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[ 4 minute read ]
En Passant
In Passing
Just in passing, I happened to go to Wikipedia to look up 'en passant'. If you know what 'en passant' means, then you will know that I didn't randomly seek an answer from Wikipedia. It is French for 'in passing' and it is a term used in Chess. By using French, we can easily pass off a particular move performed only by a pawn and at a very precise moment as, 'Well, I was just passing and so I thought, Why not?' It is actually a move that says, 'Oh no you don't, you sneaky dog!' To my mind, it is a bit like adding, 'Just saying....' to the end of a criticism or a plea to have a want met. The interesting thing about this, is that I noticed that Wikipedia used animation to demonstrate the 'en passant' move. It needs animation to understand it. I have been playing chess for a long time and no opponent or I have ever used the move in any I game I played in, nor have I ever seen it played; including in computer games.
I like writing, and I like to use a cinematographic technique of introducing a character or environment. I like to have the viewpoint move from an introductory outside scene to an indoor scene, and I like to carry the outside with that viewpoint. We see it all the time in films. Recently, I had an idea to have the outside sounds enter the inside scene as an introduction to a story. At this time I cannot reproduce my attempt to do this, even though I eventually discarded it as not being fruitful. The issue here is that if the indoor scene is stationary and there is something added to give life to it, it is perhaps cinemagraphic and not cinematographic. Yeah, I know, who cares about that little 'to'. Isn't it all cinema? This intrigues me though. I eschew taking photos of people and there are no photos of me since I was eighteen and necessarily beautiful, of course. In fact, I don't take photos at all unless it is for evidence. 'You own the bird that crapped on my car because it sleeps in your tree every night. See? Just saying....'
Some people, many people, collect photos, or, more often than not, snapshots. These are about as interesting, to me, as the proverbial holiday slides of the 1960s and early 1970s holidays preceded over by an adenoidal, nasal, host. 'This is Hilda waving from the dinghy before it got caught in a current and she was rescued by Greek restaurant waiters who waded in thigh-deep to save her. She was so traumatised that she stayed in the Hotel for the rest of the week, but she tried hard to cope. She insisted I go out on my own for the rest of the days. Bless her, she kept a smile on her face. Look, you can see her Kiss Me Quick hat.' Even I might spray a mouthful of Prawn Cocktail, in a failed attempt not to laugh, in their orange and brown room at such a holiday.
Now, cinemagraphy is something I might be able to get my teeth into. I am completely new to this....whatever it is. My understanding is that a still image is somehow perceived to move, or something, by the addition of something else to give life to the picture. It sounds a bit like a Shepard Tone to me; which, of course, is an auditory effect. I shall have to look into cinemagraphy much deeper to satisfy my interest. For the time being a question: is having a sound enter an empty room in which there is no movement, in a story, cinematography, cinemagraphy, or just so commonplace that nobody really cares to understand what it is anyway? Take a furnished room in a story. Here it is in a crude way. 'The Living-room was cold and dark. It was expensively furnished though it was hard to see what furniture there was.' There is no life to the scene. Even if the furniture creaks as the temperature rises and falls there is no life. Yet, if there is sound that comes from outside, like traffic or a dawn chorus of birdsong, the scene is lifted from stationary to moving somehow. My style is to move from that busy Parisian street into the darkened room with a tall ceiling in a cinematographic way.... In the front door, up the stairs, past the peeling wallpaper and up to the tall door to the apartment; through the hall and into the living space. I can't help seeing an open window with a gossamer thin curtain moving in a wind. But that last, is because I left the window open in the previous scene to let the noise of traffic in. If the window is shut and I use the cinematographic method the room is still stationary and even though sound can be present it must be life that is heard to animate the scene.
Just saying......or maybe En Passant.