Part 4 Chapter 19 Film 101 An Invariance Theory of FilmMaking

Film 101: An Invariance Theory of FilmMaking1

By Thomas McClure2

I. Introduction.3

This paper about Film 101 is an introduction to filmmaking for students.4

It attempts to describe an invariance theory beginning making films. The word film means cinema or projection theater story telling with movies.5

II. The Projection of Theater6

First of all, movies are the projection of film images lighted in a theater.7

The drama or the mystery or the inevitable unfolding story exists above.8

"This is like shining a lamp at [an object] and observing its shadow …."9

(p. 99) "A balloon, for example, throws a round shadow on a surface."10

"Creatures living in a two-dimensional world would have to surmise from the shadow on the floor what the two-dimensional object looks like in three-dimensional space above." [G. Szpiro. Poincare's Prize, c. 2007] (p. 99)11

Secondly, suppose there is a lamp above a floating tethered balloon. The shadow, for us creatures below, lets us surmise what the balloon looks like.12

Thirdly, by lengthening the rope or tether on the balloon, it rises higher. And the shadow gets bigger on the floor. That is, the circle gets larger. By watching the circle expand, we creatures surmise the balloon is rising.13

Fourthly, turning the circle as a disk on its side, casts a straight-line shadow.14

Fifthly, turning a straight-line on end to the lamp casts a pointlike shadow.15

Finally, there is a method to change from the disk to a line to a point shadow.16

The projection of theater is the unfolding of an inevitable story as drama.17

It is only in the shadows that we surmise what the final outcome will be.18

III. Watching a movie using forward and backward time.19

"… parabolic rescaling … resembles watching a movie of an [object's] development." " … entropy increases overtime as an [object] is deformed. It is a "useful quantity which would be invariant under parabolic rescaling." (p. 212) "backward in time" is an evolution purposefully, dictating the body's shape in changing in forward time. (p. 198) By running time backward, the spheres melt back together to form the original sphere. (p. 215)20

Filmmaking is a forward time process bending backward in time from an inevitable outcome. The hero meets the heroine. He is entrapped by fate.21

His end is foreseen; his demise is forthcoming. She is deceived by herself.22

He is deceived by himself. They cannot avoid the doom and the gloom. By backtracking each false step soon reveals what is a mystery by them both.23

Einstein called his theory of relativity, a theory of invariance, such as the speed of light remains invariant, or space-time is invariant. (p. 132)24

Space and time in one four-dimensional fabric were invariances. (p. 324)25

[W. Isaacson. Einstein: His Life and Universe, paper c. 2007]26

"In mathematics, by symmetry we mean that something looks the same after a particular action …" (p. 154) "local invariance or symmetry" (p. 155)27

[C. Sutton. "Hidden Symmetry", It must be beautiful: Great Equations, Pp. 149-170, G. Farmelo, ed., c. 2002] In Chinatown, everything stays the same.28

Filmmaking is a linear tethered balloon under a lamp overhead casting a shadow in a circle on the floor, which expands or contracts by raising or lowering the balloon. We surmise the inevitable outcome of the drama from the linear unfolding of the movie story. It is by the screenwriter's craft and the director's will that the shadows enlightened the viewer in the theater.29

IV. An example of a linear equation30

Take a number of pi = 3.1415926, and square it and divide by six, which =31

1.644934.32

This number is an infinite series for 1 + 2^-2 + 3^-2 + 4^-2 …. [1.4236]33

(p. 88) [L. Salem, F. Testard, C. Salem. The Most Beautiful Mathematical Formulas, c. 1992] Take the approximation: [2^2/3 * 3^2/8 * 5^2/24 …]34

[1 + .25 + .1111 + .0625 = 1.4236]; [1.5625]= [ 1/2 * 25/8] = (5/4)^235

.644934 = 2^-2 ….; 1/.644934 = 2^2 = 1.55; 2 = 1. This leads to:36

y = 2x, which is an example of a linear equation. As the length of the tether on the balloon gets longer, x, from your hand to the balloon (it is rising), the diameter of the shadow, y, gets larger (It is expanding). The radius (half diameter) is proportional to the tether length. The radius equals the length.37

V. Conclusion38

In some movies, the entrapment of fate is like an ever-growing circle casting a shadow on all of the players. None escape the evil consequences of sin. Yet other movies, like the Noir variety, redeem the hero, and doom the feminine.39

Suppose a blimp tether to the camera relieves its weight but casts shadows.40

The cameraman/director are still left with exposing good and punishing evil.41