how are people able to come back into their environment?

S1: But I don’t think it’s just about the actual event and how people cope with it. I think what urbanism should do is also deal with their paranoias. So if the event is happening, these build up in people’s conscience. I think that’s quite important. Regarding what you said earlier, I was just thinking when they show in film when architecture crumbles it’s the ultimate destruction stage, so that when that falls you realise that that’s so fragile - everything is sort of lost, everybody freaks out when that’s gone. So, it’s holding life together and you feel that as long as that’s there and is intact we’re fine, in a way, we’ve still got a chance to save ourselves.

LK: So coming on from that do you think that architecture and urbanism can help to prevent and mitigate these kind of disasters. As long as we’re being clever with it, or just in general, or could we improve on it?

S2: I think it’s difficult to go along the path of preventing disasters. If anything, what films should stress is disasters are created in themselves and there’s nothing that’s exactly the same for.. but exactly what you say, it’s mainly only even people’s paranoia so they can live their lives; disasters are going to happen and because they’re so varied it’s difficult to prevent them. But at least we should at least be able to make people comfortable in an area even though something can happen and I suppose given.. it’s more likely as I said the opportunity to get out or rebuild is…

S3: …it’s like the film industry exposes our limited, our support for architecture is. Say for example the disaster film you would have a tall building that would collapse in a way. As an architect you would think ‘What kind of material can I use to design. Say if I move.. a building that can move away’, like the twin towers were hit by a plane. How can we create it that when a plane was coming the building moved away and the plane didn’t hit the building? So, there are no materials to construct what the films portray. There’s that gap on the paper and what is a reality, in the ground.

S1: Another funny thing which I just remember which was regarding how we, people, become so inspired by the architecture in film. It’s so hyperbolic and crazy that they want a piece of it. Hence the guy that built his own Hobbit hut from Lord of the Rings. […] and especially now with all the special effects it’s so well, these worlds, these parallel worlds, these fantasy words. It’s an escape for people, basically, from their daily lives. So they want a piece of that escape in their back yard or wherever it is. I think that’s another way to look at it - film is escape. That’s why it’s so popular in Cuba or in places where the political regimes are extremely powerful and censorship is very high and so on. So going to film was basically escaping, it was a rapture from the daily life, going somewhere else and travelling with your mind and with your eyes.

S2: I would say every entertainment is an escapism of some sort, and that’s what people want to do because it’s something other than their daily grind and lives. I suppose what film can sort of show in relation to architecture is that there’s no reason why architecture can’t be any different from that. Why can’t architecture be an escape for somebody? Their perception of space can be an escape from the way that they have to live their life.

S1: I think that film should stay as an escape. It shouldn’t become educational, it should preserve its status as something like that. I don’t know how to put it.

LK: Is it only escape though? At the moment, when you’re looking at pure fantasy film, is it necessarily only an escape or is it an expression of something that you can’t talk about in straight terms?

S1: It could be. It can be so many things

S2: Well, I suppose there are things that are metaphor in film but it’s difficult because we live in a very free society so it’s difficult to say that anything in film is dealing with subjects that we can’t deal with in.. well, you’re dealing on a personal scale or a societal scale, because usually films are all dealt with on a societal scale in some ways. Or, I suppose it is an inability to deal with some things where some things aren’t dealable with on a personal scale, but in other cultures film’s an important thing because some subjects are illegal, or—

S1: Film can be a voice, the voice of things that aren’t really said or are..

LK: So do you reckon all the reasons climate change and all of the disasters that have been going on, do you reckon they have influenced the contents of film lately?

