| Louis and Auguste Lumière hustled you off to the Nile with a cinématographe in 1897 to capture street scenes, pyramids, and railroad trains. You already have filmed one train arriving (in Ramla) and three departing (from Cairo, Benha, and Toukh), and now you are making your way south, past the falls of the White Nile into Mahdist Sudan. You are Alexandre Promio, luxury-loving Lumière opérateur. Crank your cinématographe. Pans, tilts, and dollies are forbidden. |
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You Did It Then: Evolve the realist film of the Lumière era into something approaching contemporary realism. Use one shot to depict a train approaching a station. Overlaying sound, adjusting lighting, and reversing action (tools unavailable to the Lumières), build your shot into a movie suggesting the passage of time. Using no more footage than the single shot, evoke a mood.
Click the button on the left to download files and instructions. Your one shot could resemble the Paris-Xanadu Express passing through this "19th century photo album"when you're through. It depends on you. Find the Lumières inside you.
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| Auguste or Louis Lumière, film frame c. 1895 |
The word “fact” derives from the Latin word for action, “factum.” Facts, the language tells us, are not what we find in the world. They are what we do. |
You Do it Now: To the "movie" you created using the burst mode shots of your digital camera, now add sound, modify exposure, contrast, and other effects of your choosing. Suggest with these new elements the passing of time.
