Shift vs. Cut

 

Oftentimes I use the term “shift” when referring to a “cut” to a new scene or shot. “Shift” replaces “cut.” This is a distinction I came across in the book Filmosophy by Daniel Frampton. In the book he proposes that moving sound images have a thinking all their own and there is a power available to us when we consider the moving sound image as a presentation of thinking. This thinking can then mingle with the thinking of the viewer and a new 3rd way of thinking emerges. This is all very interesting and complex, too complex to get into here. But when we consider the image as thinking we are open to the image showing story instead of telling story. And in showing story we are allowed to see “cuts” as changes in thought or “shifts” in thought. A shift in the thinking that the image is thinking and and a shift in the thinking available as interpretation. Again all good and theoretical, but so what?

For some it is a distinction not worth making. Yet for me it furthers the exploration of the emerging possibilities of being and thinking becoming available to humans, uncovering new ways to communicate to people. It is important for me to articulate the moments when the mood or thought change. It helps to infuse thoughtful feeling and intention into the process of creating moving sound images. Making the “shift” distinction expands the communication between team members and creatives so that collectively form can combine with content enhancing and deepening meaning and the viewing experience.

It may be subtle, the change from “cut”to “shift,” but when reading one of my moving sound image ideas consider how the meaning is different with “shift” instead of “cut.”

Story-Showing

Not storytelling. It is not that storytelling is bad it is just that storytelling is a literary term and film is so much more than literature. Considering the possibilities of film shouldn’t we set the medium free by thinking in terms of storyshowing? When writing one tells a story and it can be beautiful but the image is surrounded by words with film the image merges directly into the viewer’s mind, pure and autonomous. How powerful that is and if we remember that, always thoughtful of that power, the content and form meet providing more emotional engagement with the aesthetics and the content for the viewer. Storyshowing is way more effective than stodgy, literary storytelling. Film and the CGI effects available to us in this age make anything possible on the screen. Even things that go beyond words are possible.

In our short film Noun9 we faced the dilemma of how to storytell about a man who was trapped by his need to define himself and his girlfriend as a noun. How in words do you tell that? We realized you don’t. We had to change our approach to show it, not tell it. Then the possibilities of the medium opened up to us. We could envision this concept instead of trying to put it into words and CGI provided the images. Moving-sound images that beautifully and gracefully mingle with the mind of the viewer. Not words and words and exposition that confuse and take up time and block the experience. Concept-creation and concept-experience, in images not words, goes right to the center of the brain bypassing those hang-ups people get when you try and tell them something. Just show it.