S2: The film industry is an interesting thing in itself. I wouldn’t say greatly over the last ten - fifteen years. I think there’s been pretty much a status in the film industry for the past 25-30 years for film types, typologies and the way they’re done. I would say that disasters before then, yes. But up until now, there’s very few original ideas coming through in film, it’s mainly the re-imagining of other ideas of other films that have come through. It takes quite a lot for some film to be an original, new idea. […]

S1: I think that apocalypse has haunted humanity since [the beginning of time]. If it’s not aliens coming, it’s going to be the rise of the machine, like we just saw in Metropolis. People always had this fear and lived with this fear that we’re not going to be here, we’re not eternal, we’re not going to live forever. An end is coming, so as you said these are ways for us to sort of imagine it in different ways and get ready for different scenarios.

LK: So why do you think there is such a fascination with it? Whether it’s dystopia or the apocalypse or disasters?

S2: Doesn’t it come back to the human condition, the fascination with death? We know that we don’t last forever.

S1:  It’s about the fact that everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. I think that’s what it all comes down to. A book has beginning, a middle… everything had a conclusion. This idea of eternity, I don’t know what to say. I mean… Maybe it’s… People… Maybe it’s been built with religion and… Religion might have had an important part in it, in a way. Because it tells people that there is going to be a day when everything will, you know, whether it’s going to be the great judgement or whatever you want to call it. I know this is a bit off topic, but I think that’s when people started thinking about that sort of stuff.

S2: I would say there is a comfort in the idea of that to… to a lot of extents. Because you can go ‘No matter how bad we think things are getting, it all can then… It all can [get worse]’

S1: Yes, I think that’s very true. You know that there’s going to be a release at the end or something.

LK: So why do reckon it’s so popular at the moment? Because the number of disaster films are going up, there’s the spin off thing, the theatre productions put up, the images produced, we had the James Chadderton exhibition with Manchester being completely destroyed. It’s a really important part of popular culture at the moment.

S3: Yes, but even if you look in the statistics of the real events of natural disasters, you would find out that the sheer scale of them are actually increasing and they are more frequent than previous[ly] If you look at the seismic issues, the earthquakes, you will find out that the magnitudes they are reaching now are actually hair-raising. So, to some extents when these things are happening and the exaggeration that the films give, it’s actually blows the whole picture out of proportion. To some extent, the films can actually mould the behaviour […] If the films are always showing us the dystopic scenes and what we are watching on every channel are dystopic scenes; war, crimes, you find out that even the architecture responds to that. How does it respond? More defensive planning, so on and so forth. And yesterday I was watching something on River Themes, and there’s a water barrier that controls the level of water. They say if they see the ice melt in the poles, those barriers are under distress. Something like that. So to design that, it informs them on what should be done to the new building. Should we go even higher? As the water rises, we should actually be in the top cities.

S1: At the same time, once they start addressing something like this, you know an end that’s coming, it becomes real. You know what I mean? The more it’s aesteticised and the more its shown as part of a structure, and of an urban… You know, you sort of make it real for everybody. I don’t know how to explain it… Because now it’s sort of a subject that floats in the air and people do movies about it and so on, but… I don’t know how to explain it, sorry.

S2: My take on it is, it’s probably got links to things like… There are reasons there are more natural disasters, but I think those things… the Earth’s cyclical, in a way. That works. I think it’s probably more based on society, societal. That’s how I feel it works. Things are difficult at the moment, economically across the world things are difficult. And films come to reflect that, because films are, if anything, meant for the time that they’re made. So, at the minute because things are difficult for us, we will do even more disaster films, because we’re going ‘Oh, look how bad it could be’. Whereas if you’re living in a time where things are easy, the films won’t reflect that as much because people don’t need to see when they’re living in an easy, nice life it going wrong. But people think that things are going wring they want to see that it could be a lot worse. So I would believe there’s a relationship between recessions and the amount of disaster films being made. Something like that.

S1: So as to put in a better light what you’re living, your daily life. That’s a good point.

LK: So… I’m trying to figure out which question to move on to, to make it as smooth as possible, but it’s not gonna work. So, do you reckon with all the recent climate change and disasters going on, have they had an impact on the way we look at architecture and urbanism?

S1: Yes, the issue of sustainability, is that what you mean? That it’s becoming increasingly high and that people are addressing it more and more. Is that what you mean?

