TITLE: Footnotes
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: January 17, 2018  3:51 PM
DESC: 
-----
BODY:
 While discussing the effective use of discontinuities in film,
 both motion within a context versus change of context, Walter
 Murch tells a story about...  bees:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 A beehive can apparently be moved two inches each night without
 disorienting the bees the next morning.  Surprisingly, if it is
 moved two <B>miles</B>, the bees also have no problem:  They are
 forced by the total displacement of their environment to re-orient
 their sense of direction, which they can do easily enough.  But
 if the hive is moved two <B>yards</B>, the bees become fatally
 confused.  The environment does not seem different to them, so
 they do not re-orient themselves, and as a result, they will not
 recognize their own hive when they return from foraging, hovering
 instead in the empty space where the hive used to be, while the
 hive itself sits just two yards away.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 This is fascinating, as well being a really cool analogy for the
 choices movies editors face when telling a story on film.  Either
 change so little that viewers recognize the motion as natural, or
 change enough that they re-orient their perspective.  Don't stop
 in the middle.

 What is even cooler to me is that this story appears in a footnote.

 One of the things I've been loving about <EM>In the Blink of an
 Eye</EM> is how Murch uses footnotes to teach.  In many books,
 footnotes contain minutia or references to literature I'll never
 read, so I skip them.  But Murch uses them to tell stories that
 elaborate on or deepen his main point but which would, if
 included in the text, interrupt the flow of the story he has
 constructed.  They add to the narrative without being essential.

 I've already learned a couple of cool things from his footnotes,
 and I'm not even a quarter of the way into the book.  (I've been
 taking time to mull over what I read...)  Another example: while
 discussing the value of discontinuity as a story-telling device,
 Murch adds a footnote that connects this practice to the visual
 discontinuity found ancient Egyptian painting.  I never knew
 before why the perspective in those drawings was so unusual.
 Now I do!

 My fondness for Murch's footnotes may stem from something more
 than their informative nature.  When writing up lecture notes
 for my students, I like to include asides, digressions, and links
 to optional readings that expand on the main arc of the story.
 I'd like for them to realize that what they are learning is part
 of a world bigger than our course, that the ideas are often
 deeper and have wider implications than they might realize.  And
 sometimes I just like to entertain with a connection.  Not all
 students care about this material, but for the ones who do, I
 hope they get something out of them.  Students who don't care
 can do what I do in other books: skip 'em.

 This book gives me a higher goal to shoot for when including
 such asides in my notes: elaborate without being essential;
 entice without disrupting.
-----