A philosophical-theoretical perspective on teaching in practice-based film school

This is a very rough draft of an article I’m working on. It still needs a re-write (or two) but as I like working in the open, I thought getting a version online would be in keeping with my intent. Feel free to comment and point out weaknesses and inconsistencies (but be kind!). Praise is also always appreciated, but only if warranted…

Introduction

Most classical film schools harbour an intuitive aversion to the term ‘pedagogy’. It has too much of a ring of kindergarten circle time and school lessons with good behaviour and right and wrong answers, contrasted with the ideal of an artistic process of creation that is essentially irrational, unpredictable, personal and uncompromising.^[1]

This quote, by former head of the Danish National Film School Vinca Wiedeman, addresses the challenge of developing a pedagogical framework for a practice-based film school. In fact, the book in which her chapter appears, The 21st Century Film, TV & Media School: Challenges, Clashes, Changes, is illustrative of the issue. There are 18 chapters over 472 pages, and they cover a large variety of approaches to curriculum and teaching—but almost completely overlook educational theory and philosophy.

The only other chapter in that volume to delve into pedagogical theory is the contribution from Nicholas Oughton and Jean-Paul Jarry.^[2] Here the authors apply theories of experiential learning as articulated by David Kolb to argue for the continued use of celluloid as the primary medium used in cinematography education.

Similarly, in their influential Educating Film-makers: Past, Present and Future, Duncan Petrie and Rod Stoneman^[3] discuss in depth the relationship between film theory and filmmaking practice. But despite analysing different film school models and teaching approaches, they do not discuss film school pedagogy in the light of educational theory and practice. Other publications^[4] show similar biases.

These are not failings of the referenced publications. As a body of work, they represent invaluable insights into the inner workings of film schools since VGIK in Moscow opened its doors in 1919. Much of what has been written is in the form of “how to”, and aimed at filmmakers a toolkit to use for transforming their experience into classroom instruction for the next generation, or in the form of surveys, examining the different approaches different film schools have had over the decades.

In my career working at film schools, which spans nearly 30 years and 3 different schools,^[5] I have found, however, that the methods, structures, and forms of teaching we do can benefit from being related to existing bodies of pedagogical theory and educational philosophy. Filmmaking is both a highly technical and skilled craft and a complex and collaborative art form, and prospective filmmakers need to learn to balance the two in a way that will make sense for their own visions, careers, and ambitions. In schools like the three I have worked at, and many of the schools the Norwegian Film School compares itself to, the teaching staff are themselves primarily filmmakers who come from outside academics, and seldom identify themselves as primarily teachers or researchers.

In such an environment, with a wealth of experience and expertise, the challenge becomes to enable the teaching staff to have at their disposal the tools to turn their own artistry and tacit knowledge into educational situations for the students. In some cases, this means teacher-filmmakers must combat their own instincts to “make the day” at all costs and provide opportunities for students to test themselves and their own limits, even at the cost of failure.

My approach has been to attempt to answer the questions that are articulated in the Sourcebook of Experiential Education:

“What is learning” and “how do people learn?”

“What is teaching” and “how should teachers teach?”

“What is the purpose of education” and “what is worth knowing and studying?”

“What is the relationship of the schools to society at large and to the world?”^[6]

While all 4 of these questions are interconnected, for the purposes of this paper I’ll be concentrating on the first two.

Experience as teacher

In his 1910 work, How We Think, John Dewey writes,

Eagerness for experience, for new and varied contacts, is found where wonder is found. Such curiosity is the only sure guarantee of the acquisition of the primary facts upon which inference must base itself.^[7]

For Dewey, and subsequently those of us who work with hands-on, practice-based education, experience, and the motivation to have experience, is the very core of learning and growth. From the very start of Dewey’s career, he emphasized the connection between experience, knowledge, and learning as summarized in the well-known maxim, “Learn to know by doing, and to do by knowing.”^[8]

For filmmakers, this seems intuitive. Filmmaking, like any art form that requires physical interaction with the world,^[9] is learned through practice. While the approaches to practice may vary from film school to film school—in some cases driven by ideology, in others by available resources—the basic premise holds true. One learns to make film through making film and through practical exercises designed to introduce different aspects of filmmaking, in what Ben Gibson calls the “conservatory” model for filmmaking education.^[10] While Gibson primarily writes about conservatory schools outside of universities, there are also schools inside universities—like the Norwegian Film School at the University of Inland Norway—that follow a conservatory model and are “… structured, like working studios, in departments of practice that bring those charged with ‘technical support’ or ‘equipment instruction’ into units with shared cultures of endeavour, led by senior teachers of that specialization.”^[11]

While far from the only way of organizing filmmaking education, this conservatory model most closely mimics the professional film industry. This way of structuring education places the emphasis on practical work, and learning to apply the various tools and methods of filmmaking in situations that the teaching staff, who (as Gibson observes) come primarily from the industry, have created based on their own professional experience. And works such as Training the Trainers^[12] give filmmakers practical advice on how to construct workshops that will enable filmmakers to turn their own professional experience into workshops for students.

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger describe this form of education, where experienced practitioners consciously and deliberately introduce less experienced ones to the norms, processes, and methods of the field as a community of practice.^[13] In a community of practice, the “…practice of the community creates the potential ‘curriculum’ in the broadest sense—that which may be learned by newcomers with legitimate peripheral access.”^[14] Not only does this notion of legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice emphasize the experiential nature of learning, it also removes it from the realm of individualism and anchors it in a community.^[15]

Elkjær also ties this to Dewey’s notion of experience and reflection, and makes the point that, “… Dewey’s notion of experience is both a way of being in the world and experiencing the world, and knowledge is just one part of experience alongside emotion, aesthetics and ethics”,^[16] and in this way “connects persons and worlds, action and thinking”.^[17] In a film school constructed after the conservatory model, or, more specifically, a “six pack” model^[18] like the Norwegian Film School, both the Deweyan idea of experience and the community of practice emphasized by Lave and Wenger are central.

In Democracy and Education, Dewey writes,

We analyze to see just what lies between so as to bind together cause and effect, activity and consequence. This extension of our insight makes foresight more accurate and comprehensive. The action which rests simply upon the trial and error method is at the mercy of circumstances; they may change so that the act performed does not operate in the way it was expected to. But if we know in detail upon what the result depends, we can look to see whether the required conditions are there. The method extends our practical control.^[19]

In this section, he highlights the necessary connection between experience as learning and the conscious act of reflection or thinking about the elements of the experience and how they relate to an intended outcome. This, for him, is the difference between the experience and mere activity.^[20] His points will resonate with anyone involved in practice-based arts education, especially when he writes,

To “learn from experience” is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy or suffer from things in consequence. Under such conditions, doing becomes a trying; an experiment with the world to find out what it is like; the undergoing becomes instruction—discovery of the connection of things.
Two conclusions important for education follow. (1) Experience is primarily an active-passive affair; it is not primarily cognitive. But (2) the measure of the value of an experience lies in the perception of relationships or continuities to which it leads up. It includes cognition in the degree in which it is cumulative or amounts to something, or has meaning.^[21]

This approach is in part illustrated by Donald Schön, when he writes,

When practitioners respond to the indeterminate zones of practice by holding a reflective conversation with the material of their situations, they remake a part of their practice world and thereby reveal the usually tacit processes of worldmaking that underlie all of their practice.^[22]

Not only is this descriptive of filmmaking education; it is also prescriptive. The challenge for film educators is to create learning experiences where students are able to make the backward and forward connections Dewey writes about as they engage with the materials and conditions of their practice. As both Dewey and Schön point out, this engagement is reflective. It requires a progression where the challenges and situations that emerge build on the ones that have passed, and at the same time allow the students to consciously engage in controlled experimentation and discovery.

