In the "old days" of computation, we all operated with such modern workflows as use of the sliderule, how to interpolate in tables of logarithms,all manner of self checking techniques for validating results of long (one week or more full time) calculations with electro-mechanical devices, plugboard wiring, paper tape punching and writing neatly in little boxes on forms so someone could transform our programs into punched cards.

In fact, the term "computer" originally referred to the people who used such electic calculators. I still have a neat little autographed copy of a book on the calculation of the orbits of minor planets by Paul Herget. All manner of manual tricks and "workflows". Oh and by the way, even after large scale digital computers began to appear there were still large scale analog systems in daily use - I remember that it was still faster to process instrumentation tapes initially on an analog system where you plugged a variety of modular electrical components to perform the "calculations" before feeding the result into a digital system.

Fortunately, we learned the fundamental principles. Otherwise we would all have been rendered obsolete by today's digital wonders.

Oh well, I guess it's the eternal battle of how to balance the teaching of 'how" with the teaching of "why".

Personally I would have felt cheated if classes had emphasized the hows at the expense of the whys.

YMMV

I believe the term "computer" for the people doing the calculating even pre dates the electronic calculator to days of manually making out mathematical tables. Charles Babbage came up with a mechanical "difference engine" to solve the problem of human error in the tables.

Charles Babbage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thanks Brian! Yes, the term is much older than even I am. What I found so interesting about its use was that the author of the book would still acknowledge the original use of the term even at the beginning of the "non-human" (some would say "in-human") computer era.

Very perceptive about the old masters. I'm reminded of visiting the big traveling Monet exhibit some years ago while I was on Vacation in San Diego. Prior to the exit, after seeing all those later works, they had an exhibit of Monet's charactures. (In his youth he apparently made his pocket money doing political cartoons of famous figures of the day.) The cat could DRAW. Really, really well. Drawing led to Art - Art to helping re-invent Art.) Go figure.

As to the current debate, one of the more troublesome aspects of all this time trying to figure out the value proposition between Camera A or Camera B - or even the aesthetic proposition between black and white or color - is that it typically distracts us from moving on to the more fundamental questions about whether or not the video we're making has a justification for it's existance at all.

In a theatre last night, I saw a trailer for the coming "True Grit" remake. Does that film actually need a modern remake? Sure, you can make it bloodier. Even, perhaps, more "realistic." But no matter how hard you try, you can NEVER make another movie that will transcend it what the ORIGINAL True Grit was. It's not really a "movie" it's a "John Wayne Movie". And it needs to be considered as just that.

Infinately WORSE - I heard they're making a "Hollywood" version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. If EVER there was a movie that DIDN'T need a re-make of it's original THIS has GOT to be it.

Watching the Swedish version of TGWTDT (EVEN after reading the whole book series) is like the movie equivalent of hearing Bach for the first time. It doesn't NEED anyone to waste their time trying to do it better - it's essentially PERFECT as it is. Spend your time, people doing something else. Please!

And at it's heart, that's why the debate about digital verses analog is so silly. If the work you're doing is valid and original and compelling, at best the medium and the approach and the camera will ALL become a small part of the whole. Like whether you scored your original music for a string quartet or a brass quartet.

What they'll remember is whether the MUSIC moved them. If yes, it that music is superb, it will be echo'd in new arangements forever. If not, four Stradivari or 4 pipe organs won't save it.

That's pretty much what I was feeling after hearing about the decision to produce an English translation remake of "The Orphanage" due to be released in 2013.

My sense is that such an effort will stand to compromise the harmonious elements that make the 2007 Spanish version such a moving and compelling masterpiece.

-Jon

Hollywood has been making remakes (often inferior, sometimes better) for years. What they're after is a proven story that reduces their risk.

True. But what unfortunately happens is they take that proven story, and mash it up into some nearly unrecognizable and formulaic knock-off, toss out an important core element in lieu of an unwarranted and parodic 'twist', and then put the remaining 90% of their production budget into marketing.

-Jon

What they do with the story after the various hands have been dipping into it is entirely another matter of course.

Perhaps the debate that began on how to teach young people about film when they are not old enough to have any personal knowledge about "film" or film techniques or film technicalities, but instead are only familiar with digital imaging and its techniques and technicalities, is similar to the debate about cosmological "reality". Currently there are about 5 string theories each of which correctly defines reality within its own theory, but cannot define the reality in another string theory. Where they overlap, they continue to define reality, but in their own way.

Model-dependent realities fit the film/digital debate. When film was defining reality in its way, it worked fine. Similarly we are developing ways to use digital imaging to define reality, and that works too. The place where they overlap is when a digital videographer attempts to mimic the reality of film. Here the use of 24 frames per second, shallow depths of field, a slight graininess, and other techniques attempt to define film reality using digital reality. While it comes close to film, it never quite makes it out of the reality of digital.

