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Geographic Imaginaries

One element that underscores the importance of audiovisual production from a geographical perspective is its proven capacity for creating geographic imaginaries. Movies, as well as fiction series, documentaries and advertising can have extremely significant media impact by disseminating images corresponding to diverse spatial realities. That is reason why the geographic community frequently focuses its attention on cinema’s didactic role, for example, to complement explanations about geographic realities, facts or processes. Read more

Besides this didactic purpose, we need to add another consequence, which has to do more with processes altering the spatial reality in film and fiction series, due to varying narrative or technical requirements. Because of their importance, we wish to spotlight substitution of locations and spatial ellipses, two common techniques that can lead to viewer misconceptions regarding the true features of the geographic space.

GEOGRAPHIC SUBSTITUTIONS

Substituting locations, beyond the possible causes or factors behind it, and its many types, refers to cases in which the filming location and the narrative’s location do not coincide.

To observe these processes, we have developed a map viewer for substitute locations in the Madrid Region. The viewer grew out of the project La ficción audiovisual en la Comunidad de Madrid: lugares de rodaje y desarrollo del turismo cinematográfico (Audiovisual fiction in the Madrid Region: filming locations and development of screen tourism) (FICMATUR), ongoing since 2020.

Viewer of substitute locations in the Madrid Region

Some examples of substitute locations:

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo
(Sergio Leone, 1966)

Place substituted

American West (XIX)

Filming localization

Colmenar Viejo, Madrid

Doctor Zhivago
(David Lean, 1965)

Place substituted

Perm, Russia (XX)

Filming localization

Madrid

Patton
(Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970)

Place substituted

Ajaccio, France (XX)

Filming localization

Aranjuez, Madrid

Spartacus
(Stanley Kubrick, 1960)

Place substituted

Brindisi, Italy (Antiquity)

Filming localization

Aldea del Fresno, Madrid

55 at Peking
(Franklin J. Schaffner, 1971)

Place substituted

Peking, China (XIX)

Filming localization

Las Rozas, Madrid

King of Kings
(Nicholas Ray, 1961)

Place substituted

Sea of Galilee, Israel (Antiquity)

Filming localization

Manzanares el Real, Madrid

SPATIAL ELLIPSES

Spatial ellipses are alterations in which there is discontinuity and skipping of locations in an uninterrupted scene, thereby altering the actual spatial topography. Thus, the viewer might think that a given venue or spot is next to another one, while in reality the two are very far apart.

Video Essay 'La elipsis espacial en las ficciones audiovisuales'(Spatial ellipsis in audiovisual fiction)

Creators

Víctor Aertsen, Agustín Gámir y Carlos Manuel

Date

20 - Enero - 2016

Language

Castellano

This video is exclusively for academic purposes. Use of archive materials is protected by the right of quotation (art. 32 TRLPI, RD. 1/1996)