LK: Do you reckon that’s connected to more frequent disastrous events? Are people taking it more seriously because they can see things going on?

S1: Yes, it’s about all the graphs and statistics that are fed every single day. That things are going to go incredibly wrong unless we change something. So yes, I think that’s connected.

S3: And again, with the disaster if you notice that the… Disaster areas, you know, the hitting and the magnitude and the type of disasters are actually different. And if you look at the responses to specific disasters you find out that each and every time there is an increased creativity in how the disaster is handles. For example, when the disaster hit Haiti, you find out that if you go to the re-planning, or even the tsunami, you know it like washed away the field of agricultural land, how is the new planning going to be to replace tat huge, massive loss? And again, you’ll find out that now it boils down to what kind of buildings are we going to build? If we have these disasters? Which materials are we going to invest in the structure. So, we’re now reinventing the whole way how we look at the design. What particular design should we put in what particular area. And what impact will it have when a disaster hits that thing?

S1: I think that’s about natural disasters, but you’ve got places that are completely damaged socially. The first thing that comes to mind is City of God, that film. So that sort of extreme violence and so on. And again I think that’s closely connected to the architecture and the urban corners that provides them places to make those things happen. That’s another way to look at disaster when it comes from these sort of cities.

LK: So by imagining all of these things, whether it’s films or whether it’s architects talking about it or any other professionals or people, do you reckon we can learn to prevent or mitigate them? By creating these imaginary scenarios and say ‘If this was to happen, if we do this and this and this, can we stop it?’

S2: I think it’s very difficult to plan contingencies against things that have no happened at all before. Because, if you’re in an earthquake zone, like in Los Angeles, they… I can’t remember when the last one was, but it was quite a long time ago singe the last major one they had. And they’ve spent all that time preparing their architecture and they way the city is planned. It’s all built around is there is another massive earthquake that they have there. But … for the argument that they should start developing for, say, a massive health disaster. It’s difficult to make contingencies for something that may never happen. It’s all the likelihood of things. And that’s the problem with films. Films generally like to take the viewpoint, they tend to throw something in that has never happened to see how people cope with it. Now, the only extent I could see that on the architecture and city scale is to create, to not take specific sorts of disasters but take the points of what people need to do in a disaster. Take those and create plans around those. So, people need clean water, people need access to health care, shelter, things like that so in a disaster people are able to access that, create contingencies around that rather than the specifics. The biggest thing I can see is that film can teach us what our biggest fears are. […] We can learn from those fears and then create contingencies around those in the city.

S1: I agree, I think you’re right. You have to deal with it first in order to be able to prepare for it again.

S3: And again, there are some films that are actually coming from real studies. For example, archaeological studies whereby the excavation, the review, that maybe there was a huge volcano that swept the whole town.

S1: Pompeii?

S3: Yes, like in great magnitude. So in that scenario, it’s actually… How can architecture prepare, or even engineering prepare for that… It’s almost impossible.

S2: I guess on things like that, if it’s a disaster on a scale that can’t be combated itself, it’s enabling people to relocate with the least amount of hassle. That’s the other thing films play on a lot is the.. if people do need to leave somewhere quickly, is the lack of people’s ability to do that and people getting trapped in bad situations due to numbers of people trying to leave. And that happens..

S1: But at the same time, if you increase the connectivity between points, when you have, in the case of Contagion, something you don’t want to happen. I think it’s very delicate in a way.

S2: True…

S1: I don’t know, I’m just trying to think of all disaster films I’ve seen.

LK: Well, then talking about Contagion, because that’s a film, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, made part funded by NGOs in the aftermath of the swine flu and the bird flu. Do you reckon we can use film as a tool to almost passively educate people? So whilst they’re watching this film and kind of enjoying it, Contagion is not very enjoyable as a film, but you still learn a lot from it. You learn to wash your hands, you know where to go and if this should happen, here’s who you should talk with. Do you reckon it’s realistic to actually try to use those kind of strategies on a larger scale?

