Artists and films should be given due dignity when being viewed or handled.
Much of the frailty of digital visual culture (especially in the United States) comes 
from the fact that we, sort of, by nature treat digital media as disposable. This document
encourages the practices of peerless/trustless auditing of versionings and screenings as 
an alternative to copy-file sharing (ie. copy a file over ftp or the like). Films and other cataloged
cultured items may be kept on ipfs or a similar service in order to make films uncensorable. 
It may be possible that such an auditing system could in theory replace the current film industry.
More on this can be found by researching literature on Blockchain technologies and Decentralized Tech.

 

Digital media items should be audited, shared, and used for cross-domain and inter-film representation. The trope of re-using a prop would only be a simple example of this. Digital, open auditing of prop pieces and costumes is easily acheivable with Blockchain technology. Trustless auditing makes the sharing of props, equipment, and costumes across productions. Viewers should be able to recognize certain items, locations, and things(?) as part of a groups collective workspace. Viewers should be able to visit the places they recognized from films presented to them. Viewers should feel as though as they may be able to literally access the mise-en-scene of the film being presented. There are limits to this obviously. 

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The imposition of running times is non-sensical in the environment we currently live. Small, abstract films may be collaged or filtered to create new films or new cinematic elements. Films may be played in different sequences of scene and plot to yield new derivations from the original. Decision trees and templates may be built to allow such a system to be partially or fully interactive and cohesive. 

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Biofeedback systems and audience-monitoring and feedback systems may be used in the future to create an experience that is mostly passive (as film has been traditionally) but seemlessly interactive. The film might monitor a viewer's heart rate and adjust the images it's projecting to accommodate for their emotional state. The future director might not be the conductor of the production and images-- rather he may function as an engineer-- tailoring a feedback system such as this as to provide new novel experiences for audiences. 

Atomic elements in film-making are hard to come-by or conceptualized. Most things whether they be edited clips, bits of score, or even the use of typeface in presentation elements of the film may be broken down into further participle elements. However because there isn't an obvious heirarchy to these elements, elements which seem lower-atomic might actually be re-contextualized and re-implemented in a higher domain. This gives film a transcendental quality but with the unique characteristic of being propped up against a discreet continuous and relativized flow of time defined at some frames per second (rather than absolutely in the case of a painting, photograph, or an open-air space)

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Remix art will probably be a huge deal some day. I don't really have any strong feelings about this. If you make something and it's good and of some obvious value-- It's good. I don't think this needs to be discussed at length anymore. Originality is meant to be a quality that isn't apparent in all works-- It is related necessarily to speciality. If it spares some sensitive director their sentiment-- Not all works are special. All people are special are though. All of them.  Cinema should serve human beings. It shouldn't be the other way around.

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I find directors and people in the film industry intellectually dishonest for the most part. Most, "filmmakers" I see working today are involved in making some glorified commercial and claiming it has value, "because the crew worked really hard and (...)" I sometimes cry to that clip of Brando telling everyone to fuck off on Dick Cavett because it shows the contrast between the prevalent Hollywood culture at and around his time and the one we have currently. 

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Soon the automatic making of films with neural networks will become a reality. A film might be made by taking any discreet data source and using it as the input for an auto generative adversarial network. I think it is meaningful to take a strong stance here-- There shall be no strong stance by this manifesto to impose limits on the use of generative materials for cinematic review. If you produce something good-- It's good. Originality is history thing.

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Considerations of aspect ratio and presentation should take the necessary details of filming/screening into consideration. Secondarily decisions made about aspect ratio may be related to artistic experimentation or re-contextualization. The last consideration is the typical case by which the thematic element is preserved visually by artificial imposition of suggestive bounds around the image. This last element though last on the list still may be implemented when artistically sound. 

 

The lines between Video, Motion Pictures, Conceptual Art which uses some element of animation, video or the like, and Conceptual Photography are kind of blurry. A coherent theory which represents their limitations in respect to each other has not (at least as far as I can tell) been presented by an authoritative source. These things may be used together or in varying combinations (especially in the case of feedback systems) to produce things we may have cinematic value or new forms of media which haven't yet been envisioned.  

 

Prevalent films should not attempt to make an appeal to the lower human element-- The simple gratification of sense. The distinction and between entertainment value and intellectual value is only a dichotomy those with a poorly developed artistic sentiment. The whole of film should not lower itself to the position of the common man rather it should serve as an inspiration to higher activity. Films shouldn't take themselves too seriously in this regard though. Directors are not prophets. (save a few).

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As the slack on our necks loosens regarding the myth of the creator-genius (something that has already been dis-proven but has once again reared its ugly head. As if the current castrate generation of directors proved a ripe opportunity to re-emerge without any clothes!) true collaboration in film will become possible and inevitable. The vision of Robert Altman as an open-ended environment for play and creation will become common place when digital media and the emergent digital-art space has been properly developed and mastered as a discipline. At the same time-- AI systems will give directors and creators working on their own the ability to be much more autonomous. The evolution of the creator-genius will culminate in an individual or set of individuals who have sufficient collaborate spirit, mastery and control of new technologies and techniques, and enough grasp of the real truth behind artful enterprises to present something totally new to the public. It's a speculation of mine that they will appear more to us like stage-men or magicians than artists. 

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The occult isn't that interesting. Stop making movies about it. Holy Mountain is an incoherent mess of loosely related religious ideas which only seems potent to those who haven't had sufficient education in religion or philosophy to see the thing as a smoke-and-mirrors act. Pseudo-Spiritual Films should be classified in this new landscape as being either light-hearted parodies or Degenerate Art. It is not necessarily uncooth to lie to the audience-- This may be an cinematic effective strategy-- To lie to them however to get them to believe you're a prophet, see-er, or anything else if the worst abuse of the creator-genius myth imaginable. There have been no spiritually advanced directors in the whole history of film. There have been philosophically advanced and intellectually advanced directors but none of a truly spiritual quality. I'm not sure why this is actually. 

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A simple observance that academia has failed to produce a coherent and well documented theory of film or of the language of film. Indeed without seeming overly critical, even the faculty of spoken and written language is not fully (or even partially) understood by leading men; even to the philosophers and directors who have expounded on the subject. Their may some significant work being done in this field but as it currently stands I would say with some certainty that there isn't any coherent or well established set of rules to follow for the production, display, or viewing of a visual feature. It is not that the film-industry needs to be re-stablished. No! It needs to be established. What has developed since the establishment of Hollywood (and before) has been a pragmatized attempt to overlay a capitalistic mechanism on top of film so that cinema might be profitable to creators, actors, and crew--. It's my stance that one shouldn't necessarily have an adversarial attitude concerning this-- rather we need only realize that the thing has been drawn up arbitrarily and that we need not operate within its limits. Ours is not a condemnation-- Rather a declaration of independence!

 

I have not said goodbye to language-- I have said goodbye to the false language; that tyrant whose echos still cause disturbance in my consciousness from time-to-time. I have said goodbye to the false thing and have warmly embraced that which which is positive, progressive, and obviously dear to the human soul. I have decided to let that which is a dying element die without resentment. Let this growth fall off! It was never necessary. Let the necessary, dear, and praisable thing come forth. Let's create a new dynamic in cinema-- One where everyone is a director. Everyone is a visionary. Where everyone is the star of the film of their lives without degradation. These are few thoughts I have about film.