Can art be judged from a technical viewpoint?

[Dr Jones]

Well that is the technical skill of the artist you're talking aboot there, the artwork itself is a different thing.

Not really, the artist and the work they produce are inextricably linked.

Technical theory applies to any piece of work however simple it is.
Composition, colour theory, depth, technique, use of reference (or avoidance there of) can all still be applied objectively to any piece of art. One line drawn across a sheet of blank paper still adheres to all of those criteria even if only on a very simple level. It can still be evaluated on a technical level.

Evlaluating art purely on technique is just that, judging the quality of the techniques applied. It's a very dry way of judging art but you absolutely can do it. The more advanced the application of technique, the better it is. Picasso and DaVinci are very good, a five year old is not.

In the film examples you give technical skill would have to be applied and applied well for either scene to work. Whether you like it or not is subjective but any scene that is badly filmed will still be badly filmed and opinions be damned.

But.. Isn't a badly filmed just an opinion of a scene? You should give examples of a badly filmed scene, but the thing with movies is that there are so many factors that it's unbelievable.

 

[Hitman Dread]

Sure they can, but they can not be judged subjectively at the same time.

 

[Dags90]

But does that make a movie better than another movie? Purely factual, no opinions here?

No, because giving more importance to technical skill (or different aspects of it) over subjective meaning is itself a subjective value judgment. It's as arbitrary as saying characters are more important than story.

 

[Dr Jones]

But does that make a movie better than another movie? Purely factual, no opinions here?

No, because giving more importance to technical skill over subjective meaning is itself a subjective value judgment. It's as arbitrary as saying characters are more important than story.

Characters are story

well.. No, not necessarily..

 

[lord.jeff]

I think you can judge them separately, technical and artistic.

But does technical tell which movies are factually better?

No, not completely, it could be argued that one is more important, and I myself will say technical is, but both are needed.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

Now please, tell me, what exactly defines the rules for the technicalities? In a movie for instance, is a 5 min. scene technically better with 4 cuts showing more of the enviroment, or 1 long scene where the actors all have to remember their dialogue?

The style that something is made under defines the technicalities. A cubist piece has a different set of rules than an abstract expressionist piece, for instance.

And my artistic training isn't in film. Go ask someone else.

 

[Dr Jones]

I think you can judge them separately, technical and artistic.

But does technical tell which movies are factually better?

No, not completely, it could be argued that one is more important, and I myself will say technical is, but both are needed.

Really? Technical? Well for me it's Edward Scissorhands over Avatar any day.

 

[Dr Jones]

Now please, tell me, what exactly defines the rules for the technicalities? In a movie for instance, is a 5 min. scene technically better with 4 cuts showing more of the enviroment, or 1 long scene where the actors all have to remember their dialogue?

The style that something is made under defines the technicalities. A cubist piece has a different set of rules than an abstract expressionist piece, for instance.

And my artistic training isn't in film. Go ask someone else.

Oh, ok

 

[Dexiro]

Well, at present art is judged from an emotional viewpoint right?

But we only distinguish emotion from technicality because we don't fully understand emotion yet. Maybe in the future we'll be able to accurately calculate the emotional response given by a particular piece of art.

This calculation would also be unique to an individual. No 2 people have the exact same emotional response from a piece of art as we relate art to our life experiences.

So from a technical standpoint you could attempt to calculate the dominant emotional response, the average response, and compare that against the response of a different piece to judge which is greater.

Alternatively you could grab a large selection of people and survey them ;D

 

[iLikeHippos]

Technical viewpoint? You mean comparing details?

It's fair to argue, but there is no objective standpoint when it comes to art.
And that's one of the beauties of it.

 

[zehydra]

yes. you can judge art on a technical standpoint (the skill required to produce such art, e.t.c.)

However, that doesn't mean one should.

People produce art as an emotional outlet, and so others can experience those emotions. If you completely separate the emotion from the art (judge objectively), then you have eliminated the point of art.

Instead, people ought to judge art by how it makes them feel, which is completely subjective.

No American Idol judge can tell you that a piece of art is objectively beautiful; such a thing (objective beauty) does not exist.

 

[Dr Jones]

No American Idol judge can tell you that a piece of art is objectively beautiful; such a thing (objective beauty) does not exist.

American idol judge? Why them exactly?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Everything can be judged from a technical viewpoint, but the data you collect might just be useless garbage.
So the real question is, be there any point to such an undertaking? With art I can't see it

 

[Dr Jones]

Everything can be judged from a technical viewpoint, but the data you collect might just be useless garbage.
So the real question is, be there any point to such an undertaking? With art I can't see it

What do you mean by useless garbage?

 

[Mastercylinder]

Yes.

Especially when the art is serving a purpose or being translated into another format or medium

I.E. It's fun to be technical with concept art.