Lave and Wenger touch on this when they write, “[M]astery resides not in the master but in the organization of the community of practice where the master is part”^[23] and go on to point out that the teacher/master “is, after all, as much a product of the conventional, centered theory of learning as is the individual learner.”^[24] This too is a reminder to both educators and learners that in an education like industry-focussed, practice-based filmmaking, there exists both a large community of practice the educators are part of and this community of practice has norms and traditions the students need to understand—even should they go on to challenge them—as they emerge from their education. Furthermore, the educators are themselves a product of education, training, and apprenticeships leading to their professional careers, and cannot separate themselves from this personal history.

The nature of this challenge is multi-faceted. Not only must film educators use their professional and pedagogic experience to create learning situations that will challenge the students and stimulate experimentation; they must also understand and interpret the “powers, interests, and habits”^[25] of their students in order to create learning experiences that challenge and motivate their students where they are at. (I will return to this in the next section.) And finally, they must be aware of their own path into a professional filmmaking practice and make this transparent enough that their students will be able to gain their own experiences and chose their own path.

Scaffolding the emergent professional

Lebert and Vilarroya define scaffolding as,

derived from Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, which is a learning zone where a more knowledgeable person’s guidance can enhance learning. The term scaffolding was originally used as a metaphor to explain the role that adults can play in joint problem-solving activities with children, and now it is applied to mean temporary support provided for the completion of a task that learners otherwise might not be able to complete.^[26]

This definition of scaffolding has its origin in a 1976 article by Wood, Bruner, and Ross which examines the role of tutoring in the development and education of children.^[27] And it further refers to Lev Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, which he developed to describe “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.”^[28]

While both Vygotsky and Wood, Bruner, and Ross focussed primarily on young children, and how their learning can be facilitated by the conscious application of timely support or tutoring, many have since taken the step illustrated by Lebert and Vilarroya above, and applied the same principles to different age groups—including adults. In their 2010 review of scaffolding literature, van de Pol et.al. highlight scaffolding at many levels, and show that effective scaffolding involves a gradual withdrawal of teachers’ instruction as students gradually gain expertise and independence.^[29] They also point out that “for scaffolding to occur, the teacher must apply scaffolding strategies that are clearly contingent (i.e., based upon student responses)”^[30] which evokes Dewey’s emphasis on the “powers, interests, and habits” of students (see above). In their review, van de Pol et.al. do point to the correlation between different scaffolding methods and approaches and the ultimate effectiveness of the scaffolding, although they also point out that “studying scaffolding in a rigorous and systematic way appears to be especially complex probably because of the complexity of a dynamic concept such as scaffolding.”^[31]

The practice of scaffolding in film schools was first identified by Danish researcher Heidi Philipsen, in her landmark study of the Danish National Film School in the late 1990s / early 2000s.^[32] Philipsen identifies three categories of scaffolding from her study:

Institutional scaffolding
Team scaffolding
Individual scaffolding^[33]

She discusses limits her discussion of scaffolding to the constraints placed on the students as a method of stimulating creativity, and elaborates; “creativity is often defined as a talent to be able to think “outside the box.” I would like to stress that in order to be able to think outside the box, it actually helps to have a metaphorical box (constraints).”^[34] A full discussion of creativity in filmmaking education is outside the scope of this article, but the three categories of scaffolding nonetheless warrant closer examination.

In institutional scaffolding, Philipsen specifically refers to the rules that the school sets for a particular film exercise. She uses examples like “the natural story”,^[35] time constraints, conditions using actors, camera, thematic constraints, etc.^[36] She quotes one of her interview subjects, a screenwriter, who argues that “the use of constraints in a writing process actually produces a feeling of relief because he has been partly relieved of the responsibility, which apparently frees up energy enabling him to use his imagination in new ways.”^[37]

Team scaffolding, for Philipsen, refers to the support and learning that happens between students, both in a cohort as a whole and in the various constellations they find themselves in.^[38] One might also connect it with one of the features of a community of practice, where Lave and Wenger observe that often “apprentices learn mostly in relation with other apprentices. There is anecdotal evidence that where the circulation of knowledge between peers and near-peers is possible, it spreads exceedingly rapidly and effectively.”^[39] This also references Vygotsky, who “suggested that through the process of working with others, learners create an environment of shared meanings with peers.”^[40] My observations of intra-student dynamics at the Norwegian Film School support these claims, even extending to alumni welcoming new graduates into the industry.

Philipsens third category of scaffolding, individual scaffolding, is perhaps more problematic. She identifies this as occuring “when filmmakers define their own rules for a film process and product.”^[41] The fact that individual filmmakers can—and do—impose their own rules and constraints on their own artistic processes and creative work, however, hardly seems to meet an approach to scaffolding “construed as support given by a teacher to a student when performing a task that the student might otherwise not be able to accomplish.”^[42] As van de Pol et.al. observe, while definitions of scaffolding can vary, a relationship between teacher (or more experienced peer) and student / learner is common for all,^[43] starting with scaffolding as a method for supporting Vygotskys zone of proximal development.

Without getting in to a broad discussion of creativity, it is worth emphasising that one purpose of educational scaffolding in filmmaking education is to foster the students’ development of their creativity and imagination. If one accepts that “everything the imagination creates is always based on elements taken from reality, from a person’s previous experience”,^[44] and that “imagination draws on and co-operates with cognitive processes that arise from and span our physical and sociocultural resources and environments”^[45] then creative education can be based on “design principles that could guide the crafting of creative experiences in education and beyond, e.g., repositioning and perspective taking, sustaining uncertainty, making the familiar unfamiliar, tinkering and embodied experimentation, use of analogies and metaphors, “as if” and “what if” thinking, pretend play, and so on.”^[46] I will return to this in the conclusion.

4E and the phenomenological understanding of cognition

In his 2013 book Making, anthropologist Tim Ingold writes, “the drawing is not the visible shadow of a mental event; it is a process of of thinking, not the projection of a thought.”^[47] In this, he also refers to the “active externalism” as developed by Andy Clark and David Chalmers in their 1998 essay, “The Extended Mind”. Active externalism, they claim, means that,

the relevant external features are active, playing a crucial role in the here-and-now. Because they are coupled with the human organism, they have a direct impact on the organism and on its behaviour. In these cases, the relevant parts of the world are in the loop, not dangling at the other end of a long causal chain.^[48]

Lebert and Vilarroya further elaborate on this,

the extended-mind approach proposes that cognition is a process that is distributed across the individual and their environment, including objects, tools, and other individuals. By focusing on the ways in which external resources and environmental factors contribute to a concrete experience, the extended-mind feature seeks to provide a more expansive and inclusive view of a concrete experience, one that recognizes the complex interplay between the individual, their environment, and their tools and resources.^[49]

This understanding of cognition is also crucial for educators, as it highlights that students do not only learn through rational understanding, logical thinking, and application of knowledge. Rather, learning is an holistic activity that acknowledges the students place in an environment that includes their bodies, the physical surroundings, the tools they use, and their classmates and peers.

