Making Space

Sean CubittCinema in the Digital Age Symposium, Victoria

University Wellington 11th February 2010

1. bitmaps, colour management and codecs

Scan line - left to right, top to bottom, 525 lines per screen (NTSC) or 625 lines (PAL), two interlaced scans (odd and even lines) per image, 25 frames per second

Horizontal retrace: after each scan line the electron gun is switched off and returned to the beginning of the next line

Vertical retrace: after each field has been scanned, the electron gun returns to the top left of the screen to begin the next

Cathode Ray Tube

Trinitron Mask

CIE LAB Chromaticity diagram CIE LAB diagram showing gamuts for various devices

YouTube H,261

DVD MPEG 4

2. layers, Grading and Sprites

Behold! human beings living in a under-ground den, which has a mouth open to-wards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

I see.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners(Plato 1994: Book VII).

2. perspective, projection and vectors

'Perspectiva Corporum Regularium' [1568] Wenzel Jamnitzer

Gourraud Shadibng

Phong Shadibng

The Tale of How, The Blackheart Gang, South Africa, 4 mins 29 sec, 2006, http://theblackheartgang.com/the-household/the-tale-of-how/