 

[lord.jeff]

I think you can judge them separately, technical and artistic.

But does technical tell which movies are factually better?

No, not completely, it could be argued that one is more important, and I myself will say technical is, but both are needed.

Really? Technical? Well for me it's Edward Scissorhands over Avatar any day.

First note I'm a movie major, with focus on lighting and effects, technical issues really stick out for me.
Edward Scissorhands was technically well done and Avatar was well done in the effects department but it's writing had little technical skill to it, I consider art to be the idea and anything used to present that idea would be skill.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

Now please, tell me, what exactly defines the rules for the technicalities? In a movie for instance, is a 5 min. scene technically better with 4 cuts showing more of the enviroment, or 1 long scene where the actors all have to remember their dialogue?

The style that something is made under defines the technicalities. A cubist piece has a different set of rules than an abstract expressionist piece, for instance.

And my artistic training isn't in film. Go ask someone else.

Oh, ok

Okay, fine, I'll bite, despite this being out of my comfort zone. It'd also help if you had examples, but whatever.

Technically, it really depends how both are used. One long scene where the actors need to know all of their dialogue (in what I presume is a single take) sounds like bad film technique to me, since it sounds more like theater than film. Before people got the idea to edit films, this is essentially what most early films were like: one long scene where the actors had to remember all of their lines, or essentially a recorded stage production. Doing that now sounds like bad technique to me.

As far as the cut scene goes, I have no idea. The purpose of showing off the environment is to establish the area in which the scene is supposed to take place. Barring a title sequence, taking five minutes to look at the landscape seems like it'd kill the pacing of the film, which I would chalk up to bad technique. The cuts would also need to be relevant not only to each other, but to the action surrounding the sequence (either before or after, but I'm going to assume the intended purpose of this sequence is to be used to set up the location of the next scene). If this cut sequence shows five clips of a city and then suddenly jumps to a jungle, then yeah, I'd call it bad technique.

I also feel like I have to mention that the two scenes you selected aren't exactly comparable, as they both need different techniques to actually work.

 

[Dr Jones]

I think you can judge them separately, technical and artistic.

But does technical tell which movies are factually better?

No, not completely, it could be argued that one is more important, and I myself will say technical is, but both are needed.

Really? Technical? Well for me it's Edward Scissorhands over Avatar any day.

First note I'm a movie major, with focus on lighting and effects, technical issues really stick out for me.
Edward Scissorhands was technically well done and Avatar was well done in the effects department but it's writing had little technical skill to it, I consider art to be the idea and anything used to present that idea would be skill.

Touche about that. But i'll take it further. I'd take Eraserhead over Avatar any day. (and Eraserhead is not a very technically good film).

 

[zehydra]

No American Idol judge can tell you that a piece of art is objectively beautiful; such a thing (objective beauty) does not exist.

American idol judge? Why them exactly?

Well it doesn't have to be them. My point is, they're supposed to command some kind of "artistic authority" which somehow the average person doesn't have.

Now, they can be experts on technical performance, but they cannot be experts on what is "objectively beautiful". No one can. Objective beauty doesn't exist.

 

[Dr Jones]

Now please, tell me, what exactly defines the rules for the technicalities? In a movie for instance, is a 5 min. scene technically better with 4 cuts showing more of the enviroment, or 1 long scene where the actors all have to remember their dialogue?

The style that something is made under defines the technicalities. A cubist piece has a different set of rules than an abstract expressionist piece, for instance.

And my artistic training isn't in film. Go ask someone else.

Oh, ok

Okay, fine, I'll bite, despite this being out of my comfort zone. It'd also help if you had examples, but whatever.

Technically, it really depends how both are used. One long scene where the actors need to know all of their dialogue (in what I presume is a single take) sounds like bad film technique to me, since it sounds more like theater than film. Before people got the idea to edit films, this is essentially what most early films were like: one long scene where the actors had to remember all of their lines, or essentially a recorded stage production. Doing that now sounds like bad technique to me.

As far as the cut scene goes, I have no idea. The purpose of showing off the environment is to establish the area in which the scene is supposed to take place. Barring a title sequence, taking five minutes to look at the landscape seems like it'd kill the pacing of the film, which I would chalk up to bad technique. The cuts would also need to be relevant not only to each other, but to the action surrounding the sequence (either before or after, but I'm going to assume the intended purpose of this sequence is to be used to set up the location of the next scene). If this cut sequence shows five clips of a city and then suddenly jumps to a jungle, then yeah, I'd call it bad technique.

I also feel like I have to mention that the two scenes you selected aren't exactly comparable, as they both need different techniques to actually work.

You misunderstood my examples. The two scenes are the same. But would you prefer one long shot or several cuts from different angles? The angles show more enviroment, but the long shot may make you appreciate the actors more.