S2: I don’t see why not but it’s more like the language of the film, how that changes. So if it’s just a normal thing to warn people through film then that becomes part of the societal thing around them. I’ve not seen Contagion but I know about it. On things like sort of that scale, it’s difficult for the idea of, because these days the world is a link, it’s all about linking itself to other things. Some cities are completely dependent on linkages to other sources […] I think films on those scales teach on a different level, so things we shouldn’t be doing in the first place. So government shouldn’t be developing smallpox, resistant strains of smallpox. Why are you doing it? Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.

S1: Don’t go to into the forest when Jack the Ripper is there!

S2: Exactly, yeah.. But I don’t know what the place is in architecture for that sort of thing. I couldn’t say.

LK: Do you reckon film could create a sense of familiarity with things? So that when we face them, we can say ‘Hmm.. I saw this in a film once…’ Well, maybe not that explicitly, but ‘Hang on, I can deal with this, I kind of know what’s gonna happen even though I’ve never been in this situation before’.

S1: They certainly prepare you in w way.

S2: Yeah, I think.. if you’re in a situation where you’ve not got much food and water, everybody knows through film these days you ration your water. You ration your food. It’s the first you try to do. Most things you don’t pick that up from… It’s not like people are reading survival guides, generally. It’s more.. what the successful survivor does in a film. Well you don’t go upstairs if you’re in a dark house and you think somebody might be up there with a big knife…

S1: You don’t waste liquids…

S3: Once, I watched a film where there was an earthquake and people ran under the tables. So when we had an earth tremble at the university at home, and I just… I just rushed under the table. Maybe when the floors collapse… with the legs of the table you can have some space for the excavators to find you. So you can easily learn just like that in films.

S2: I’ve got things like that too. The archway of a door, it’s one of the safest places to be. It’s very strong, the archway of a door. So it’s a good place to be.

LK: That’s all the questions I wanted to ask you, so unless you’ve got something else you want to talk about…

Dieter Moebius Live Score ‘Metropolis 1927’
17 May 2012, St Philip’s Church, Salford

FutureEverything in association with Hairbrain present: Legendary Komische musician Dieter Moebius’ live, improvised score for Fritz Lang’s silent sci-fi masterpiece in the heart of Salford. He is supported by Polinski who makes his solo A/V show debut.

Dieter Moebius (cited by some as ‘The godfather of Krautrock’) will perform a live score to Fritz Lang’s 1927 German Expressionist film Metropolis at Salford’s St Philip’s Church on Thurs 17 May as part of FutureEverything’s 2012 festival.
This is the first time that the film copyright holders have allowed the film to be screened with anything other than the original soundtrack.

Produced in Weimar-era Germany, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, it was the most expensive silent film ever made and defined the science fiction genre in cinema. Dieter Moebius creates an improvised live score to this recently restored version of Metropolis, screened in the atmospheric surroundings of St Philip’s Church, an elegant grade II listed building, designed by Sir Robert Smirke in 1822.

A pioneer of experimental electronic music, Moebius is a founding member of the Cluster and Harmonia. He is also a former collaborator of Brian Eno. Born in Switzerland in 1944, he was a student of the artist Joseph Beuys and played his first gig above a Berlin shopping centre in 1969. Influenced by avant-garde composers such as Edgar Varese, Harmonia recorded their Klopfzeichen album with a church organist. They went on to become one of the most influential bands in early electronic music and were contemporaries of Neu!, Can and Kraftwerk.

This generation of German musical experimentalists created a new form of music made with machines, in response to the modern experience. Futurism and Stockhausen were common influences, but for Kraftwerk and Cluster Metropolis was a sacred text. They commented that the vision of the future realised in that film was something that had ‘greater influence on their music aesthetically than music itself’.
 

