Write the failure condition before picking up the camera
Six exercises compress concepts into concrete constraints and state which records must be preserved. All remain planned tests. They do not mean a course has opened, a work has been completed, or a hypothesis has gained support.
What a reviewable exercise must retain
At minimum, preserve the shooting constraint, rushes version, first edit, viewing observations, point of failure, and second edit. Work involving participants, testimony, music, or archives also records consent scope, rights source, withdrawal procedure, and publication boundary. Without these materials, an exercise remains a making prompt and cannot enter proposition evidence.
Suspend action, intensify the shot
Film a character whose perception fails to become action. Keep psychology implicit; let space and sound bear the pressure.
When a character sees but cannot prolong perception into effective action, space and sound may acquire the organising force previously held by action.
Preserve two versions: one lets the character resolve the situation; one removes the resolving action. Log gaze, sound source, attempted action, and whether the situation changes shot by shot.
The character merely remains still while explanatory sound or causal cues continue to prescribe the next step. Action is delayed, but the schema has not entered crisis.
≤6 shots · 2 min · sync sound
Build an actual–virtual circuit
Use performance, reflection, recording, or repetition so a second image copies and transforms the first in return. Criterion: reciprocal exchange.
A second image forms an actual-virtual circuit only when it changes the first image's identity, time, or credibility in return.
Export the first side, the second side, and a third version after exchange. Mark the frame at which one side can no longer be reduced to a copy of the other.
A mirror, replay, or repetition copies an appearance without changing the previous image's relation. Visual similarity alone does not establish a crystal.
Actual version + virtual version + exchange point
Compose the past in sheets
Let three sheets of the past emerge in one space through sound, objects, and bodily attitudes. Keep eras and recollection cues unmarked.
Three sheets of the past can coexist in one present without flashback markers arranging them chronologically.
Build separate timelines for sound, object, and posture. Record which sheet each recalls and whether the edit compresses them back into a single date.
Three past moments appear successively as plot information and can be fully ordered by date captions. They are three flashbacks, not coexisting sheets.
3–5 min scene + sheet-of-time map
Design an irrational cut
Film two series beyond spatial continuity and psychological causality. Use one cut to make them act upon each other while keeping the relation irreducible.
Two series can exert pressure on each other through a cut without being resewn into a whole by shared space, continuous action, or character psychology.
Preserve independent A and B series plus three connection edits. In each group review, record only which audio-visual cues viewers used to reconstruct causality.
The cut appears discontinuous but is quickly completed by spatial reverse shot, explanatory dialogue, or goal-directed action. It is ellipsis, not a cut that keeps the relation incommensurable.
A/B series · one decisive cut
Generate thought from bodily attitude
Choose fatigue, waiting, awkwardness, or ritual and let social relations and theme emerge among attitudes.
Fatigue, waiting, awkwardness, or ritual posture can make a social relation borne by the body visible before dialogue explains it.
Film three changes of posture in one scene while keeping dialogue and camera position fixed. Log breath, weight, speed, pause, and the responses of other bodies.
Posture functions only as an acting expression or emotional sign; replacing it leaves relations of capacity unchanged. The body explains psychology rather than generating thought.
Implicit theme · three attitude shifts
Give sound its own past
Give sound and image distinct temporal series, then let their autonomous structures meet at a boundary.
Sound can form a temporal series distinct from the image and change what the image can become at their boundary.
Export silent image, sound-only, and combined versions. Mark whether the source is visible, when location occurs, and how sound crosses an edit.
Sound supplies atmosphere, period cue, or plot explanation, while removing it leaves the image's temporal relation unchanged. The sound is prominent but has no past of its own.
60–90 sec audio-visual study
Completing an exercise will not automatically prove a concept
A completion record must separate observation from interpretation: what the camera recorded, what participants heard, where the first judgement failed, and which condition the second edit changed. Only reviewable versions and notes can support a relational claim. 'Everyone felt time change' is not sufficient evidence.
See how propositions register cases and falsifiers