ABSTRACT
This chapter presents two case studies, one on viewfinders and the other on video assist systems, that enable a consideration of the way film techniques and technologies are defined and historicized. Such historiography often turns on the way new technologies are characterized, either in terms of “innovations” or “inventions,” which thus create different possible continuities or discontinuities within the historical field. Moreover, identifying salient elements of cinematic machines for historical description requires a parallel investigation of the internal logic of the machine and its procedures at a given time, as well as the technical networks (historical, cultural, economic) to which they belong. Such histories must also include a rethinking of the technicity of gestures involved in the operation of film apparatuses.