The extended mind theory is part of a broader movement in cognitive—and thus also educational—sciences that collect under the term “4E cognition”.^[50] 4E refers to cognition being extended, embodied, embedded, and enactive, and collectively they are framed as a response and in opposition to a Cartesian mind-body dualism or separation.^[51] In their summary of the “Philosophical and Psychological Influences on Embodied Cognition”, Macrine and Fugate cite a number of influences, including John Dewey’s suggestion “that higher-order cognitive functions are adaptations generated by interactions with the world.”^[52] They also emphasise the connection to Phenomenology, specifically to Merleau-Ponty who “maintained that thinking was a fully embodied event: people perceive the world first and foremost through their bodies. [Merleau-Ponty] argued that cognition cannot be understood without the body’s engagement with the world.”^[53] Finally, they draw on James Gibson’s ‘ecological theory’ which claimed “argued that perception was direct and the environment meaningful […], Gibson suggested that there was no mind between perception and action, and that action was based in the body, supported through evolution and the environment.”^[54]

In making these connections, Macrine and Fugate draw on the book that introduced the concept of embodiment to cognitive theory, The Embodied Mind from 1991. Here the authors write,

We hold with Merleau-Ponty that Western scientific culture requires that we see our bodies both as physical structures and as lived, experiential structures—in short, as both “outer” and “inner”, biological and phenomenological. These two sides of embodiment are obviously not opposed. Instead, we continuously circulate back and forth between them. […] For Merleau-Ponty, as for us, embodiment has this double sense: it encompasses both the body as a lived, experiential structure and the body as the context or milieu of cognitive mechanisms.^[55]

This emphasis on the ‘body as a lived, experiential structure’ will resonate with filmmakers and most artistic practitioners. Ingold picks up on this when he observes,

In the act of making, the artisan couples his own movements and gestures—indeed his very life—with the becoming of his materials, joining with and following the forces and flows that bring his work to fruition. It is the artisan’s desire to see what the material can do, by contrast to the scientist’s desire to know what it is, that […] enables the former to discern a life in the material and thus, ultimately, to ‘collaborate more productively’ with it.^[56]

Miranda Anderson connects this directly to the arts and artistic practice, by examining the connections between the artist, the body, and materials when describing a work by Nikolaus Gansterer from 2017:

His hands forming and reforming of physical materials, linguistic concepts and diagrammatic symbols, all amidst the random interruptions of living creatures, show the fluidly diverse concert of conceptual and diagrammatic, and embodied and environmental processes in action, and explore the interplay of structured patterns and chance in thinking.^[57]

The challenge for education in any practice-based art form is that the students often do not yet have the experience to engage with the materials of their art in an embodied, extended way. Filmmaking, particularly, is (most often) a highly technical art form that combines complex and advanced technologies with logistical puzzles, challenging teamwork and collaboration, restrictions involving time, budget, etc., and the gap between the imagined result and the resources available to achieve it. Filmmakers-turned-educators are faced with the challenge of creating learning situations for students where they will gain the experience and expertise necessary to work in professional productions after graduation. This involves acknowledging that, “Deep and meaningful learning indeed involves the integration of cognitive processes, social interactions, and affective dimensions, fostering active engagement and personal relevance in knowledge acquisition.”^[58]

Implications for filmmaking education

In this article, I have attempted to highlight some of the key elements of Dewey’s notion of experiential learning, illuminate some aspects of scaffolding in education, and introduce the concept of 4E cognition as it relates to education. Each of these is, in isolation, worthy of a more in-depth analysis. At this point, it seems most relevant to have lifted them into the consciousness of film schools, and I will now make som concluding observations on how filmmaker-educators can use some of the concepts in a discourse around their own teaching practice.

A core issue for film schools is that we are teaching both a highly technical craft and creativity, and we are doing so in a setting where the individual cannot work in isolation but is part of an extended cognitive reality. Bruce Sheridan sums it up as consisting of

three key points: 1) collaboration is the default process by which individual creative vision is realized in screen arts, 2) collaboration will be central to the work our students undertake beyond graduation, and 3) discrete individual contributions to screen art are rendered porous through, and ineluctably modified by, dynamic and contingent interactions amongst individuals and creative sub-groups, such as teams dedicated to writing, design, cinematography, editing, sound etc..^[59]

Further to this, “experiences are not just based on abstract, decontextualized information but are also deeply influenced by the specific social, cultural, and environmental contexts in which they occur”^[60] and it necessitates an awareness of these contexts by planners and educators at film schools. The key to a successful practice-based arts education like a film school is to create opportunities for the students to have concrete learning experiences. Here, a “concrete experience refers to an embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive engagement of an individual with their environment”,^[61] where the environment includes the physical surroundings, the analogue and digital tools used, the constraints placed by the institution, other students and collaborators, as well as the student’s own prior knowledge and experiences, goals and ambitions, fears and uncertainties, and emotional state.

Dewey highlights the social, extended and enactive aspects of this when he writes,

not only does social life demand teaching and learning for its own permanence, but the very process of living together educates. It enlarges and enlightens experience; it stimulates and enriches imagination; it creates responsibility for accuracy and vividness of statement and thought.^[62]

This is also well-summarised by Elkjær,

Experience occurs when habitual action and thinking are disturbed and calls for inquiry. Inquiry begins with emotion, but may develop into new experience and knowledge when language (ideas, concepts and theories) is used to define and resolve the disruption. This process may be supported by education and teaching. The process of inquiry concerns the consequences of different ways to define and resolve uncertainties. Inquiry is an experimental process in which ideas, hypotheses, concepts and theories are used instrumentally as ‘tools to think with’, and are as such a playful, creative and potentially innovative process. The result of inquiry, the new experience or ‘warranted assertibilities’ (knowledge), is therefore open-ended (fallible) and can be re-interpreted in light of new experiences.^[63]

And so, to return to the questions in the introduction: 1. How do people learn? has been the focus of this article. There is no single answer, but the key is that we learn through the conscious, reflective interpretation of embodied, extended, enactive, and embedded experiences. We make films, we find ways to collaborate with others in achieving a common vision, we reflect on the relationship between the film we wanted to make, the film we ended up with, and the process and decisions that led us there, and, at the Norwegian Film School at least, we watch the films and reflect on these things together so the experiences of one can be shared and understood by all.

And 2. How do we teach? As best we can to create a positive and scaffolded environment for students to have and reflect on the experiences they have while in our care.