The choice of Dieter Moebius to score Metropolis has been carefully considered. Metropolis has had an enormous influence on cinema, however, this new Dieter Moebius score recognises the enormous debt that Fritz Lang’s vision had on the work of these pioneering German electronic artists, who changed the course of twentieth century music.

Text from FutureEverything’s website.

A Vision Thing?

The culture of the image exploits the idea of superior scientific posteriori knowledge. Early cinema made full use of vision to submerge the audience into a story and make them feel part of what was unfolding on the screen in front of them. With the introduction of sound and the spoken word, cinema evolved to incorporate another sense. Today, sound accounts for at least 50%, sometimes even 100%, of the cinematic experience according to David Lynch, described by the Guardian as ‘the most important film-maker of the current era’.

Writing on the hierarchy of the senses, Walter Murch (the world’s first acknowledged sound designer) observes a reciprocal relationship between the birth of man and the evolution of cinema:

“We begin to hear before we are born, four and a half months after conception. From then on, we develop in a continuous and luxurious bath of sounds: the song of our mother’s voice, the swash of her breathing, the trumpeting of her intestines, the timpani of her heart.

Throughout the second four-and-a-half months, Sound rules as solitary Queen of our senses: the close and liquid world of uterine darkness makes Sight and Smell impossible, Taste monochromatic, and Touch a dim and generalised hint of what is to come.” (Foreword in Audio-Vision p.vii)

Murch later concludes:

“We gestate in Sound, and are born into Sight;
Cinema gestated in Sight, and was born into sound.”

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Chion, M. (1994)  Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia University Press

The Guardian Online (2007) ‘The world’s 40 best directors.’ The Guardian Online [online] Available at: http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/page/0,11456,1082823,00.html [accessed 29 April 2012]

Published a little later on, but backdated, here is the thesis presentation I did before the Easter holidays. Many things have changed since - and more changes are still to come - but I am publishing this to keep a consistent record of my work.

Please note that the thesis research question is not finalised and will change.

SLIDE 1

Is there a symbiotic relationship between urban design and dystopian science fiction film, and if so, how can we make use of it? 

I haven’t quite managed to finalise the formulation of my research question, but as the diagram shows, I am interested in how film can influence the design of our urban futures and how new ideas of urban design can influence films - especially with regards to urban disasters and dystopian films.

I am also wondering if film can be used to educate or prepare people for future challenges  and aid urban disaster planning?

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SLIDE 2

I have gone through quite an extensive reading list so far. These books are only a small selection and all deal with science fiction, film, urban design and predictions about the future in different ways.

Laura Spinney’s article Return to Paradise presents the research carried out by a number of scientists about what would happen if London suddenly was abandoned. The article analyses time periods of five, ten, fifty and hundreds of years in the future with people only being reintroduced after 300 years - and then as eco tourists. 

Cinema and the City is a compilation of essays about the role of the city as a protagonist in films and about increased cultural globalisation. 
Worst Cases look at disaster planning and worst case scenarios. Lee Clark argues against probabilistic thinking since disasters are exceptional events and encourages instead a constructive what-if-approach to prepare better for the future. 

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SLIDE 3

As part of my research process, I’ve had the pleasure to watch a large number of films, ranging from Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis and the classic Blade Runner to the more recent Inception.

In terms of narrative, I have discovered that most dystopian films follow a similar pattern: order - disorder - order restored. Science fiction films are, however, famous for breaking the standard rules of narration in order to create extra tension and surprise - which makes it nearly impossible to draw a general conclusion.

I have also learnt that even though most science fiction films are set in the future, their main purpose is to comment on contemporary issues. These can be political, social, environmental or a combination of all. The films do not necessarily try to predict the appearance of future, but focus more on what might happen if we don’t react to problems we have in the world in today.  

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SLIDE 4

So, a few weeks ago I made this diagram to try to get to the essence of my project. I broke the main concept up and reassembled its basic parts to create six categories.

