[Frameworks] 16mm/Super8 Screening & Panel Discussion @ NYPL Jefferson Market Library

[Pip Chodorov]

Yes, most people who use the term have adopted it in exactly this way.
And this view of language is widely accepted as well, as never fixed in time.
However there is also the traditionalist view of 
language and respecting etymology, and it can be 
instructive to educate the critical mass, 
particular at a time when the film medium needs 
awareness and sustainability.
Using the term analog reduces film to a signal.
If film is only a signal then there is no reason 
to resuscitate acetate or polyester film material.
A signal can be received in many ways including 
analog and digital reproductions, as long as the 
resoution and the bit depth of such reproductions 
surpass the visual acuity of the human retina.
Since film is not only about what it looks like, 
but also about what it is, and in light of the 
fact that you are hosting an event about film as 
a material and as a practice and to promote the 
film advocacy task force, I think it worthwhile 
to avoid the analog/digital debate by referring 
to film simply as its own material.
This also evades a stickier neologism as "film" 
as come to mean any moving picture production on 
any medium. Any "film" student working digitally 
claims to make "film." I believe they are making 
"digital" but I am very alone in that strict use 
of the term to mean only film based production.
At least the term analog is still precise enough 
that we can use it to raise awareness that film 
is different.


To Sherman George:
No, "analog" used as an adjective relates only to signals
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=define:+analog



At 19:27 -0500 11/11/14, Matt Whitman wrote:
>Right. But couldn't this be a very specific 
>reading of the term 'analog'? In reference only 
>to signal? I think our language around media has 
>evolved enough at this point where we don't have 
>to necessarily exclude other forms from this 
>analog vs. digital binary which has been set up.
>
>Looking at it somewhat algebraically, if we use 
>the term analog to merely describe "signal" and 
>digital signal is the opposite of analog signal 
>- we then simplify by eliminating signal from 
>the equation, leaving us with analog ‚ digital. 
>It is a simplification - in every sense of the 
>word - and this is for better or worse.
>
>The word 'analog', with its contemporary 
>application to (sometimes to the point of 
>absurdity) a variety of phenomena and 
>situations, has gone past the point of critical 
>mass (another analogy, this time to a process 
>associated with nuclear fission) where it seems 
>it can now be applied simply to that which is 
>not digital. And this is at a moment in time 
>when so many aspects of human life are now 
>influenced to some extent by various digital 
>processes and systems.
>
>I think it is a matter of language, which is 
>never fixed at specific point in its own 
>history, but is provisional. It adapts to the 
>current moment - much like a city or a body or 
>any organism for that matter.
>
>
>>On Nov 11, 2014, at 6:42 PM, Pip Chodorov 
>><<mailto:frameworks at re-voir.com>frameworks at re-voir.com> 
>>wrote:
>>
>>The term was used widely throughout the 20th 
>>century to describe continuous recording 
>>processes on physical or magnetic medium (audio 
>>tape, video tape, vinyl disk) and especially in 
>>relation to digital processes when they became 
>>popular (remastered recordings, CDs, laserdiscs 
>>and DVDs) when the debate between analog and 
>>digital became fervent.
>>But not until the past ten years was the term 
>>ever applied to motion picture film.
>>I think film should not be confused with signal media.
>>The term "digital film" has been applied 
>>wrongly to using digital intermediates to 
>>finish on film print stock.
>>This wikipedia article described analog processes best:
>><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal
>>Pip
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