Endnotes

Wiedeman, Vinca. ‘Educating for Innovation: Ten Tips for (Future) Film-School Heads’. The 21st Century Film, TV & Media School: Challenges, Clashes, Changes, edited by Maria-Dora Mourão et al., CILECT – The International Association of Film and Television Schools, 2016, pp. 95-96.↩︎
Oughton, Nicholas, and Jean-Paul Jarry. ‘Learning Cinematography at Film School: Old Ways, New Directions’. The 21st Century Film, TV & Media School: Challenges, Clashes, Changes, edited by Maria-Dora Mourão et al., CILECT – The International Association of Film and Television Schools, 2016, pp. 280–315. 21st Century Film, TV & Media School 1.↩︎
Petrie, Duncan, and Rod Stoneman. Educating Film-Makers: Past, Present and Future. Intellect Ltd, 2014, https://www.intellectbooks.com/educating-film-makers.↩︎
See, for example, the newsletter archive kept by CILECT (The International Association of Cinema, Audiovisual and Media Schools) at https://cilect.org/archives/newsletter/ and the CILECT-supported publication: Ross, Dick. Training the Trainers. The Norwegian Film School, 2005.↩︎
I have worked at Vancouver Film School (1997-2001), the Canadian Film Centre (2002-2006), and the Norwegian Film School (2009 – present day).↩︎
Smith, Thomas E., Clifford E. Knapp, ´Part I: Philosophers and Educational Theorists´. In Smith, Thomas E and Clifford E. Knapp (eds.), Sourcebook of Experiential Education. Routledge, 2011. p. 13.↩︎
Dewey, John. How We Think. D.C. Heath & Co., 1910. Reprint, Anson Street Press, 2025. p. 24.↩︎
McLellan, J. A., and John Dewey. Applied Psychology: An Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Education. Archive.org digital facsimile. Educational Publishing Company, 1889. https://archive.org/details/appliedpsycholog00mclerich/. p. 182. In fact, the maxim is so central to McLellan and Dewey that they include it on the title page.↩︎
Whether or not this would also hold true for AI filmmaking is a subject for a different discussion. For the context of this paper, I am talking about traditional filmmaking with physical cameras, sound recording equipment, lights, sets, actors, crew, etc.↩︎
Gibson, Ben. ‘What Is “Conservatory Training” for Film and Television?’ In The 21st Century Film, TV & Media School: Challenges, Clashes, Changes, edited by Maria-Dora Mourão, Stanislav Semerdjiev, Cecília Mello, and Alan Taylor. 21st Century Film, TV & Media School Project 1. CILECT – The International Association of Film and Television Schools, 2016.↩︎
Ibid.↩︎
Ross, Dick. Training the Trainers. The Norwegian Film School, 2005.↩︎
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, 1991. See especially chapter 4.↩︎
Ibid. p. 93.↩︎
See Elkjær, Bente. ‘Pragmatism: Learning as Creative Imagination’. In Contemporary Theories of Learning: Learning Theorists … in Their Own Words, 2nd edn, edited by Knud Illeris. Routledge, 2018. p. 67↩︎
Ibid. p. 70.↩︎
Ibid. p. 71.↩︎
The six pack model grew out of a desire to create a film school structure where the different heads of department are empowered to be artists and storytellers in their own right, rather than playing a supporting role for an auteur director. At the Norwegian Film School, the six pack consisted 6 specializations—screenwriting, directing, producing, cinematography, editing, and sound (subsequently expanded to include production design)—with 6 students in each. This means that whenever the students make a film exercise, the team will consist of 1 student from each specialization. In between the film exercises, the students of each specialization receive discipline-specific education designed to increase their skill and artistry.↩︎
Dewey, John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. The MacMillan Company, 1916. E-Book. Standard Ebooks, 2023. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-dewey/democracy-and-education. Chpt. 11, “Experience and Thinking”.↩︎
Ibid.↩︎
Ibid. Emphasis in original.↩︎
Schön, Donald A. Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. The Josey-Bass Higher Education Series. Jossey-Bass, 1987. p. 36.↩︎
Lave and Wenger, 1991. p 94.↩︎
Ibid, ibid.↩︎
Dewey, John. ‘My Pedagogic Creed’. School Journal 54 (January 1897). 2009 Digital edition released under a Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration on archive.org.↩︎
Lebert, Angélique, and Óscar Vilarroya. ‘The Links between Experiential Learning and 4E Cognition’. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1541, no. 1 (2024): 37–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.15238. p. 44.↩︎
Wood, David, Jerome Bruner, and Gail Ross. ‘The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving’. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 17 (1976): 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x.↩︎
Vygotsky, L. S. Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Edited by Michael Cole, Vera John-Steiner, Sylvia Scribner, and Ellen Souberman. Harvard University Press, 1978. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hilhmr-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3301299. p. 86.↩︎
van de Pol, Janneke, Monique Volman, and Jos Beishuizen. ‘Scaffolding in Teacher—Student Interaction: A Decade of Research’. Educational Psychology Review 22, no. 3 (2010): 271–96. p. 275.↩︎
Ibid. ibid.↩︎
Ibid. p. 282.↩︎
Philipsen, Heidi. ‘Dansk films nye bølge: Afsæt og aftryk fra Den Danske Filmskole’. Syddansk Universitet (SDU), 2004. https://portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/da/publications/dansk-films-nye-b%C3%B8lge-afs%C3%A6t-og-aftryk-fra-den-danske-filmskole/.↩︎
Philipsen, Heidi. ‘Constraints in Film Making Processes Offer an Exercise to the Imagination – A Pleading Based on Experiences from Denmark’. Seminar.Net 5, no. 1 (2009). https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.2470.↩︎
Ibid, p. 3.↩︎
Ibid. p. 5↩︎
Ibid. pp. 4-5↩︎
Ibid. p. 5↩︎
Ibid. p. 6↩︎
Lave and Wenger, 1991. p. 93.↩︎
Lebert and Vilarroya, 2024. p. 38.↩︎
Philipsen, 2009. p. 3.↩︎
van de Pol et.al., 2010. p. 274.↩︎
Ibid.↩︎
Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich. ‘Imagination and Creativity in Childhood’. Translated by M. E. Sharpe. Journal of Russian & East European Psychology 42, no. 1 (2004): 7–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/10610405.2004.11059210. p. 13.↩︎
Anderson, Miranda. ‘4E Cognition and the Mind-Expanding Arts’. European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education 7, no. 02 (2024): 7–64. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7451462. p. 51↩︎
Glăveanu, Vlad P., and Ronald A. Beghetto. ‘Creative Experience: A Non-Standard Definition of Creativity’. Creativity Research Journal 33, no. 2 (2021): 75–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2020.1827606. p. 79↩︎
Ingold, Tim. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. Routledge, 2013. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203559055. p. 128.↩︎
Clark, Andy, and David Chalmers. ‘The Extended Mind’. Analysis 58, no. 1 (1998): 7–19. p. 9.↩︎
Lebert and Vilarroya, 2024. p. 46.↩︎
A good introduction to the breadth and scope of 4E can be found in Newen, Albert, Shaun Gallagher, and Leon De Bruin. ‘4E Cognition: Historical Roots, Key Concepts, and Central Issues’. In The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition, edited by Albert Newen, Leon De Bruin, and Shaun Gallagher. Oxford University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198735410.013.1.↩︎
Ibid. This claim can be found in all the literature I have come across on 4E cognition.↩︎
Macrine, Sheila L., and Jennifer M. B. Fugate. ‘Embodied Cognition and Its Educational Significance’. In Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning, edited by Sheila L. Macrine and Jennifer M. B. Fugate. The MIT Press, 2022. https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/5306/Movement-MattersHow-Embodied-Cognition-Informs. p. 16↩︎
Ibid. ibid.↩︎
Ibid. ibid.↩︎
Varela, Francisco J., Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. 1991. Revised edition. The MIT Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262529365.001.0001. pp. lxi-lxii.↩︎
Ingold, 2013. p. 31.↩︎
Anderson, 2024. p. 18.↩︎
Lebert and Vilarroya, 2024. p. 43.↩︎
Sheridan, Bruce. ‘Creativity, Physical Space, and Teaching Screen Directors’. In The 21st Century Film, TV & Media School: Directing the Future, edited by Maria-Dora Mourão, Stanislav Semerdjiev, Cecília Mello, and Alan Taylor. 21st Century Film, TV & Media School Project 2. CILECT – The International Association of Film and Television Schools, 2019. p. 203.↩︎
Lebert and Vilarroya, 2024. p. 46.↩︎
Ibid. ibid.↩︎
Dewey, 1916 / 2023, Chpt. 2 “Education as a Social Function”.↩︎
Elkjær, 2018. p. 79.↩︎

KI-retningslinjer for norsk film?

I mai i år publiserte British Film Instutute sin KI-veileder, AI in the Screen Sector: Perspectives and Paths Forward. Rapporten ble utviklet for BFA av CoSTAR Foresight Lab og tar for seg mange sider av KI-utviklingen, både det som skjer (og har skjedd lenge) i bruk av maskinlæring og automatisering i verktøy og programvare som brukes daglig i film og tv-produksjon og de nyere, generative verktøyene som har tatt mye oppmerksomhet de siste 3-4 årene. Rush Print oppsummerer noen av reaksjonene her hjemme i sin artikkel “– Vi trenger en oppdatert og tydelig KI-veiviser.” (bak betalingsmur).

En ting som påpekes i Rush Print-artikkelen er at mye av den offentlige responsen og diskursen virker reaktiv. Vi er tatt på senga, og famler litt rundt for å finne ut hvordan vi skal håndtere den (sannsynligvis) store omveltningen som kommer vaskende over oss som en flodbølge.

