Post cinema refers to the cinematic experience past traditional cinema formats, this experience is forever evolving. This new format of post-cinema refers to new technologies, new forms, and methods of storytelling that challenge classical/traditional cinema. The idea of post-cinema highlights the changing world of visual entertainment. 

Cinema at its base is art, an art that takes many forms, from the director’s style, to the cinematography, the mise-en-scene and even the soundtrack. Traditional cinema is faced with this overhaul of new digital technologies that has transformed our viewing experience. In the text ‘Perspectives on Post-Cinema: An introduction’, Post-Cinema: Theorising 21st Century Film’ (2016), Lev Manovich quotes “ Cinema’s most basic gesture is to open the shutter and to start the film rolling, recording whatever happens to be in front of the lens. For Tarkovsky, an abstract cinema is thus impossible.” (P.22)

In the early 2000s we started to see the rise of digital technology within cinema. Films such as Star Wars and The Lord of The Rings trilogy start to implement CGI and special effects into their work more frequently. Compared to the first use of CGI in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, these films’ entire narrative fixates around the new that comes with Post-Cinema. 

(1) Avatar: The Way of Water | Official Trailer – YouTube

In 2012 we saw the release of Avatar, a science fiction film that changed the way we view cinema today. This film massively incorporates digital technology and CGI, the film utilises both traditional filming techniques and new techniques we associate with post-cinema, 60% of the first Avatar film is CGI and was deemed as the benchmark for the film industry. Later James Cameron would use CGI in the films sequel where the use of CGI is believed to have increased to 90% for the film. This can highlight the new era of digital technology taking over in cinema, however, you can identify this with the films genre of science fiction. 

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