True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory

In the paper

“The CGI ball seemed credible because, among other reasons, the animators were careful to add motion blur”

In the paper

“They do, in fact, permit film artists to create synthetic realities that can look just like photographic realities.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [22] 22. Robert N. Kraft, "Rules and Strategies of Visual Narratives," Per- ceptual and Motor Skills no. 64 (1987), pp. 3-14; source

In the paper

“Objects can be co-present in computer space but not in the physical 3D space which photography records.”

In the paper

“digital imaging can bend, twist, stretch, and contort physical objects in cartoonlike ways that mock indexicalized referentiality.”

In the paper

“In cases like the slithery underwater creature in James Cameron's The Abyss, which began as a wireframe model in the computer, no profilmic referent existed to ground the indexicality of its image.”

In the paper

“Assumptions about realism in the cinema are frequently tied to concepts of indexicality prevailing between the photographic image and its referent.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites [2] 2. Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photog- raphy, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), p. 5. 4. Ibid., p. 76. 5. Ibid., p. 87.
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [3] 3. Andre Bazin, What Is Cinema ? vol. 1, ed. and trans. Hugh Gray (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967), p. 14. source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [6] 6. Bill Nichols, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), note 2, p. 268. source

In the paper

“This neglect has prevented theory from understanding some of the fundamental ways in which cinema works and is judged credible by viewers.”

In the paper

“contemporary theory has preserved the dichotomy even while recasting one set of its terms.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [19] 19. See Uta Frith and Jocelyn E. Robson, "Perceiving the Language of Films," Perception, vol. 4 (1975), pp. 97- 103; source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [20] 20. Renee Hobbs, Richard Frost, Arthur Davis, and John Stauffer, "How First-Time Viewers Comprehend Editing Conventions," Journal of Communication, no. 38 (1988), pp. 50-60; source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites [21] 21. Julian Hochberg and Virginia Brooks, "Picture Perception as an Unlearned Ability: A Study of One Child's Performance," American Journal of Psychology, vol. 74, no. 4 (December 1962), pp. 624-28;

In the paper

“Yet the dinosaurs created at ILM have a palpable reality about them, and this is due to the extremely detailed texturemapping, motion animation, and integration with live action carried out via digital imaging.”

In the paper

“Where classical film theory was organized by a dichotomy between realism and formalism, contemporary theory has preserved the dichotomy even while recasting one set of its terms.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites [18] 18. For a fuller discussion of this literature, see my essays "The Discourse of Pictures: Iconicity and Film Studies," Film Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 1 (Fall 1993), pp. 16-28 and "Psychoanalytic Film Theory and the Problem of the Missing Spectator," in Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, ed. David Bordwell and Noel Carroll (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996).

In the paper

“In a similar way, President Kennedy speaking in Forrest Gump is a falsified correspondence which is nevertheless built from internally valid perceptual information.”

In the paper

“Attributions of realism, or the lack thereof, by viewers will inhere in the ways these correspondences are structured into and/or transformed by the image and film.”

In the paper

“In traditional film theory, only one alternative is available: the perspective formulated in opposition to the positions staked out by realists like Kracauer, Bazin, and Cavell.”

What the sources say

• Not checked yetcites [18] 18. For a fuller discussion of this literature, see my essays "The Discourse of Pictures: Iconicity and Film Studies," Film Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 1 (Fall 1993), pp. 16-28 and "Psychoanalytic Film Theory and the Problem of the Missing Spectator," in Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, ed. David Bordwell and Noel Carroll (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996).

In the paper

“When lighting a scene becomes a matter of painting pixels, and capturing movement is a function of employing the correct algorithms for mass, inertia, torque, and speed (with the appropriate motion blur added as part of the mix), indexical referencing is no longer required for the appearance of photographic realism in the digital image.”

In the paper

“The chateau and the Alps could not be lit so they'd both expose as brightly as they do in the image.”

In the paper

“These correspondences in turn establish some of the most important criteria by which viewers can judge the apparent realism or credibility possessed by the digital image.”

In the paper

“Perceptually realistic images correspond to this experience because film-makers build them to do so.”

In the paper

“digital imaging in its dual modes of image processing and CGI challenges indexically based notions of photographic realism.”

In the paper

“These include iconic and noniconic visual and social cues which are structured into cinematic images in ways that facilitate comprehension and invite interpretation and evaluation by viewers based on the salience of represented cues or patterned deviations from them.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [24] 24. Robin Smith, Daniel R. Anderson, and Catherine Fischer, "Young Children's Comprehension of Montage," Child Development no. 56 (1985), pp. 962-71. source

In the paper

“Computer modelling of synthetic visual speech and facial animation relies on existing microanalyses of human facial expression and phonetic mouth articulations.”

In the paper

“Its reality is a function of complex algorithms stored in computer memory rather than a necessary mechanical resemblance to a referent.”