Samtidig ser vi andre deler av verden responderer på helt andre måter. I sommer har vi kunnet lese at et indisk produksjonsselskap har brukt KI for å lage en ny versjon av en spillefilm de opprinnelig ga ut i 2013. Den opprinnelige filmen, et romantisk drama, hadde en tragisk slutt. Den nye versjonen har en KI-skapt lykkelig slutt. I vår ga Netflix ut den argentinske science fiction dramaserien El Eternauta. Her har produsentene brukt generativ KI for å skape en storslått VFX-scene som ellers hadde vært utenfor økonomisk rekkevidde for dem. Og fra Hollywood kan vi lese rapporter om økende bruk av KI til å analysere og forbedre manus, hvor menneskelige script doctors og ghost writers erstattes av generative språkmodeller.

Disse tre eksemplene, og utallige andre, viser med all tydelighet at KI ikke er noe som kommer; det er her og i større utstrekning enn de fleste er klar over. Det er en del av hverdagen vi beveger oss i, både i norsk film og i samfunnet forøvrig. Og selv om jeg tør påstå at det store flertallet av skapende filmfolk kanskje blir forferdet over de tre eksemplene jeg trekker frem vil de fleste av oss, mer eller mindre motvillig, innse at dette er en del av fremtiden for store deler av bransjen.

Eksemplet med El Eternauta peker mot at det sannsynligvis blir VFX-bransjen som merker effekten at KI brukes i større skala først. Det er mange tidskrevende og dyre prosesser som relativt enkelt kan automatiseres med KI. Dette vil produksjonsselskaper og distributører ta i bruk, selv om bilder skapt av generativ KI ikke kan manipuleres like nøyaktig og presist som menneskeskapte.

Og med dette kommer også spørsmålet om autentisitet inn. Det virker naturlig å tenke at autentisitet er noe forbeholdt menneskelig kreativitet. For at et kunstverk skal kunne berøre, skal kunne si noe autentisk, vil de fleste av oss mener det må ligge en menneskelig intensjon og kreativitet bak. Men nå begynner forskning å vise at når publikum ikke vet om det de ser eller hører på er menneskeskapt eller ikke så er det ikke så opplagt at de vil foretrekke det menneskeskapte. Det er først når vi gjøres oppmerksom på at det vi har opplevde er skapt av en kunstner eller en KI at vi klart foretrekker det menneskeskapte.

Jeg tenker disse spørsmålene er for store og overgripende til at vi kan — eller bør — forvente at NFI lager en veiledning, et sett med regler, norsk film skal forholde seg til. Samtidig er det klart at Filminstituttet må være viktig del av slike retningslinjer. NFI bør se til BFI, og bestille en rapport med retningslinjer fra de kompetansemiljøene som finnes på dette området. Her må både utdanning — gjennom Den norske filmskolen, TV-skolen og Spillskolen på INN, samt fagmiljøene ved Høgskolen Kristiania og Universitet i Tromsø (filmkunstskolen i Kabelvåg) og flere — bransje gjennom organisasjoner, produksjonsselskap, interesseorganisasjoner og nettverk (som AIAIAI og Oslo Kreativ AI), samt regionale filmsentre og deres samarbeidspartnere på banen. Hvis slike retningslinjer skal speile bredden av behovene i norsk film må de også produseres av en større bredde aktører enn de som sitter i Dronningens gate i Oslo.

I denne sammenheng tror jeg også MishMash — Centre for AI and Creativity vil spille en viktig rolle. MishMash representerer hele bredden av kunstfelt i Norge, og film er representert både gjennom Filmskolen og Høgskolen Kristiania. Senteret skal startes opp i løpet av høsten, og har et viktig oppdrag i å lede utvikling og forståelse for bruk av KI i kunst og kreative næringer, samt beslektede områder. I denne sammenheng vil det også bli åpninger her for flere aktører fra kunstfeltet og bransjen.

Utover dette peker BFIs rapport på noe vesentlig, som også er tilfelle i Norge: manglende ferdigheter og kompetanse. Vi trenger etter- og videreutdanning for både erfarne og nye filmarbeidere. Produsenter, regissører, forfattere, alle trenger mulighet for opplæring innenfor KI. Men også de som vil se jobbene endres eller forsvinne totalt trenger et tilbud som kan gi omskolering; et tilbud som sikrer norsk film ikke mister sårt tiltrengt erfaring og kompetanse men samtidig sikrer at jobbene som gjennomføres er relevante også i fremtiden.

Som undervisningsleder ved Den norske filmskolen er det naturlig for meg å tenke at her skal og må Filmskolen ha en sentral rolle. Men vi kan ikke gjøre dette alene, og vi trenger et konsortium som bringer sammen utdanninger, offentlige instanser, produksjonsselskap, bransjeorganisasjoner og mange flere for å møte disse utfordringene sammen — et konsortium som ansvarliggjør oss alle for å bidra til å løse utfordringene vi står over for og sikrer en felles styrke som gjør det umulig for myndighetene å ignorere.

AI and ethical conundrums

I am one of a group of faculty members who have organised a symposium on «AI and Art» at our university on January 12th. It seemed natural for me; I have always been interested in the ways artists explore new technologies, and push them in ways that perhaps was not intended. This was why I led an initiative that leaned heavily into Virtual and Extended Reality, despite some significant scepsisism from many of the filmmakers who teach at the Norwegian Film School.

New technologies always come with baggage; I don’t believe there is such a thing as a completely neutral technology. There is always a worldview, as set of assumptions and values, and both a cost and a benefit to any technology / tool.

But rarely has this been so evident as in the case of the AI tools that have dominated public discourse in the past 18 or so months. These are tools that can do wonderful things (no link; you can find them easily enough if you haven’t seen them already) but they also come with a significant price attached. We’ve seen the reports of the Kenyan content moderators, exposed to the worst the web has to offer for what amounts to slave wages. We’ve seen the examples of racist and sexist biases build in to the tools.

The biases and prejudices built into the tools are one thing. The other side is it became apparent early on that the companies that have created the AI tools have asserted a right of fair use to copyrighted creations on the web, and copyright holders — including writers, artists, musicians, and more — have launched lawsuits asserting their intellectual property (oh, how I loathe that term) has been stolen.

This means every time, or another artist, uses a generative AI tool like ChatGPT or Midjourney, we are, in fact, using works we do not have to right to in order to create our own.

But is it that simple?

I neither know nor understand all the legal implications of this, but I do know that in the art form I work in — filmmaking — artists have been «stealing» from artists they admire almost for as long as there has been a film industry. Would we have a Kurosawa ouevre to admire if he had not stolen from John Ford? Would we have a Star Wars franchise (that never seems to end) if George Lucas had not stolen from Kurosawa (and many others)?

I know there is a difference between artists taking inspiration from others they admire and a corporation almost mindlessly harvesting artistic works in order to make their machine as slick as possible. But it still gives me pause for thought.

Three*

Some of the ideas I’ll be exploring in the months — my research semester starts in 18 months — to come.

Dewey’s pragmatism, as laid out in Democracy and Education, How We Think, and Art as Experience.
Experiential learning, as laid out by David Kolb and critiqued / refined by several others since.
Donald Schön’s observations and theories on reflection in action / praxis, with special attention to Lisa Candy’s The Reflective Creative Practitioner.
Vygotsky, of course. The zone of proximal learning and scaffolding are key concepts in any educational programme geared towards developing both technical and artistic skills.
Seymour Papert’s constructionism. In filmmaking programmes, the students learn best when actually making films, both for purely internal critique but also for public distribution through festivals and the like.
Situated learning and «legitimate peripheral participation» as analysed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger.
And, as I’ve already mentioned, 4E cognition, with special emphasis on how it relates to creativity and craft.

