are Changing Aesthetics and Style

This article delves intrinsically into how the characteristics of digital cinema, its equipment, software and processes, differ from film and therefore afford new aesthetic and stylistic modes, changing the nature of mise-en-scène and the language of cinema as it has been defined in the past. Innovative filmmakers are exploring new aesthetic and stylistic possibilities as the encumbrances of film, which delimited a certain mode of cinema, are released. The article makes the case that the camera as part of a computer system has enabled a more cooperative relationship with the filmmaker going beyond Alexandre Astruc’s prediction of the camera-pen (camére-stylo) to become a camera-computer. The technology of digital cinema makes the natural indexicality of film and the cut simply options amongst others and permits new forms of visual aesthetics not premised on filmic norms, but based on other familiar audiovisual forms like video games and computer interface. Voir le résumé français à la fin de l’article “We see in them, if you like, something of the prophetic. That’s why I am talking about avant-garde. There is always an avant-garde when something new takes place... ” (Astruc, 1948, 17) In this article, I will examine some of the material qualities and characteristics of the equipment, software and processes of digital cinema production and propose how these afford a new aesthetics and style for cinema. Of course, many styles are available, including the status quo. Which styles ar