In the paper

“At a visual level, these cues include the ways that photographic images and edited sequences are isomorphic with their corresponding real-world displays”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [25] 25. See Austin S. Babrow, Barbara J. O'Keefe, David L. Swanson, Renee A. Myers, and Mary A. Murphy, "Person Perception and Children's Impression of Television and Real Peers," Communication Research, vol. 15, no. 6 (December 1988), pp. 680-98; source

In the paper

“digital imaging possesses a flexibility that frees it from the indexicality of photography's relationship with its referent.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [17] 17. Noel Carroll has urged film theory in this direction by recommending smaller scale, piece-meal theorizing about selected aspects of cinema rather than cinema in toto and on a grand scale. See Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory, p. 255, and Carroll, Mystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), pp. 230-34. source

In the paper

“An extensive body of evidence indicates the many ways in which film spectatorship builds on correspondences between selected features of the cinematic display and a viewer's real-world visual and social experience.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [24] 24. Robin Smith, Daniel R. Anderson, and Catherine Fischer, "Young Children's Comprehension of Montage," Child Development no. 56 (1985), pp. 962-71. source

In the paper

“digital imaging is inconsistent with indexically based notions of film realism.”

In the paper

“unreal images may be referentially fictional but perceptually realistic.”

In the paper

“In the opening sequence of Forrest Gump, as a CG feather drifts and tumbles through space, its physical reality is enhanced by the addition of a digitally painted reflection on an automobile windshield.”

In the paper

“As the foregoing discussion indicates, available software and the speed and economics of present computational abilities are placing limits on the complexities of digitally rendered 3D cues used to integrate synthetic and live-action objects and environments.”

In the paper

“Socially derived assumptions about motive, intent, and proper role-based behavior are employed when responding to real and media-based personalities and behavior.”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites [26] 26. Thomas J. Bemdt and Emily G. Berndt, "Children's Use of Motives and Inten- tionality in Person Perception and Moral Judgement," Child Development no. 46 (1975), pp. 904-12;

In the paper

“in less obvious ways, as well, digital imaging can depart from photographically coded realism.”

In the paper

“even unreal images can be perceptually realistic.”

In the paper

“Gump's ping-pong ball and Spielberg's dinosaurs look like convincing photographic realities because of the complex sets of perceptual correspondences that have been built into these images.”

In the paper

“a digitally designed or created image can be subject to infinite manipulation.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites [9] 9. Ron Magid, "ILM's Digital Dinosaurs Tear Up Effects Jungle," American Cinematographer, vol. 74, no. 12 (De- cember 1993), p. 56. source

In the paper

“Multiple levels of information capture must be successfully executed to convincingly animate and render living movement because the viewer's eye is adept at perceiving inaccurate information.35”

What the sources say

• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites [35] 35. Texture-mapping is a process whereby a flat surface is detailed with texture, such as skin wrinkles, and can then be wrapped around a three-dimensional model visualized in computer space. Some surfaces texture-map more eas- ily than others. Pat Byme, at Post Effects, points out that spherical objects are problematic because the top and bottom tend to look pinched. Telephone interview with the author, October 25, 1994.

In the paper

“digital imaging operates according to a different ontology than do indexical photographs.”

In the paper

“Digital imaging exposes the enduring dichotomy in film theory as a false boundary”

In the paper

“Viewers use and rely upon these perceptual correspondences when responding to, and evaluating, screen experience.”

In the paper

“What is new and revolutionary about digital imaging is that it increases to an extraordinary degree a film-maker's control over the informational cues that establish perceptual realism.”

In the paper

“The apparent realism of digitally processed or created images, then, is a function of the way that multiple levels of perceptual correspondence are built into the image.”

In the paper

“The presence of either is no longer an absolute requirement for generating photographic images that correspond to spatio-temporally valid properties of the physical world.”

In the paper

“But these correspondences also establish a falsified relationship with the historical and archival filmic records of reality.”

In the paper

“Because these correspondences between synthetic environments and real environments employ multiple cues, the induced realism of the final CG image can be extraordinarily convincing.”

In the paper

“Similarly, digitalimaging practices suggest that contemporary film theory's insistence upon the constructedness and artifice of cinema's discursive properties may be less productive than is commonly thought.”

In the paper

“The profound impact of digital imaging, in this respect, lies in the unprecedented ways that it permits film-makers to extend principles of perceptual realism to unreal images.”

In the paper

“Satisfying the viewer's demand for reference permits, in turn, patterned or stylish deviations from reference.”

In the paper

“The emphasis in contemporary film theory has undeniably shifted away from naive notions of Computer imaging in The Mask indexical realism in favor of an attention to the constructedness of cinematic discourse.”

In the paper

“But, as this essay has suggested, some of these representations, while being referentially unreal, are perceptually realistic.”

In the paper

“Building 3D cues inside computer-generated images enables viewers to correlate those images with their own spatio-temporal experience, even when the digitally processed image fails in other ways to obey that experience (as when the Terminator morphs out of a tiled floor to seize his victim).”

In the paper

“Digital imaging alters our sense of the necessary relationship involving both the camera and the profilmic event.”

In the paper

“Yet indexicality remains an important point of origin even for perspectives that reincorporate it as a variant of illusionism, of the cinema's ability to produce a reality-effect.”

In the paper

“The tension between perceptual realism and referential artifice clearly predates digital imaging.”