* I’m lousy at titles. I might end up using some variation of the number of the post for 2024. Or not.

Insight Out raw

I attended the 2012 Insight Out seminar at the film school in Potsdam, Germany from March 19 to 23 this year. I am dumping my “raw” notes here; they are unfiltered, unspellchecked and a little unstructured. They are useful to me – if nothing else, the act of taking notes helps me remember things – but probably not to anyone else…

Day 1
_________________________________________
Session 1
general overview of workflows and formats in digital film and home entertainment
– by Flying Eye – media management consultants; ie getting the techies and creatives to understand each other.
Background: jan. 19th Kodak files chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Film continues to dominate archiving, but digital acqusition taking over in production – one could say has taken over.
SDTV –> HDTV –> 4K (digital cinema)
Digital workflow allows for crossover between production and post; this is not only possible but even likely. (and desirable?)
– fewer steps digital – digital than film-digital
– DCI is still active; produces SMTE standards. last revision 26.01.2012 www.dcimovies.com
– DCI focusess on distribution & security
– DCI also gives specs for testing of distribution
Last 3 years have seen an almost exponential growth of digital and 3d screens compared to film-only
Rumour that Hollywood will stop releasing 35mm in 2013. This will have a major effect on those screens that have not converted to digital –> but what about arthouse? archiving? less industrialised territories? second run? festivals?
Issues:
– projection brightness
– higher framerates (48fps)
– heigher resolution (8k+)
(these last two have big implications for production and post pipeline)
– industry still learning to handle 3d
– film language for 3d still under development
As always, the choice of camera is chosing the right tool for the job – should not be a choice based solely on technological considerations
Interesting development also in DLSR; both Canon and Nikon have released new cameras this month. N D800 (better colour but more noise) and MKIII (less noise but more moire and false colour)
Brand new! Digital Bolex announced last week.
Acquisition formats
– resolution
– bit depth
– compression
– colour space
mm.
Field recording: disk based, flash memory (SSD, etc.) and tape based
With online storage of masters, one can move away from a “sequential” post to a collaborative one.
– also Cloud-based. Example, Hugo Cabaret moved 3PB data between 11 different collaborators in post. ref Pixomondo – teams all over the world working on the same production.
Consumer delivery: IMF – interoperable master format
– standard for mastering for all consumer delivery formats.
Frame rate: 24 vs. 25 fps –> DCI compliance requires 24 BUT the latest standards allow for 25 fps DCPs for cinematic release; but even though the standards exist, the equipment to play 25 fps is not widespread.
___________________________________________
Session 2
Broadcast Changes.
John Ive from IABM (http://theiabm.org/)
represents the broadcast equipment manufacturers
analogue –> digital –> IT/IP
– this last element is what has actually changed workflow
More delivery platforms and consumption habits are changing; leads to both creative, business and technological need to adapt.
– how to future-proof in a situation where change is accelerating?
Drivers in the consumer world
– live programming
– multichannel pay-tv
– recorded media – multi-format
– video on demand
70% of tablet owners use them while watching TV (UK)
Daily viewing hours still increasing
From tape to file – file = video + audio + metadata
Analogue and digital are still linear / sequetial workflows –> IT/IP changing all that
IT is faster than real time and paralell
“ingest once, use anywhere”
But why are we struggling?
– have to unlearn ingrained workflows
– exponential rise in content
– formats!
– cost of investments and upgrades
– too many things changing at the same time
Metadata – provides the context necessary to make sense of data.
– there is no “one size fits all” as different organisatons need different metadata.
Workflow
key in IT-workflow becomes media asset management.
Existing cloud services – worth checking out to see the (possible) future of media asset management.
Security is an issue in cloud storage
– local laws where the servers are; which agencies can access my files?
– leakage and hacking?
_______________________________________________
Session 3
Peter Adams – editor of Anonymous
editing and VFX
– shot on Alexa
– communication between editing, VFX and production was key in both prep and production
– got technical files from the camera. DP predefined different luts that were applied to the dailies and a form of pre-grading
–> gave DP a chance to pre-grade, and the looks were changed along the way. Eliminated dailies colour grading and predefined som set-ups for the colour grading
– raw material recorded to hard drives, copied at the end of each day by a quality controll dept. – replaces the lab
– this dept. produced timed and synced dailies, already logged and organised.
Editor and director watched dailies at the end of each shooting day
– Started editing while the shoot was going on.
– often involved sound and vfx while cutting scenes in order to get the full effect
VFX and editing started working and testing together about a week before production started.
– technical compatibility as important as collaboration
Good communication also key to ensuring efficiency; avoid wasted labour
– back and forth collaboration allowed adjusting plans to ensure maksimum efficiency
By cutting along the way, the editor had a cut ready for a (internal) screening about 2 weeks after principal photography was finished.
– worked another 2 weeks on a directors cut
– another couple of weeks, then another screening
Editing moved to LA, but VFX still in Germany.
– an assistant stayed in Babelsburg, but editor and main assistant moved.
– conference calls with VFX every two days.
– used a watch folder (dropbox) and a player called cinesync – which allows you to draw on images and the drawings are synced real time between LA and Germany
– moved editing to London in so the director could do ADR with the actors
Recreating historical London from before the fire: combination of VFX and production design – CGI and sets, set extentions, etc. This required extensive previsualisation between those two depts. – but editing was not involved in animatics, etc.
______________________________________________
Session 4
s3D Now! – research project
On the effect of 3D on storytelling, production and sound, in addition to testing workflows
3 main research questions
– optical phenomena in 3d and their limits
– staffing on 3d productions
– sound in 3d films; how is it different from 2d
Project entails a short film, a behind the scenes doc and a book
Sound for 3D – there is no litterature right now
– how does 3D effect set sound and post sound?
some challenges
– clocking with many devices
– stereographers equipment is noisy
– same is true of data wrangler
Shooting
– more wide shots, longer shots, fewer ots. –> difficult to get mics close
Post
– need 3d image for sound post in order to miks to the correct space
– increased detail level in sound design
– new approaches for surround channels since the audience is inside the space and sound must reinforce this
– may need different playback systems – eg. 7.1
Sound concept
– must remember the room / space is a stylistic device ie. a storytelling device
– directors must learn to include more departments
MORE PREP.
3D Alliance Karlsruhe
investigating storytelling in 3D
forms alliances between art and science (esp. mathematics)
Beyond – 3d filmfestival
* 3D symposium 22-24 june. *
Working towards directing attention from technical aspects to creative aspects
big challenges: no standards and lack of educated people.
3D requires a new dramaturgy; one that uses space actively
– both in terms of staging and emotionally
Requires new rhythms in editing
“in 3d, the post people become painters”
___________________________________________________
DAY 2
Session 1: The Law of the Internet with Prof. Jan Bernd Nordemann
Intellectual Property rights: remember everyone who has had creative input in the film — editor, cinematographer, actors, composers, etc. — owns the intellectual property rights to their work. The Producer needs to remember to acquire all these rights for distribution.
– in particular internet and “all unknown media” rights
– need explicit agreements for “non film use” –> for example merchandising, books, etc.; also prequels, sequels, remakes, etc.
Old programmes – anything before 1995 – are problematic for internet distribution
– especially from before 1965
Why? Before 1965 no mention of unknown media in contracts. –> rights remained with the creator/author
In 2008 German law granted distribution rights to producers for content created 1966-late 70s for what were “unknown media” in that time period. ie. video, internet.
– The authors can make a separate remuneration claim to a governing body.
In US the situation is different under “work for hire” provisions –> producers retain more distribution rights
In the case of full funding by a broadcaster, the internet and unknown media distribution rights may be with the broadcaster. At the very least, the broadcaster retains the “7-day catch up” distribution.
– VOD a separate issue.
No one “right” on the net. Many different forms and rights of distribution on the net.
– EST – electronic sell through (purchase)
– VOD – on demand viewing by time-limited download, but not sale.
– Streaming – on demand viewing, but no downloaded copy for viewing
Remuneration
– free
– free with advertising
– pay-per-view
– subscription
– etc., etc.
Geographically limitet rights – based on geolocation of IPs
– there is a question about the EU; must rights be whole EU or can there be rights specified for individual states
Music rights are the most complicated thing, in part because of national composers & musicians rights organisations. In some cases, rights must be negotiated with individual performers and composers –> this is a major hurdle for film distribution.
Another aspect: live streaming of TV.
Creative Commons. Has become part of the copyright system, but is free of remuneration. –> since it is noncommercial there is a limit on the kinds of content that will be CC licensed.
Platforms have to adhere to national laws for all territories in which they are available.
– example: youth protection (age limits) could determine at what time you can stream certain content in certain territories
Piracy. Still unresolved. Copyright vs. individual freedom.
_________________________________________
Session 2: Production Designer Sebastian Krawinkel about Anonymous
Every scene in Anonymous was designed, and built either physically or digitally.
Used a modular system – elements that could be moved and reused in different ways.
Original idea was to shoot plates in England, and use them in CGI. In actual fact only one plate was used.
Made models which were shot, then manipulated in VFX to create London
Art dept. researched and built large parts of 16th century London – Art. dept. made many 3D models, then handed these to VFX for completion.
Krawinkel had 12 weeks prep for research.
Based sets and 3d designs on contemporary paitings of London. Houses based on existing houses that survive from that era.
Extensive previs, both 2d and 3d
Close working relationship between Art Dept. and VFX in prep.; sharing of concepts and files; planning of physical and digital elements
In the interiors, modules were built and reused in many sets; simply fleshed out with some unique elements in order to distract the eye from the reuse of elements,
Primary interior lighting from candles; used “candle wranglers” and special 3-wicked candles. (Chose to shoot Alexa because the candlelight caused noise in in the footage from the Red camera that was tested)
In certain situations, the modular sets were combined with CGI and digital sets
Used 5 different sets, so that while one was being filmed, the other 5 were in various states of preparation.
Modular system works when architecture is geometrical, the director is very visual and can see possibilities, and the AD can make a schedule that works.
__________________________________________________
Session 3 – 3D storytelling and workflow planning
Part 1 with Ludger Pfanz
3d has a history all the way back to Lumiere and Meliers
Digital 3d allows perfect sync in projection
Theses
– 3d starts with the script
– from “frame” to “stage”
– space has meaning
– depth dramaturgy
How to organise space for 3D
– Topos: space –> space has potential and dynamism
“What is not in the script cannot be staged” – scriptwriters need to learn to write for 3d space.
– for example, in Coraline the day world is flat, while the night world has a lot of depth
Can layer an image to have more going on different levels –> mise en scene
Alex Weimer & co. – “Lost Place” a case study in 3D filmmaking
Mystery thriller, based on real backstory of US cold war experiments.
How to make the 3D count?
Things that lend themselves to 3d
– ensemble cast
– limited number of locations, which are explored by the characters
Depth chart: an analysis of the script to decide which scenes need more or less depth, where parallax is in front or behind the screen
Can increase Vertigo-effect by increasing inter-axial distance between cameras (for example) –> puts a strain on the viewer
Production considerations
– stereo rigs can weigh in excess of 40 kgs.
– changing rigs can take several hours of calibration
– stereographer becomes a key crew member; important to give them the time and space to work
– special rig for steadicam – down to approx. 25 kgs.
– stereoscopic mirror rig eats about 1 stop
Editors observations.
kept each eye separate – even on separate hard drives
Used Avid media composer 6 – latest version has 3d capability; allows linking two picture and one sound clip to create a stereoscopic clip.
What about pacing? – the pace of the editing and choice of footage to use determined by the action and shots exactly as with 2d
Cut in 2d, then view sequence in 3d.
Some differences
– backgrounds are a bigger distraction in 3d – even if out of fokus. Need to be aware of this
– tracking shots can, if necessary, be held longer in 3d.
– lens flare and reflection is a bigger problem in 3d.
VFX and post production; on set data wrangling
– data integrity key; backups and more backups.
– DIT followed file naming convention agreed upon in prep.
VFX did on-set check and screenings of footage; used After Effects since the editing workflow had not yet been established
Involved in prep in order to avoid overwork in post 😉
gathered textures, etc. on location
built websites, graphics, phone apps, etc. etc. in advance so they were filmed “live” during production – again to avoid work in post.
Have not yet decided on software package, but considering Fusion rather than Nuke.
Big challenge creating effects that also have to have depth.
_______________________________________________
DAY 3
Session 1 – Case Study ARTE – broadcast workflow in the transition from tape to file
ARTE is a grouping of public television networks; French and German cooperation, started in 1992
Head office in Strasbourg
Tapeless: started with SD tapeless in 2001; went live in 2005
Introduced HD in 2008
APIOS: database for managing broadcast assets; uses metadata to automate programming, archiving, etc.
– also manages audience number, etc.
– this system is available for all now, can also be used for archiving, vod, etc.
HD-tapeless: decision to go tapeless made in 2008
BCE won the contract to effect the changeover to tapeless
APIOS is based on Oracle and on Windows-only.
Going tapeless has much simplified by removing steps, need for synchronisations
(MAM = media asset management: key feature of tapeless system)
In a changeover like this, change management — training & listening — are key
To any such system, metadata is key –> it is crucial that this is entered and managed correctly.
_________________________________________
DAY 4

