CINEMA REDUX -- A Film's DNA

Created in January 2004, CINEMA REDUX explores the idea of distilling a whole film down to one single image.

Using eight films from eight of the most admired directors including SIDNEY LUMET, FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA and JOHN BOORMAN, each film is processed through a JAVA program written with the processing environment.

This small piece of software samples a movie every second and generates an 8 x 6 pixel image of the frame at that moment in time.

It does this for the entire film, with each row representing one minute of film time.

The end result is a kind of unique fingerprint for that film.

A sort of movie DNA showing the colour hues as well as the rhythm of the editing process.

Compare SERPICO to THE CONVERSATION.

You can see there's far more edits in Lumet’s classic compared to the more gentle slower pace of Coppola’s Conversation.

This is also down to the editing style of WALTER MURCH who prefers to only make cuts when absolutely necessary.

In 2008 Cinema Redux was featured in the ground breaking exhibition DESIGN AND THE ELASTIC MIND at MoMA.

Two Cinema Redux pieces have since been acquired for the MoMA collection.

Have a look through the eight movies and make your own mind up.

CINEMA REDUX -- A Film's DNA

[For film buffs who are in a hurry.]