Stephen Prince addresses the film theory of ‘Indexically Based Film Realism’, and the challenges that this theory faces in the new digital age. He then proposes a correspondence-based model of cinematic representation, which he refers to as ‘Perceptual Realism’. With this theory in mind, Prince argues that viewers don’t necessarily have to believe that the ‘spectacularity’ they’re witnessing on screen is real, but rather it could be real based on our previous experiences and knowledge.
Indexically based film-realism is rooted in the view that photographic images are indexical signs that are connected to their referent (the object they are representing). In his article, Prince makes reference to arguments made by renowned film theorists who support this theory. Charles Peirce who was one of the founders of semiotics (the study of signs), stated that
Photographs, especially instantaneous photographs, are very instructive; because we know that in certain respects they are exactly like the objects they represent…they …correspond point by point to nature. In that respect then, they belong to the second class of signs, those by physical connection. (in Wollen, P. 1976, p.123-24)
Similarly, Roland Barthes argues that photographs and their referents are “glued together”. He also states that “Every photograph is a certificate of presence.”(Barthes, R. 1981, p.5) This point is supported by Andre Bazin, who claims that
The photographic image is the object itself, the object freed from the conditions of time and space which govern it. No matter how fuzzy, distorted, or discolored, no matter how lacking in documentary value the image may be…it is the model (1967, p.14)
Bazin may believe that his claim only applies to photography, but Siegfried Kracauer in his theory of cinema argues that
the redemption of physical reality…rests upon the assumption that film is essentially an extension of photography and therefore shares with that medium a marked affinity for the visible world around us. (1960, p.ix)
Digital imaging in the form of image processing and CGI has challenged indexically based notions of photographic realism. With Wheeler’s argument in mind, no longer can a photographic image and its referent be “glued together” as argued by Barthes. What also hurts the argument of ‘Indexically based film-realism’ is that no longer does an image require a referent. Digital imaging can anchor computer generated objects in apparent photographic reality by employing realistic lighting and motion detail. Entire scenes can now be constructed in computer space. Prince uses the example from Jurassic Park, where a herd of Gallimimus’s chase actor Sam Neill and two children. The Gallimimus, which are all computer generated, respond accordingly when they come into close proximity of either the humans or another dinosaur. They also manage to jump over a log that is physically there in reality, but not in computer space. In this sense, ‘spectacularity’ is aiding the narrative action in the film, because it is making this interaction between extinct species and modern day characters believable.
Lighting in a shot was formally limited to what the levels were at the time of the shoot. However, with new technologies, this too can be manipulated by brightening the pixels in an image. Lighting no longer needs to obey the “fixed and rigid physical conditions which must prevail in order for photographs to be created.”(Prince, S. 1996, p.30) Like lighting, motion can also be rendered and even created via computer painting. Prince uses examples from Forest Gump where a ping pong ball has been created for a table tennis match between Forrest Gump and his Asian opponent and President Kennedy has been given a speaking role in the film. Blur has been added to the computer generated ball to simulate what a real, rapidly moving object passing in front of a camera would look like. Archival footage of Kennedy was repainted with the proper mouth movements to match the scripted dialogue, adding highlights on his face to simulate the corresponding jaw and muscle changes. Once again, these instances of ‘spectacularity’ don’t interfere with the film narrative; rather they make it more believable when it quite clearly isn’t.
With all these breakthroughs in filmmaking technologies, Prince argues for an understanding of film realism in terms of “perceptual realism”. He suggests that digital imagery in film does not necessarily have to be thought of as fake. Rather, such imagery can be used to create realism based on our understanding of human experience, not on the indexicality of the photographic image. In order to develop his notion of perceptual realism, Prince suggests the use of a “correspondence-based approach to cinematic representation” in order to understand reality on film in the age of digital filmmaking. Prince describes this approach as the viewer’s building of “correspondences between selected features of the cinematic display and a viewer’s real-world visual and social experience.” (1996, p.32) He continues to say that
A perceptually realistic image is one which structurally corresponds to the viewer’s audiovisual experience of three-dimensional space. Perceptually realistic images correspond to this experience because the filmmakers build them to do so. (1996, p.32)
Using Prince’s concept of the correspondences between representation and reality, it would seem that even in digital images, (which do not have a physical relationship with what they represent) realism can be understood in a new way that is right at home with current film manipulation. It is the relationship we have with the images and what they represent that allows for an element of truth to shine through. It is the construction of meaning through making the connections between what we see on screen and our own experiences of the world that creates a perceived reality. Gump’s ping-pong ball and Spielberg’s dinosaurs look like convincing photographic realities because of the perceptual correspondences that have been built into the images. The most important correspondences include such variables as reflectance, texture and movement.