Session 1: Case study Melancholia: Pan-european co-production with Peter Hjorth
check http://www.gearless/MEL%20VFX%20featurette%201stcut.mov

NB: Peter works exactly the way we want to teach Digital Visual Design.
Melancholia had collaborators from Denmark, Sweden and Germany on the post production effects.
Peter worked as a “VFX Director” – closely with Director, DoP and PD throughout the production cycle
Partners in VFX included:
– Pixomondo in Germany
– Film Gate from Sweden
Peter and his VFX producer Karen were hired at the script stage
– made some models, working with the scientists who provided a large amount of the background reseach for the film.
– first VFX breakdown and budget already two months before preproduction started; worked closely with the films producer to find a solution that works with the total budget

Storyboard
– Peter worked with Lars, DP, PD and 1st AD
– final film very close to storyboard
Developed the colour and look of the Planet Melancholia; worked with Gaffer and DP so they could find a gel they used to give the effect of the light from Mel. shining through windows, etc.
Predefining what is needed; working with production to ensure what is needed is filmed.
Karen did cost estimates to see what is best done on set, what is best done in post.
The general trade-off is big, wide shots better as post VFX, while smaller, closer shots better as on-set SFX
Involved in planning 2nd unit shooting – ended up saving time and money
Made a production plan for FX shots

Financing
breakdown based on final script
gave all studios same breakdown, storyboards in order to get best possible bids.
shots were cut all the way until the end in order to make the budget work, or in some cases redistribute resources
Economy not the only factor in chosing post studios
– artistic style and visual understanding
– experience and capacity
– key competences
– personal contact
– location (travel time for Peter and Karen) –> this was a factor in chosing German Pixomondo over a Canadian competitor.
Tight schedule: shooting finished in September; film had to be ready for pre-Cannes screening in March
Budget har to consider shooting costs, personnel, construction, post hardware, travel, file transfers, etc. etc.
4-country co-production; there are national demands for where budget is spent – VFX also has to help by spending in those regions… (plus a large list of other investors)
— Worth noting that Film i Väst (Göteborg & Trollhättan) is a major booster of filming and post in that region —

