Governing principles for Digital, Data or Electronic Cinematography:
a) the optical pathway is 35mm or above
b) it generates a progressively based image flow relating to a specific time-base as opposed to an interlaced image flow
c) like one of its predecessors, film, it holds the image in a latent state until an act of development (or rendering) is applied - but unlike film it is non-destructive of its prior material state
d) it?s capture mechanism, though generating a nondestructive, non-compressed data pathway from which an image can be reconstructed, is not its sole intent as a medium or method of capture
Using this criteria, digital cinematography is about more than just capturing images - it's a portal onto the digital landscape so far unexplored due to its apparent function as an image capture medium.
These characteristics enable the transformation of the idea of the camera as image generator into something that can do much more: Its capacity as a spacial co-ordinate gatherer enables the generation of a 3D real-time representation of the world in the computer – and if you can do that, then you can instruct events to happen in the real-world – and as a quotidian example you can for instance connect a night club in Bristol to a night club in Kyoto. Both spaces can be mapped over eachother and gestures can create events in both spaces.