Reflections anchor objects inside Cartesian space and perceptual reality. They also provide a bridge between live-action and computer-generated environments. In Jurassic Park, there is a reflection of a computer generated Velociraptor on a shiny surface, even though the Velociraptor didn’t exist in reality, while the shiny surface did. Also, a computer generated feather has been integrated into the opening of Forest Gump and it too can be seen reflecting off the roof of a car.
Surface texture and movement is extremely important and quite difficult to perfect. Human beings have a keen eye for what movements should look like, and are adept at perceiving inaccuracies. This is why human and animal movement cannot look mechanical and be convincing at the same time; it must be expressive of mood and affect. In Jurassic Park, animators developed their dinosaurs’ movements by studying the movements of elephants, rhinos and ostriches. While bone and joint rotation can be successfully visualized, complex information about the movement of muscles and tendons below the skin’s surface is lacking. Animator Kevin Mack describes this as the “human hurdle.” He describes how hair, for example, is extremely difficult to render because of the complexities of “mathematically simulating properties of mass and inertia for finely detailed strands.”(in Prince, S. 1996, p.35) Another animator, Chris Voellmann said that “Today’s software cannot yet control veins or muscles.”(in Prince, S. 1996, p.35)
Prince is arguing that we approach digitally created images that resemble our experience of the real world as being representative of how we make sense of the world. We understand realistic digital images as being realistic because of the correspondences we make between them and our own experience. Here the contradiction between something that we understand as being non-existent and its apparent existence on film provides us with the necessary tensions for our minds to balance in order to make meaning. Accurate replication of valid 3D cues is not only the glue cementing digitally created and live-action environments, but also the foundation upon which the uniquely transformational functions of cinema exist. (Prince, S. 2004, p.27-28)
The question of the value or function of special effects in film is, in fact, the new ground on which the old problem of representation is raised once again. The extensive use of special effects, made most apparent in science-fiction films, has conferred on this particular film genre a privileged status in this ongoing debate. Defending the pure visuality of science-fiction film, Brooks Landon proposes that it is necessary to shift our understanding of narrative “from something conveyed with the semblance of a film to something conveyed by the mechanisms of film itself” (1992, p.63). The disparaging attitude toward special effects results from our tendency to ignore the visual nature of film and to think of science-fiction films as merely illustrating the novel or story on which it is usually based. Landon argues that “cinema is itself science fictional” (1992, p.65) since:
the language or grammar of film consists in great part of nothing but special effects, the visual trickery inherent in montage, wipes, cutting, close-ups, impossible camera placement, panning, zooms, slow motion, multiple exposures, and the virtually limitless possibilities of editing, matting, and so on.(1992, p.90)
Special effects occupy a privileged position insofar as in a world that is becoming increasingly computerized, special effects dramatize or foreground the act of perception as such. By deconstructing perception – for instance, in compositing images digitally – by trying to create an artificial perception that approximates the fluidity of real perception, special effects serve as a reminder of the sheer visibility of the world and of our ability to perceive it:
Cinematic affect is rooted in cinematic technology, but effects emphasize those underpinnings: if cinema is rooted in illusions of light, for example, then optical effects endow light with an overwhelming physicality. (Bukatman, S. 1999, p.271)
To conclude, the use ‘spectacularity’ is becoming increasingly apparent in modern day effects films. While this may manipulate what Wheeler refers to as a single objects’ internal montage, we can now look at these objects in terms of their “Perceptual Realism”. This new film theory proposed by Prince sympathizes that film has come a long way since its proposed beginnings on a pure, natural slate, and that if realism is to exist in film, it must be in terms of whether we can perceive it as being real. In answer to the question as to whether it has a negative affect on narrative action, it is evident through the examples of Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump that ‘spectacularity’ in films serves to support the narrative action and enhance the reality of effects films.
References:
Bukatman, Scott. “The Artificial Infinite: On Special Effects and the Sublime” in Annette Kuhn, ed. Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science-Fiction Cinema (London: Verso, 1999): 249-276.
Landon, Brooks. The Aesthetics of Ambivalence: Rethinking Science Fiction Film in the Age of Electronic (Re) production (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1992)
Lévy, Pierre. Becoming Virtual: Reality in the Digital Age. Trans. Robert Bononno (New York: Plenum Trade, 1998): .
Prince, Stephen. “True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images and Film Theory,” in Film Quarterly, 49,3 (Spring 1996): 27-39.
Prince, Stephen. “The Emergence of Filmic Artifacts: Cinema and Cinematography in the Digital Era,” in Film Quarterly, 57, 3 (Spring, 2004):24-33
Rickitt, Richard. Special Effects: The History and Technique. (New York: Billboard Books, 2000): 45-49.
Wheeler, Dixon Winston. The Transparency of Spectacle: Meditations on the Moving Image. (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998): 32-37.
Jurassic Park [videorecording], director: S. Spielberg, Universal, 1993.
Forrest Gump [videorecording], director: R. Zemeckis, Paramount, 1994.