A teacher showing classic films would have a hard time teaching young people to create the reality of a film in a digital reality. The students might wonder why the teacher is trying to mimic a look and feel that is "no longer in existence." Certainly the story-telling qualities transcend the imaging techniques, and that is an important lesson from the days of film. But how would one explain the lure of a not-quite-as-accurate a recording technique to a student other than describing something about the film techniques and film technicalities, and then comparing that to digital.

Two separate and distinct realities perhaps? But both describing the same reality. One could surmise that the teacher is from one reality and the student from another reality, and while each is in the same reality, their perception of that same reality is quite different, although the same.

The idea for this comment came from an article by Stephen Hawking and his colleague in the most recent Scientific American on "The elusive theory of everything." In this article there is another facet that is similar. He compares Newtonian physics (everyday physics with which we are familiar and which we generally use to describe film, and light effects on film) and quantum physics (which is essentially a series of on-states or off-states -- similar to digital 1 or 0 which we currently use to define the images in our digital cameras and increasingly in our everyday lives). Even one of the thread headings here "Photon Management" is quantum, not Newtonian physics; photon being a particle of light, not a wave form of light.

Fun topic.

Alan

And what after all defines "digital" vs "analogue"

Is a wind up watch really analogue? Or is it a digital (quantized) device with an analogue readout? If the watch operates with an escapement, then I think it is in reality a digital device, ie it works by counting (a digital operation after all) oscillations and displaying the result on an analogue clock face as an angular position "analogous" to the time.. But if it works off of a little electric motor that spins at a fixed rate, then I think it would qualify as an analogue device at least to my benighted way of thinking.

Well, one might say, "So what?" as, regardless of whether the clock works by counting pulses or not, the result "looks the same" at least within the capability of the human eye to discern the difference.

Hmm - sounds like a description of digital photography or video or audio, doesn't it? Digital processes displayed on an analogue device and practically indistinguishable from an analogue recording at least in the sense that an average person probably couldn't reliably tell you which was which.

A crappy worthless documentary is a crappy worthless documentary regardles of whether it's a crappy digital documentary or a crappy analogue documentary

Ah yes, wave vs particle reality, continuous reality vs quantum reality. Great stuff.

Yesterday I watched a Japanese movie, "13 Assassins".
Probably some American or European know this film because a lot of audience admired it at the Venezia Film Festival.
The story was about Samurai spirits.

Basically Japanese film makers never use CGI for fighting scenes in Samurai movies.
I don't think most Western people know fightings of Samurai well.
It is a tough work to even drawing a Japanese sword from a sheath for a beginner.
Most Japanese actors should learn how they move and use their swords for fighting scenes.
They never need CGI.
What a Japanese actor can move like genuine Samurai is a kind of Japanese tradition for shooting movies.

As it is very interesting, the director made some movies that used CGI before "13 Assassins".
He is one of young generation in Japanese film directors.(In fact he is fourties.)
I was very surprised that he made a Samurai movie.
But I heard he was taught shooting films by an older director when he was younger.
I guess he also learnt both analogue and digital.
He could shoot both movies with CGI and without CGI.
I mean he can make new movies with a new technology and also make an orthodox movie by learning old movies.
I think it is a good example why students need to learn old things.
I mean people need old things for making new things.

I work with a 22 year old who is completely unburdened with the baggage of past.

He creates some of the most organic images ever completely digitally. He doesn't know a Polaroid from a gravure and he doesn't care.

I highly recommend finding a young person and listening to them. They are the best treatment for chronic anachronism. Which many (including myself) are suffering from.

Learning from the past is one thing, living in it is another.

Well Laurence,
your comment evokes some French movies that Gerard Philipe starred in.

In 19th century Wagner's revolutionary works surprised a lot of people.
Brahms disliked them, but Mahler admired him very much.
I guess our debate about two mediums is similar to that.
At the present days few people think Wagner's works are very new.
I like his music, but I guess most younger people don't know even his name.
He is just one of composers of classical music now.
Human brains get tired of something easily because they are not digital.

You wrote your co-worker created outstamding images by digital camera.
I think it is very good.
But can you talk with him about Alan Turing or Turing test?
Probably you know why he made a computer during WW2.
If he didn't make it, a lot of soldiers would be killed.

I think there is a difference between professionals and just amateurs.
Professionals always make their films for audience.
In both terms of digital and analogue professional film makers made movies for audience, but not for only making money.
So I want students to learn history of shooting and know minds of audience.
What do they want to watch?

I don't think it's a matter of living in the past, it's more understanding a matter where we came from. Many of these past processes were cutting edge, but the important part, which tend to last, is the idea behind the work a person is doing and how it communicates with the viewer/audience.

The person you're talking about mightn't care at the moment, but as he explores he may find the riches that exist in other media and how he make make use of those in his own work.

