Digital Cinematography: The Medium is the Message?

Abstract

In 2011 journalist Jaime Weinman wrote that ‘as digital becomes the default choice, one thing is clear: It’s time to go back to calling the movies “pictures” instead of “films” . This paper is a response to the rapid and substantial global changes occurring in moving image technologies, practices and discourses. Here I focus on the importance of choice of categorisation terms such as ‘film’, ‘movie’ and ‘digital’ in shaping not only how we understand what is being categorised, but also how we value it and understand its potential. Building on the Bourdeusian concept of cultural capital in which categorisation - and interpretations of categorisation - of objects/ artefacts and associated behaviours has social sources and uses, I concentrate on the realm of the moving image, and within this, on digital cinema.