Digitalism – confronting new realities

The history of cinema is as much the history of its formal engagements as that of its technical innovations. Thirty years after it came into existence, cinema finally manages to marry audio to visual and that give birth to first talkie. That was 1927 and the film was called Jazz Singer, whose first lines “YOU AIN’T HEARD ANYTHING YET”

 Suddenly there was a paradigm shift from the story narrative to performances and audiences loved every bit of it. The advent of digital technology marks yet another bend in the long road of cinema history. Paradigms are shifting one more in terms of representations, narratives and the business of movie making. What digital means technically is that picture and sound are converted to the binary digitals of 1 and 0. This data can be stored, manipulated and transmitted by computers. Once the audio & visual information starts existing in a digital form, a whole lot of possibilities starts opening up in front of the director. The digital technology first made its presence in the 80s and around the 90s it started gaining ground. Initially, the low cost of production (in relation to celluloid) attracted certain section of communicators for whom the existing mode of production was too prohibitive in its cost. Today, digital technology has become acceptable not only for its low cost production but primarily because it has opened up a new set of realities in terms of image building and their modes of representation which in turn allows a fresh set of aesthetic possibilities. New spaces are being explored. Elaborate lighting and mise -en -scene designs have become passé. Noises and grains have become part of neo vocabulary. Alternative visual punctuation are being articulated, as dissolve, bleach, wipe…goes out of fashion. And all these are happening not in Paris, London and Berlin but in Hongkong, Taiwan, India, Iran and most of developing countries which has so long remained only the underbelly of an imperial cinematic language.
Digital technology can be used to create new kind of images where fantasy is just a click away. With a suitable software one can digitally alters pictures, like removing a person or adding a building. This changes our basic understanding of photographed reality. In digital era, statements like ‘pictures don’t lie’ and ‘seeing is believing’ are clearly untrue. Digital editing is software based. Such systems are not only user friendly but also help shape new film making styles and techniques such as the use of very short shots, graphics that flow around the screen and objects that seamlessly transform (morph) into other objects. The look of most TV commercials today would not be possible without digital tools.
This digital explosion has been gleefully accepted by alternative film makers. The famous mini DV camcorders are being increasingly employed to tell personal narratives which are quiet invigorating. The results have flooded TV and film festivals. Surprises of surprises, even big production companies have started taking note of such developments. Today they are a lot more amenable to personal stories, which are far removed from the recognized genres of Hollywood. Big matinee idols are lending themselves to thought provoking digital films. A young digital film maker in Delhi or Allahabad can always take heart from the fact that coupled with digital film production is the advent of world wide web in promoting and distributing of film through U Tube, Websites, Blogs, online services and so on. High definition TV is another aspect that has given digital production a boost. Not only does it save time and money, the quality is now high enough that audiences usually can’t tell the difference. There are also digital projectors that 9 million pixels and create super real images that never get scratched or dirty. Digital distribution through the sale of DVD is much more than theatrical tickets sales. Today more foreign films are available on DVD than can be exhibited in a theatre.

The future of digital film making looks promising. The medium is young and the time is ripe to jump into the (band?) wagon. As much as we are aware that a digital picture can near match the depth of a 35 mm film image, one is also conscious of its fresh narratives possibilities. Recourse to digital film making is a matter of choice (ideological and asthetical) and need not necessary be an alternative to ones fulfilled wishes of making a 35 mm film. Serious digital film makers, globally, are becoming progressively conscious of the rigors, discipline and respect that this new format demands of its practitioners.