Future urban disaster films was split up into: Urban Futures, Urban Films, Urban Disasters, Disaster Films, Future Disasters and Future Films. I then arranged  all my readings according to these categories. I concluded that the first four were more important than the last two, which back feed into them. 

In the top corner  is a diagram explaining the idea of a symbiotic relationship between urban futures and dystopian films, where a film might prompt new ideas in the architectural community, which in turn generates new ideas for film makers.

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SLIDE 5

Then I made this diagram, which explores the missing links of the previous one. Using the same priorities as the previous diagram, especially with emphasis on film and cities, I narrowed down my focus to Urban Future Films and Urban Disaster Films. This seems fairly obvious, but the important thing is what I eliminated.  The main achievement here was to narrow my focus further to make my research more efficient.

The next step then, is to apply all my readings to a couple of case studies and explore how the relationship between dystopian films and the urban environment actually work.

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SLIDE 6

My first case study is the classic 1927 film Metropolis. Fritz Lang, the director, had travelled to New York and was very inspired by the skyscrapers there when working on the film set. Photos he took, especially of Broadway, placed a central role in the form finding process.

The city appearance was inspired by the art deco movement and the success of Metropolis actually helped promote the style in America and Europe. The level of architectural detail in the film is remarkable - Lang even admitted to being more interested in the visual imagery than the social content of the film!

Metropolis is a vertical city, built up in layers following a strict hierarchy. Wealthy people live near the top, machines are in the middle and the workers live in the depths below the city. Even further down are the catacombs where the workers conspire against their leaders. Natural light, is a luxury only accessible to people near the top of the city.

Vertical circulation is a central theme of the film. You could probably write a thesis just on the symbolism of the different lifts, steps, stairs and ladders used in the film.

So, Metropolis is an example of where a city, New York, has inspired the visual language of a film - which in turn had a big influence on the appearance of the built environment and changed the way we think about the future. 

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SLIDE 7

My second case study is the Bradbury Building, which has been called the most famous building in science fiction. It has been featured in films such as Blade Runner, Chinatown and The Artist. It is located in Los Angeles and was designed by a draftsman called George Wyman. He was inspired by buildings in the utopian science fiction novel Looking Backward, set in the then future 2000.

The five-storey building features a large glazed atrium and is mostly top lit. This feature seems to have made it such a popular film location, together with the intricate metalwork. The facades facing the atrium are designed as street facing facades, contrary to the actual external elevations which are quite plain.

The balconies and stairways emphasise the shift in light levels from very, very bright at the top to quite gloomy at the ground floor level.  The vertical circulation is heavily emphasised with flights of stairs and lift shafts providing the main focus points in the atrium. Long, slender columns further emphasise this verticality.

Films made in the Bradbury approach its architecture very differently. Blade Runner presents a gloomy, wet, decayed building with rays of light penetrating the atrium. In 500 Days of Summer, the building acts as a very fancy-looking architectural practice.

This building, then, acts as a protagonist in many films and its varying appearance inspire and develop new filming strategies.     

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SLIDE 8

There are many similarities between Metropolis and the Bradbury. Blade Runner, as most science fiction films, was heavily influenced by the visual language in Metropolis and although its future Manhattan is very different from Lang’s Metropolis the same ideas of verticality, layering, circulation and light gradients are portrayed.

Making a direct comparison between the two sections, you can see how the top is reserved for a small number of privileged people,  the next for functions with more general access, the next open to the general public - the worker’s city in case of Metropolis and the reception and entrance level in the Bradbury. The lowest level, the catacombs and the basement are secret, out of view and rarely used. 

The stills from Metropolis show this shift in light levels from top to bottom.

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SLIDE 9

These similarities are a common theme in other dystopian films. Films such as I Am Legend,  District B13 and 12 Monkeys all emphasise the vertical, the circulation patterns and the shift from light to dark and its implications. The architecture in most films are modern but show signs of decay, often covered in graffiti and with few intact windows.

