To talk about visual communication in the cinematography...
A picture, photography or an illustration is not the only visual source that we have. We can observe and reinterpret the moving image(s) which are even better communicators and can give us more information about the context.
I can remember watching the first movie in the human history "Voyage de la lune" and wondering how interesting and clear was the aim of the story. There were a lot of well prepared wooden decorations, fancy costumes and good actors, so all that fantastic picture could replace and explain the movie without the sound. This was the great start for the film making industry and later on people started creating very realistic scenes...with the help of paintings!
The one who started this cinematography production was Norman Dawn - poor boy from Bolivia who became one of the best and well known filmmakers. Norman discovered his great talent in childhood when he was fascinated with creating illusions and than started to enhance his knowledge more. He started to improve the technique of painting on the glass between the camera and object, so in the film and old building with rubbish near it, became the new one with trees and a fountains. Painting on the glass gave an opportunity to create whatever building or landscape he needed and also embarrassed an audience with mystic/fantastic locations. Dawn was the rare artist who was capable to create all the exotic locals to which he travelled. The journey to New Guinea, Java and other countries where people have never been, was invaluable experience for the artist and the whole film production.
The thing is that the movie became kind of a very realistic illusion, continuation of the imagination and just true to life dream. It was a visual trick and people wanted to believe in wonders behind the screen. Anyway, this happens even nowadays - we pay to see illusion and special effects just to feel inside the behind-screen world. We watch, we have emotions and feeling, we talk to the heroes what makes us in the liminal condition of existing in two parallel worlds of reality and illusion.
Vaz, M. and Barron, C. (2004). The invisible art. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
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