Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
A Biography of the Pixel
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel--a particular packaging of bits--conquered the world. Henceforward, nearly every picture in the world would be composed of pixels--cell phone pictures, app interfaces, Mars Rover transmissions, book illustrations, videogames. In A Biography of the Pixel, Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray Smith argues that the pixel is the organizing principle of most modern media, and he presents a few simple but profound ideas that unify the dazzling varieties of digital image making.
Smith's story of the pixel's development begins with Fourier waves, proceeds through Turing machines, and ends with the first digital movies from Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky. Today, almost all the pictures we encounter are digital--mediated by the pixel and irretrievably separated from their media; museums and kindergartens are two of the last outposts of the analog. Smith explains, engagingly and accessibly, how pictures composed of invisible stuff become visible--that is, how digital pixels convert to analog display elements. Taking the special case of digital movies to represent all of Digital Light (his term for pictures constructed of pixels), and drawing on his decades of work in the field, Smith approaches his subject from multiple angles--art, technology, entertainment, business, and history. A Biography of the Pixel is essential reading for anyone who has watched a video on a cell phone, played a videogame, or seen a movie.
See the publisher website: The MIT Press
> On a related topic:
Digital Compositing for Film and Video (2024)
Production Workflows and Techniques
by Steve Wright
Subject: Technique > Special effects
Moving Pictures, Living Machines (2020)
Automation, Animation and the Imitation of Life in Cinema and Media
Collective
Subject: Theory
The Computer-Animated Film (2018)
Industry, Style and Genre
New Media Technology and Motion Pictures (2024)
Dir. Daniel S. Hunt
Subject: Technique > All techniques
The Webcam as an Emerging Cinematic Medium (2018)
Subject: Technique > All techniques
Distribution Revolution (2014)
Conversations about the Digital Future of Film and Television
by Michael Curtin, Jennifer Holt and Kevin Sanson
Subject: Technique > All techniques
New Digital Cinema (2005)
Reinventing the Moving Image
by Holly Willis
Subject: Technique > All techniques
The Aesthetics of Digital Montage (2024)
Film Editing and Technological Change
Back