So, returning to my research question: is there any symbiotic relationship between urban design and dystopian science fiction film, and if so, how can we use it? 

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SLIDE 10

I have a few different ideas about how to proceed:

The first would be to set up a speculative disaster scenario for Manchester based on information in the Urban Futures texts and design a response to it. Whether this is flooding, food shortage, a flu epidemic or drought I’m not sure -  I would have to research the most likely disaster. 

The second option would be to further study the experiential qualities of dystopian films and possibly design a film set - maybe in the Northern Quarter because of its history as a film set and its similarities with the Bradbury Building. It could be interesting to use a building as narrative and draw parallels between the two.

I would also like to explore the idea that film as popular media could be used to educate and prepare people for potential urban disasters. For example, in the case of 9/11, a number of people mentioned Hollywood blockbusters as their only point of reference to what was happening. 

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Architecture and Film: Experiential Realities and Dystopic Futures
Terri Meyer Boake

Terri Meyer Boake teaches at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. One of her courses, entitled ‘Architecture and Film’ deals, unsurprisingly, with architecture and film and the relation between the two. Her essay ‘Architecture and Film: Experiential Realities and Dystopic Futures’ predates the 2006 fall theme of Dystopia and Fear in this lecture series. She does make a few very relevant points about how we can use film to enhance a critical dialogue about visions of past and future architecture.

Film can convincingly portray both architecturally and environmentally dystopian futures and prompt the very poignant “What if?” question Lee Clark discusses in his book ‘Worst Cases’, previously mentioned in the blog. Special effects allow increasingly realistic representations of the effects of disaster in urban/architectural settings. Boake argues that films such as Godzilla (1998), Armageddon (1998) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) are so convincingly realistic that the imagination of catastrophic disaster is readily available to the public.

When 9/11 occurred, a number of people compared the events to films and expressed difficulty in emotionally connect to the disaster. Destruction is so prevalent in contemporary films that people seem to get emotionally numbed and accustomed to witnessing these kinds of events – even though they are all imagined. So when they happen in reality, do we simply apply our previous experiences of disaster (at least the Hollywood cinema version of it) to understand what has happened? If so, can film be used to inform people about potential urban dangers, prepare populations for real life disasters and assist emergency planning?

The most provocative uses of architecture and urban space arise in film dystopias. As Boake writes, dystopian ‘films engage the moral discussion of future eventualities in light of the presumed outcomes of current social, political and environmental states.’ (p. 5) Urban environments in these films can then be used to fuel the ‘What if?’ discussion – based on facts and trends.

Boake concludes that ‘film studies can be used to increase knowledge and critical discussion about architectural and urban environments of the past, present and the future.’ (p. 8) Hopefully, my thesis work can now start to connect the dots laid out by a number of readings on cities, dystopia, films and science fiction in order to add to this critical discussion.

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Boake, T.M. (2005/2006) Architecture and Film: Experiential Realities and Dystopic Futures. [online] Available at: http://www.architecture.uwaterloo.ca/faculty_projects/terri/pdf/boake_arch_film_colour.pdf [accessed 15 March 2012]

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

A Scanner Darkly is a science fiction thriller by Richard Linklater. It is based on Philip K. Dick’s novel A Scanner Darkly, originally published in 1977. It is said to be a semi-autobiographical story, set in a dystopian future (1994 - the future at the time the book was written) Orange County. Substance D, a highly addictive drug has become widely available and a separate government organisation sends out undercover cops to infiltrate the drug society. The protagonist, Bob Arctor, struggles through addiction, rehab and conspiracy in an attempt to do his job.

The film was filmed digitally and then re-rendered frame by frame to create a cartoon style appearance. This method allows for effects such as the scramble suits to be portrayed in a convincing way.

Sneak preview of tomorrow’s presentation

Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City
Katherine Shonfield

Endpiece

Katherine Shonfield teaches Architectural History and Theory, is a partner in an architectural practice, is the deputy editor of the Journal of Architecture as well as writes for the Architects’ Journal. In her 2000 book ‘Walls Have Feelings’, she writes about the relation between film and the built environment. Shonfield applies insights and methodologies from film to the practice of architecture.

