----- Original Message -----
From: "Aris Mousoutzanis" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2000 7:55 AM
Subject: Re: Blair Witch
So I think the
> black-and-white (low-tech)/colour (high-tech) conflict parallels the
arousal
> of tension and horror.
>
I disagree with your tech assignments of B+W and colour. The B+W is shot on
16mm film, which has a better image resolution, and (from an economic level)
is more costly, and therefore qualifies as high-tech over the consumer level
digital video camera, which, although in colour, produces an inferior image.
As indicated by the text, they would record their first contact with people
in colour video, almost like a diary, and then proceed with a more formal
interview in B+W while recording double-system sound on the Nagra. The
assumption drawn from the text is that their final product was intended as a
B+W documentary film.
> >Aris, have you noticed in your formulation how low-tech passes as
authentic
> >(does it have a greater appeal because of its amateur status?) whereas
> >high-tech, the seemingly more productive-of-the-real of the two media
> >described, fails to pass? Is this positioning of tech-nique the
> >supra-narrative conflict of _Blair Witch_?
> >
The low-tech home video seems more objective and therefore authentic than
the B+W, which is self-conscious and agressive in its formality. Of course,
all this falls apart after they are lost, at which time both cameras become
equally objective (and authentic) in their real-time observations of the
trio, esp. during the final minutes of the film when they explore the house.
The real conflict may be when they stop pointing their cameras at the
outside world and start to point them at themselves.
Jim Wallace
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