Boxing migrant workers, CGI and X-rays are the subjects covered in the shortlist for this year’s And/Or Book Award, the UK’s leading prize for books published in the fields of photography and the moving image. The winner from each category will share the prize fund of £10,000, and they’ll be announced tonight at the BFI Southbank.
Over 150 titles from last year have been whittled down to the final seven, three of which are in the moving image category. The first is Photography and Cinema by writer, artist and Reader in Photography at the University of Westminster, David Campany. Illustrated with over 127 images, the book considers the importance of the photograph in the evolution of film, and the relationship between the still image and filmmakers, while asking questions about what the arrival of cinema did for photography, how moving images changed our relation to the still image and why cinema and photography are drawn to each other.
Films revolving around a boxing ring and the characters in it are always ripe pickings for entertainment – nothing can beat the emotional climax of a bloodied and beaten working man’s hero who’s been to hell and back. That rush of entertainment harks back to 1897, and the first filmed prizefight, Veriscope’s The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight. It became one of cinema’s earliest major attractions and began an era of successful boxing films that changed it from a sport into legitimate entertainment. Dan Streible’s Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema chronicles the near forgotten story of how fights, fake bouts, sparring matches and silent era pictures became engrained in American popular culture.
There was a time when it was all too easy to spot some dodgy special effects that resemble something made out of cardboard, but as the years roll by it’s becoming more and more difficult to spot what’s CGI and what isn’t (check out the DVD extras on Zodiac for proof of that). Film’s ability to create an illusion is constantly evolving far beyond the other worlds created by studio sets decades ago, to the point where green screens will probably soon be irrelevant. Performing Illusions: Cinema, Special Effects and the Virtual Actor by University of Exeter film lecturer Dan North examines film’s creative history of special effects and trickery from George Méliès’ first trick films to the modern CGI era.
For more info visit the website. We’ll have a follow up report announcing the winner later this week.
Obviously the And/Or award veers towards the academic market, but what would be your choice for the best movie related book you’ve ever read?
