In Donis A. Dondis' view, motion, the final visual element, is perhaps "one of the most dominant visual forces in human experience." As she explains in A Primer of Visual Literacy, true motion exists only in the physical world. Motion in visual images is always an illusion. It can either be implied or suggested, as in still pictures, or overtly simulated, as in motion pictures. By combining time and space, the use of motion helps ground visual images in our experience of the real world.
Suggestion of motion in static images often appears somewhat "unrealistic" or unnatural. By blurring a subject (as in the icon above), using sfumato or contrapposto, selectively using hue, texture, line, shape, direction, scale, or dimension, a still image can be infused with implied movement. Because these techniques require the viewer to invoke his or her experience of motion in real life, suggested motion is involving and compelling. Unlike in motion pictures, recognizing motion in still images is a more conscious, interpretive process.
Until the advent of the motion picture, implied movement was the best means available for simulating actual motion. No other medium can represent the human experience of movement with the visual accuracy that is inherent in motion pictures. Even in motion pictures, however, true movement is only simulated, for filmed or videotaped motion is actually composed of a series of still images, each only slightly different from the previous one. When looked at quickly and sequentially, these distinct images create the illusion of a continuous progression of movement.
From Raiders of the Lost Ark, Paramount, 1981 (648 Kb).
This sequence of Harrison Ford running for his life is actually comprised of a series of individual, still images. The individual images can be examined more closely by using the cursor to drag the box in the scroll bar beneath it from left to right. By showing these separate images in rapid sucession, motion is simulated. To play this sequence, use the cursor to click on the play button. To view each frame, drag the scroll bar back and forth.
Our ability to recognize motion in a series of still pictures is the result of a combination of the phenomena known as the "persistance of vision," and the "phi effect." Persistance of vision refers to the phenomenon by which the eye briefly retains the afterimage of the last frame until the next one is visible. The phi phenomenon is the subconscious process of connecting a series of stills by applying one's knowledge of motion in the real world. These phenomena work in conjunction to create "the miracle of motion" that is the basis of the success of the moving image.
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Introduction