INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
« FREEZE FRAMES FOR A COMBINATION OF CINEMA AND PHOTOGRAPHY »

2010, APRIL 9TH AND 10TH
MUSÉE DU QUAI BRANLY
37, quai Branly, 75007 Paris, France

Following the « Festival International Jean Rouch – 29ème Bilan du film Ethnographique »

2010, March 27 until April 5th
Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle,
cfe@mnhn.fr - http://www.comite-film-ethno.net
Société d’Ethnologie Française

PARTNERS
Le Comité du film ethnographique, http://www.comite-filmethno.net
Le Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Urbaine, CNRS, Ivry,http://www.lau.cnrs.fr
Le musée du quai Branly, http://www.quaibranly.fr
L’université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, http://www.u-paris10.fr
La Société d’ethnologie française, http://www.culture.gouv.fr/sef
Le Centre de l’ethnologie et de l’image, Phanie, http://phanie.ethno.image.free.fr

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Jean Arlaud (Professeur en anthropologie et cinéma, Phanie, centre de l’ethnologie et de l’image) jean.arlaud@free.fr
Baptiste Buob (Docteur en anthropologie filmique), babuob@freesurf.fr
Sylvaine Conord (Maître de conférences en sociologie, université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, membre du
LAU-CNRS), s.conord@ivry.cnrs.fr
Fabienne Duteil-Ogata (Docteur en anthropologie, LAU-CNRS), duteilogata@yahoo.fr
Emmanuel Grimaud, (Chargé de recherche en ethnologie, CNRS), e2mgrim@yahoo.fr
Christine Louveau de la Guigneraye, (Docteur en ethnologie, Phanie, centre de l’ethnologie et de l’image) christinelouveau@free.fr

ACADEMIC RESEARCH COMMITTEE
Howard S. Becker, Sociologue, Photographe, San Francisco, USA
Philippe Bonnin, Directeur de recherche, CNRS, France
Ana Luiza Carvalho da Rocha, Professeur, université de l’université fédérale du Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS Brésil
Annie Comolli, Directrice de recherche, EPHE, France
Cornelia Eckert, Professeur de l’université fédérale du Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS Brésil
Claudine de France, Directrice de recherche, CNRS, France
Maki Fukuoka, Maître de conférences, université du Michigan, USA
Dianne Hagaman, Photographe, San Francisco, USA
François Laplantine, Professeur, université de Lyon II, France
Sylvain Maresca, Professeur, université de Nantes, France
Miura Atsushi, Professeur, université Saitama, Japon
Omori Yasuhiro, Directeur du département des études audiovisuelles, Université Ritsumei, Kyôto, Japon
Albert Piette, Professeur, université d’Amiens, France
Michèle Vignes, Photographe, San Francisco, USA

FREEZE FRAMES
FOR A COMBINATION OF CINEMA AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Ethnologists, sociologists, artists and historians of image making are invited to share their views and experiences about :
- the way to create and produce fixed frames and animated images
- the respective qualities of such images and their possible combination

In the early beginnings of scientists’ expeditions, explorers used visual tools in the course of their investigations and their restitution process. Naturalistic travellers drew sketches and made drawings representing the environment in which the people they had observed used to live. With the invention of photography, XIXth century explorers discovered a new tool which they enthusiastically used to save their observations. At the end of the XIXth century, Étienne-Jules Marey invented a complex recording device which allowed for the connection of a series of prints : the chronophotography. This invention rapidly paved the way for the invention of cinema. In the XXth century, a great number of photographers relied on these new tools to approach reality in the course of their investigations and some of them would even use photography or cinema alternatively. As a follow up to the publication of Ethnologie Française « Photographie et Anthropologie - Arrêt sur images » 2007/1 supervised by Sylvaine Conord, this international symposium intends to be a forum where original thoughts about the ways to associate photography and cinema can be evoked with respect to scientific research, committing human sciences and also including the artistic creation processes or documentary surveys and reports.
Convinced of the heuristic approach which consists in crossing points of views, we wish to open this symposium to specialists representing different fields so that they might share their experiences and practices showing a common interest in the techniques of combining both fixed frames and animated pictures. In this way, practitioners and theorists will meet to exchange ideas on a transverse theme associating animated frames and photographies : why and how can images be combined, crossed and mixed ? In an interdisciplinary surrounding, we can find various ways of producing, associating and dealing with images thanks to multiple tools (camera, video, camcorder, computer, etc.) from the steps of production, collection and analysis until their restitution in an end product.
From the point of view of the history of technique, photography and cinema are quite close : at its origin, cinema is a simple succession of frames. The adjusting of image common to these two descriptive tools, generate a technical process of the approach of reality for the image maker and projects this adjusted image in a special restitution of the world in a way quite differing from the current and direct observation. Whether images are fixed or animated, they unveil hidden dimensions of a reality always obstructed. Scientific shootings are based on a strict methodology, but they also prove the singular freedom of their creator, from the junction of aesthetic choices and technical constraints.
Images are not a reproduction of reality. The expressiveness of movements, the restitution of an atmosphere, the transmission of emotions, etc. are the products of choices made during the shooting (focus, distance, viewing angle, size, duration) and during the subsequent editing (composition, order, junction, visual aids). Nevertheless, photography and film are provided with specific literacy qualities which produce singular relationships with space and time. Despite their close technical relationship, photography and cinema infer the use of varied technical skills which give life, contrast and texture to captured objects of different kinds.
***

SESSION 1 – PHOTOGRAPHY OR FILM ?
Whatever the field may be and depending on his scientific goals, an image maker will select singular tools. The selection is linked to the aim to be reached and shows that fixed frames or animated pictures, far from being permutable allow to capture different aspects of reality. Is there a special reason for a camera, a movie camera or
both to be chosen ? Is there a case to use fixed frames rather than animated pictures and reciprocally ?

SESSION 2 – SHOOTING
The difference between photography and film lies in the very nature of their technique. The choice of a specific tool means to rely on special body techniques (?) On the field, photography and film techniques create singular relationships with the people involved. What are the temporalities and spatialities basic to each technique and their possible combination ? What is their impact on the way the observed group perceives the image maker ?

SESSION 3 – FIXING THE ANIMATED FRAME AND ANIMATING THE FIXED FRAME
Back from the field, the image maker is confronted to a great quantity of pictures which will have to be selected. What selection criteria will prevail in the choice of pictures? How will he analyze the pictures ? The picture itself does not always make sense and sometimes requires refocusing, slow motion, animation. What will be the construction devices used afterwards ? In respect with fixed and animated frames, what is their respective advantage ?

SESSION 4 – COMBINING IMAGES
At the end of the investigation process, the image maker sets up his pictures. A number of devices allow to combine fixed and animated frames. The restitution support of pictures becomes a hybrid object, a polytechnical object so as to speak. What are the various combination devices and what are their purposes ? What is the added value of such combination compared to purely photographic or film objects ? The minutes of the symposium will be on line or edited in a collective work  – In addition, this international meeting aims to constitute an associative project where scientists and image makers concerned with a reflexion upon the place and qualities of image in human sciences can meet together.
While creating partnerships with a number of international institutions, this collective union will allow to promote and broaden research mainly dedicated to the theme of fixed and animated frames but will also aim at connecting specialists of various fields of investigation.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
The communication only based on the projection of visual aids, should preferably be made in French language (or in English) and will last 45 minutes.
The proposal must mention, name, surname, position, organism and an e-mail address. The abstract, including 2500 signs, must be sent until 2009, October 31st to the following three addresses (see the registration Form) :
babuob@freesurf.fr
s.conord@ivry.cnrs.fr
duteilogata@yahoo.fr