The Shoot
Peter on set all days when vfx-shots planned
Input in how actors responded to the Melancholia planet in the sky
participated in shooting reference elements, plates, inserts, spinter unit with sfx and art dept. (most high speed); 2nd unit of varying sizes (inkl. model shoot), special elements (in this case, Northern Lights on Iceland), pickups (greenscreen)

Editing
Important to keep track of the shots used, that the vfx plan is still being followed; see if new shots come up, etc. –> important to follow up that the total VFX shots stays within the budget.
Peter takes job of VFX-editior: does rough versions of vfx shots once there is a “real” cut of the film available
Make vfx-demos for the post studios involved, allow them to start sketching their versions while waiting for the final version of the picture
Post studios provided temp versions for screenings

VFX
Online of film to vfx studios
briefings and presentation of shorts
VFX production schedule finalised
maintain communication and make visits, viewings — this is key to ensure what is delivered is what was wanted.
VFS shots to foley, sound editing, music
Coordination important, to ensure everyone knows who does what, when, and also movement of files, scheduling of approvals and viewings, etc.
Important also to coordinate with Producer to fit promo and trailer production into the schedule; they can really destroy a post schedule otherwise.
Peter works much like a director with the vfx-providers; is the creative leader of the team and needs to get the most out of the different artists.
– tools like Skype and Cinesync are useful, but there is no substitute for sitting and speaking in the same room.
worked with ftp –> still the easiest way to distribute files.

Grading
Peter supervises the delivery of every vfx-shot; also attends final grading
involved in creation of LUTs for dailies; ensure all vfx shots work with the LUTs
Grading requires delivery of alpha layers; mistakes in grading can ruin the effect of compositing!
Things like stars can cause major problems in downconversion for release formats — all these versions must also be checked.

This case shows how important it is for the FILM that the VFX director is involved from script to delivery.

Q&A
Alexa – shot 10-bit log with on-board compression codec.
______________________________________________
DAY 5

Session 1: Visual effects photography and 3D with Mark Weingartner
Visual effects and CGI are not the same thing: not all vfx are CG, although they may have CG elements.
– many elements, plates, miniatures, etc. are shot, then manipulated, composited in post.
Useful book: VES Handbook of visual effects
Things like Vistavision still used for f/x
For 3d models – use lidar scans instead of photos for plates.

Session 2: “101 It’s Easy” –> new company helping production companies make transition to file-based
Protection of media is key
Digital allows sharing and collaboration to a much greater extent; this increases complication
Cloud-based file management is key to collaboration and sharing; producers need a system that can be secure but flexible.

Session 3: Dolby PRM-3200 reference monitor
John Bleau
New monitor a response to the lack of a proper display in post after CRT discontinued.
– main problem is there is no longer a universal reference standard
– LCD and plasma have severe colour and black/contrast limitations.
– OLED and plasma have a short life
– DLP best colour, but poor contrast, poor blacks
Dolby monitor 40000:1 contrast, 12-bit colour. Can handle raw output from Alexa, for example.
$40,000 –
Calibration probe is another $30,000…

Session 4: Digital Gremlins! with DP Keith Partridge (films extreme locations, etc.)
or… the many deaths of digital footage…
One way to kill a camera…–> drowning
Cameras don’t like water! Adventure cinematography can get wet…
Other ways –> dropping and freezing.
Logistics of the shoot determine choice of equipment
When one is in a remote location it’s crucial to use things one is familiar with –> if something goes wrong you can quickly fix it / find a solution

Session 5: Pixomondo and Hugo Cabaret
shot on Alexas with a 3d beamsplitter rig.
extensive metadata recorded
Nuke for compositing
VFX involved in setting up the LUTs
One pitfall of 3d: stereo artifacts
– 2-stage removal process: automatic tools followed by manual cleanup
– not all stereo artifacts are in camera; some are real-world etc. occlusions and reflections –> in both cases they are visible to one eye and not the other; creates an annoying effect and need to be dealt with.
Tools used included both rotoscoping and CGI
in this case: vfx was not involved in chosing shooting format.

Session 6: Summary
SD and tape (with the exception of HDCamSR?) are gone from post; soon from production?
Codec chaos…
Film?
In broadcast today, 1080i50 is the format — but not the format of the future.
How many pixels are enough?
Chosing a camera today is becoming as much a creative choice – much as chosing a film stock (Kodak vs. Fuji) was before
Next technological advancement on display side is autostereoscopic (no glasses) –> holoscopic interesting but still a ways off
Stereoscopic 3D is here to stay, but needs to be driven by story, not money!
Filebased –> leads to demands on coordination, integration and compatibility in order to allow effective creative sharing.
– key question is how to make the technology/infrastructure invisible so the creatives can get on with their work!
Archiving: digitise tapes or lose them. Film is still supreme on the theatrical side, but what will replace it? Very important to resolve this.
In broadcast, adminstrative and production worlds are moving closer – driven in part by consolidation of databases. How close should they get?

As an aside, this was the first time I used my iPad 2 as my primary computing device for an extended period. The laptop stayed in the hotel room while I wrote, checked mail, etc. on the iPad with my Logitech fold-up keyboard (Norwegian link). The battery lasted all day without trouble (used about 10% per hour when in use constantly – just as advertised).

Nettbrett i filmutdanning

Den siste tiden har sett en voldsom økning i antall nettbrett som brukes på Filmskolen, både blant studenter og ansatte. Det samme skjer på Høskolen i Lillehammer generelt, og IT avdelingen har nå kommet med en anbefaling.

Denne anbefalingen gjelder ikke ansatte eller studenter på Filmskolen. Selv om Android er et meget godt operativsystem finnes det per dd. ikke nok filmrelaterte apps til den platformen. De aller fleste som lager apps som kan brukes i filmindustrien lager dem kun for iOS (dvs. iPad).

En kort liste er:

Filmproduksjon krever avanserte og spesialiserte planleggingsverktøy, og standarden i norsk og internasjonal filmproduksjon er MovieMagic Scheduling. http://www.entertainmentpartners.com/Content/Products/Scheduling.aspx I dag finnes en mobilversjon til iPad (http://www.entertainmentpartners.com/Content/Products/SchedulingToGo.aspx) men ikke Android.
Final Draft, manusformatteringsprogrammet som brukes i filmindustrien finnes ikke som fullverdig mobilversjon enda, men de har laget en iPad app som kan lese .fdx filer. www.finaldraft.com
Celtx, et populært open-source alternativ til MovieMagic og Final Draft har laget 2 iPad apper http://www.celtx.com/mobile.html og har nylig gitt ut en Android-versjon av script editoren, men funksjonaliteten er noe mindre enn på iOS.
Avid, redigeringsprogrammet som brukes av de fleste i Filmbransjen, lanserte nylig en iPad app. http://itunes.apple.com/app/avid-studio/id491113378?intcmp=AV-HP-S2&mt=8
pCAM, kanskje det mest brukte mobile verktøy for filmfotografer siden det ble lansert for Palm i 1998, finnes kun til iOS http://www.davideubank.com/Good_Focus/pCAM_Film+Digital_Calculator.html
Keyframe cam report, en digital camera rapport til iOS.
http://itunes.apple.com/no/app/keyframe-cam-report/id336801525?l=nb&mt=8
Sound Report Writer http://itunes.apple.com/no/app/sound-report-writer/id492004803?l=nb&mt=8

Det finnes en lang rekke andre; dette er bare et lite utvalg.

De som vil ha et nettbrett som kan brukes i filmsammenheng bør dermed skaffe seg iPad i denne omgang. Hvis dette endrer seg i fremtiden vil det opplyses om det.