Three main elements run through the book:

• An idea of how apparently natural or objective characteristics of space can be interpreted in terms of capitalist activity (pursuit of profit)
• The expression of a ‘quest for purity’ which permeates architectural and urban practice today. (displayed in zero carbon strategies, definition of borders and in many other ways)
• An idea that fictions (especially films and novels) can be used to reveal/explore the unseen workings of architecture.

The relationship between film and architecture, according to Shonfield, seems multi-facetted and must be examined in a number of ways. She draws a parallel between film as representation of the city and dream as representation of life. Alluding to the work of Freud, she writes:

‘If fictional representations of the architecture and the city are understood as the architectural equivalent of the dream record, then their entire status can change.’ (p. 160)

This interpretation of film opens up an interesting array of academic study. Can we, however, be sure that the original assumption, film as dream, is valid?

Meaning and symbolism of architecture in film is a contentious topic. Shonfield expresses surprise over how film-makers can spend more time deciding how objects (buildings/sculptures/squares/spaces) are to be filmed than the time spent originally designing the objects themselves. This originates in the film’s intent to tell a story, meaning that the choice/use of every individual object becomes loaded with meaning.  One must also consider this from the viewer’s perspective. The careful choice of symbols in films adds another layer to the narrative and the ability of the viewer to interpret these symbols, can result in a deeper (and more personal?) understanding of the film. There is, of course, always a risk of academic over-interpretation of a film’s symbolism which one must take care to avoid.

Shonfield also points out the complex nature of architecture; the interlinking of practical specifics and cultural meaning. I interpret this as the relationship between form and function as well as space and people (or people in space!) Form, function and logic seem closely interlinked. Shonfield highlights this in the following quote from Henri Lefebvre’s 1991 book ‘Production of Space’:

‘Is it conceivable that a complete correspondence could occur between a visual logic carried to the extreme in built architecture, and a ‘logic of society’ – the strategies inspired by a state bureaucracy?’ (p. 166)

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Shonfield, K. (2000) Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City. London: Routledge pp. 154-175

Fantasy Cinema: Impossible Worlds on Screen
David Butler

David Butler’s Fantasy Cinema forms part of the Wallflower Short Cuts series, which provides introductions to a wide spectrum of film studies. His last chapter, ‘Interpreting Fantasy: Functions and Beliefs’, applies the concept of fantasy to real life. Butler challenges the idea that fantasy is mere escapism, that all fantasy offers is a ‘carefree wishspace’ that has nothing to do with reality. Surely fantasy can, and is, used in this way.

Tolkien claimed that escapism can just as well be regarded an act of resistance. We shouldn’t condemn people for trying to imagine a different (better!) world. Butler uses the example of Martin Luther. Can we now dismiss his ideas of racial equality and civil rights as escapist delusions? (One must, however, of course take care to not get caught in a fantasy world and keep in touch with reality!) Returning to Tolkien, he believed that the best fantasy could offer a receptive audience was recovery, escape and consolation.

But, as Butler asks, ‘what happens when we contrast a fantasy world with our own?’ and quotes Jack Zipes on this issue:

‘By moving to the past or another world, the fairy tale enables readers to regain a clear view of their situations’ (p.100)

So, by looking at our own world through the filter of a fantasy film (or written story), we can examine it from a more objective point of view. It is easier to understand, critique or applaud society if you are not directly involved in it.

Finally, Butler mentions in ‘Fantasy Cinema’ Christopher Booker’s five stages of story structure (adding to the previous theories I have written about by Vladimir Propp and Susan Sontag). They seem to apply remarkably well to many dystopian films and will be worth keeping in mind for future reference.

The five stages are:
- Anticipation
- Dream
- Frustration
- Nightmare
- Miraculous escape