A still has to do with a particular intensity of light, an image, a composition frozen in time and space.
A shot has to do with a variable intensity of light, an internal balance
of time dependent upon an intermittent movement and a movement
within a given space dependent upon persistence of vision.
A shot can be a film, or a film may be composed of a number of shots.
A still as related to film is concerned with using and losing an image of something thru time and space. In representational films sometimes the image affirms its own presence as image, graphic entity, but most often it serves as vehicle to a photo-recorded event. film teaches film to be an image, a representing. But film is a real thing and as a real thing it is not imitation. It does not reflect on life, it embodies the life of the mind. It is not a vehicle for ideas or portrayals of emotion outside of its own existence as emoted idea. Film is a variable intensity of light, an internal balance of time, a movement within a given space.
When I began to make films I believed pictures of things must go into films if anything was to mean anything. This is what almost everybody who has done anything worthwhile with film has done and is still doing but this again has to do with everything a still is - a re-presenting. And when I actually began filming I found this small difficulty: neither film, filming nor projecting had anything to do with emotions, objects, beings, or ideas. I began to think about this and what film really is and how and feel and experience film.
