On the subject of Energy
I’ve been thinking a lot about “energy” lately especially after AFA 2019. Our mentor Karina Kle reminds us about being open and aware during the filmmaking process. She also introduced the abstract idea of energy in cinematography, as we are all being of light according to quantum physics (and light is a form of energy). Before this, I have read from Vittario Storaro (one of the legendary cinematographer who shot Apocalypse Now, The Last Emperor and etc) that cinematographers are simply conveying emotions to the audience through energy by simply projecting moving lights in the cinema (look up the allegory of the cave).
Since I got back from AFA, I’ve been inspired to keep on making movie (I’m not sure whether I have the luxury to do this) and wanted to look for more collaborators. This leads me to reflect on myself and how should I interact with people. The idea of energy is also applicable to just pure human relationship. Our mindset/goal changes our energy, the energy that you emit to the people around you. It’s like an invisible wave, beyond the range of visible light. And this wave is unconstrained, beyond time and space I would say. These waves (our energy) interact with others and when they are in sync, it will constructively interfere and form a greater wave. Otherwise, it will be destructive interference. Or just like Gravity (another form of energy), when its so strong and positive, it will attract good people, good stories towards it. It’s something to think about when meeting people in life.
It’s also important to be conscious about energy because it will be unknowingly captured into the camera and audience can subconsciously experience it (remember that energy is beyond space!). Just like what director Hou said, how you run your set will be reflected through your film. So be very aware of the vibe during shoot.
I used to think that what I studied (NUS BA in Material Science and Engineering) is very different from what I’m doing now. Science is all about finding out the relationship between one parameter and another. For example the relationship between the energy and the mass of the particle in the famous Einstein’s equation, E ∝ m. And the equation is E=mc². Similarly in cinematography, we are basically showing the relationship between characters and their mental state, which involves emotion. So the equation can be something like A=kB (A = Character A, B = Character B, k = emotion). Cinematographers are simply telling stories through emotion with the use of visual vocabularies (with lights and shadow, colors, composition and movement). And you know what, I found out that the Latin word for emotion is “emotere”, which literally means energy in motion. Only if you are sensitive to energy, you won’t be able to grasp the emotion and show it to your audience.
Well, these are just some thoughts that I had recently and I want to pen it down somewhere. It might be just gibberish but hopefully 1 year or 20 years later when I look back, it makes a bit of sense.