To develop you need to be open to the new. Although it can happen that the new just repeats the old with a different paint brush.

The biggest sadness I face today, is that most of the people coming into the workforce today simply don't care about ANY of this. Perhaps in school they wanted to communicate in new ways. Or express themselves via images. But what I see today is a generation of young people who just WANT A JOB. Period. They don't care if it's with an arts oriented business or with a corporation shilling feminine hygene products - if it's got a salary attached that keeps them alive, it's fine.

And I have sympathy with them. If starving artists actually STARVE, they stop producing art.

The saddest statistic I've seen lately is those charts that show that 80 to 90% of the wealth being generated in today's America flows to the top tier of our society leaving little for the middle class or the poor.

In history when that happened, (and it OFTEN has era after era across cultures) SOME small percentage of the wealthy with TASTE and a DESIRE to enhance society became PATRONS of the arts.

Isn't that GONE now? The patronage trends appear to be in TECH or Medicine, or ANYTHING but the arts ala Buffett and Gates. Who's commissioning art these days?

Who's encouraging artists without it being an INVESTMENT these days - as in a re-sellable commodity as in most of MUSIC, VIDEO, THEATRE, and the DECORATIVE arts today?

Maybe the stress of so many with so little with become an inspiration in the coming years. Hope so.

God knows we need some vigorous ART to counteract what passes for it in pop culture these days.

I can agree with opinions of Brian Drysdale and Bill Davis.

I guess people, especially young people need a symbol of a new term in every period.
Now they found digital medium as a symbol of their generations.
They are thinking people liking analogue medium are still living in ancien regime.
They also think we are rigid and boring.
But I don't care for what they think.

On this forum most people are talking about how they shoot videos or films.
But digital medium is also changing how audience watch movies, but not only how people shoot films.
Recently I heard some young people are thinking even films will be just one of DLC in the near future.
I guess it will be a serious issue for professional film makers.
If people will be able to watch films easier and cheaper by their computers, what kind of movies will they want?
Will they want more serious or artistic films?
Probably film makers will use more money and make blockbusters in order to letting audience go to movie theaters.

Some people believe digital medium will give opportuneties to nameless and poor cameramen, but I'm skeptical about it.
Of course I also believe possibility of digital medium.
But I am worried who will teach students about artistic spirits?
A lot of people will lose artistic works for making money.

A few comments on some recent thoughts in this thread:

The medium does affect what people do with it. I have no doubts about this at all - throughout history technology has helped and formed a functional part in everything including artistic practice. One example: the digital sampler created whole genres of music - hip-hop, techno, glitch etc etc. But the interesting thing is the idea of these musics and indeed proto forms of them already existed in the analogue (tape) age. Each era mourns the loss of good things from the previous which is why we think it is important to know about the past so those things are not lost - not preserved like in an anachronistic museum but modified and incorporated into contemporary practice alongside new things. The balance between the two is where the real interest is for me. Technically though it doesn't matter much how the old stuff works - I first worked with tape for audio recording but would never dream of teaching the practice now (even if I could remember!) but I would talk about how it worked and the way that affected the music making process and final sonic results.

The young person who knows nothing about the past but does things in a fresh, spontaneous way with no baggage is indeed worth knowing and is great to see - some of the best work is produced in this state of 'innocence'. My feeling though is that can only sustain you for so long as without deeper understanding you start to repeat yourself and stagnate. My argument to students who complain about historical / theoretical work v. practice is that it should inform and deepen their practice.

And though it will sound idealistic ivory tower talk, I still believe that the most important thing about any artform is its potential to change our lives for the better, changes our perceptions and perspective on life and those around us. If it can be entertaining and enjoyable at the same time so much the better. Much else is vapid to me and life is too short for that.

Definitely we didn't argue young people vs. elder people.
We didn't decide which medium was better analogue nor digital, either.
We just discussed about if young students should learn analogue medium.

Do you know how old James Cameron is?
In fact many people who learnt analogue medium still be connected with development of digital medium.

Well the short answer for me is teach them *about* analogue and its practitioners but not on a practical level (at least not in any depth - a brief exercises can be useful perhaps).

I cannot agree with whole Geoffrey's opinion.
I think instructors can choose what they teach their students, but I don't think they can decide what the students learn.
It depends on their personal levels or circumstances.

When I worked for a school as an instructor, I found some students having more talents than instructors.
Though I didn't teach them about shooting, I guess other schools are similar.

Actually I don't think all young people don't know analogue medium, nor they aren't interested in them at all.
Probably most parents of them still have plastic records or VHS.
And they cannot get rid of them easily because of their good memories.
I guess they want to tell their children about their old gadget.
Young people can watch very old movies on DVD including black and white movies.

If the students get interested in them, instructors should give them knowledge about analogue medium.
I think children's possibilities is more important than possibilities of digital medium.