do you think major movies look too good now?

[David Kuhn]

That is an interesting viewpoint and very good analogy David. I might argue that much of what you appreciate about Bollywood is that their pictures are not as aesthetically homogenous as Hollywood's.

I don't know you personally but might that be a fair observation, generally speaking?

Hmmm... not sure. India certainly has a different taste in cinema, almost a throwback to earlier Hollywood (they seem to really like romantic musicals), but in some respects their films are MORE homogenous wrt the basic form they take and even things like setting and wardrobe (seems to be a lot of poor Indian boy trying to get a rich Indian girl movies, and I've only seen one scene from one movie that was shot outside India). I think the variation I see is that their filmmakers seem to still be perfecting their craft... so the films don't have the polish of western films. There have been some notable exceptions - Barfi! was a great film by any metric and really stood out from most of the Bollywood films we've watched (my family has had 'Bollywood Friday' regularly for a couple years... Indian takeout and a movie). Interestingly, a lot of the polish of Barfi! comes from unabashed duplication of the shots, plot, and maybe even some dialog from Hollywood films that the Indian team liked. Since I'm not in the business I'm sure a pro would find even more that the guys in India have picked up from the West. What I found noteworthy about Barfi was that it FELT/LOOKED like it could have been made in SoCal (that hard to quantify 'Hollywood look'), which is something that many of the Bollywood films we've watched just don't have - though most have been very enjoyable.

 

[Scott Crawley]

OK, but this;

I think the variation I see is that their filmmakers seem to still be perfecting their craft... so the films don't have the polish of western films.

is in part, exactly what I was referring to. More cinematographers are getting distribution there and they represent a broader range of skill yes, but the variety is welcome. It begs the question; has our definition of quality cinematography become too narrow? Is it our white whale?

I think in Hollywood it is all about a smaller pool and fewer fish. There are fewer people making decisions, fewer cinematographers and a smallish group of colorists creating the films they distribute. We can't overlook the role of the Colorist in this. It is not just because of their individual influence but because the DI enables studio execs to take broad control over the image, remove the DP's choices and minimize his voice. It may be the largest homogenizing force in the mix.

Professional still photographers are expected to be skilled in the darkroom. In the past it was where much of their art happened in many cases. Photoshop came along and now I would say it is true in the vast majority of cases to the point where the digital darkroom is where most of the art of photography happens these days. DaVinci has had the same effect on cinematography.

So why are there not more professional Cinematographers doing their own "lab work"? Worse than that, they don't even get invited to the darkroom... And that is acceptable?

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

It's not about the tools, I'm afraid . Good movie is still good movie, be it super low budget S16 or digitally shot indie or major multi-million feature. I'm not a greatest fan of Godzilla-type movies, but I don't mind films like Pacific Rim, even though you prolly wouldn't see me at the premiere night. I'm very impressed with Elysium and what Blomkamp is doing with the sci-fi action genre. People arguing over the social commentary or whatever, but at least it could be a small little step aside from the annual "calculated and generated" bada-boom summer popcorn/soda flick.

Speaking of the resolution and age lines... I can't for the life of pi recall anyone bashing Paul T. Anderson or Mihai Malaimare Jr. for choosing 65mm format to shoot The Master. The film looks gorgeous and sharp as hell with very little grain (obviously). How the high-res digital cinema camera (Epic or F65 or Phantom 65) is any different?

 

[David Battistella]

David Mullen makes a great point about cuts.

There are far to many cuts and far to many are not motivated.

These films are being made for the large screen but edited on small screens. The problem? When you project a billboard of information you want to give the audience time to reflect on the image. When you watch a Sergio film projected, you understand that the artist understands his medium, shots are composed and left on the screen long enough for eye trace, for you to scan the image, watch the action and engage or become a participant in the story.

Too many films now are so over cut that this no longer becomes possible. The editing sucks balls in most of the films I see now because everyone is so afraid that people will become bored with the image.

another film that was edited quite nicely was Polanski's film Carnage. There is some masterful cinema, from an acting, editing, cinematography perspective. But then again, we don't use the word master with many of these new films because they are the work of a collective, not really a single vision and the content hurts for it.

No balls, no risk, and edit the shit out of it to mask out anything that might allow you to feel what the movie is about.

sad.


david

 

[George Butterfield]

but... a few of my work colleagues made convincing cases that today's movies seem to look "too good" to their eyes not leaving much to their imaginations....

I definitely think there is an upper limit to clarity beyond which improvements are probably not necessary. Everything is ultimately processed by your own eyeballs anyway.

 

[Elsie N]

Yes, most of this is a creative issue, not a technical issue. I don't have a problem with having access to high-resolution, low-noise, high-sensitivity cameras that create beautiful images! Half of the "roughness" of older movies was deliberate and half was due to the limitations of the technology. It's the visual sameness that is pervading mainstream Hollywood movies that is getting a bit boring... once we've all achieved a high level of technical quality, it's time to find something interesting to do with it.

David, your post suggests to me that since you've obviously given this some thought, you've also given some thought to how to differentiate. If so, and if it's not something you want to hold close to the vest for exclusivity, would enjoy hearing your thoughts. That is, through lighting, post, other?

 

[Steve Sherrick]

David Mullen makes a great point about cuts.

There are far to many cuts and far to many are not motivated.

These films are being made for the large screen but edited on small screens. The problem? When you project a billboard of information you want to give the audience time to reflect on the image. When you watch a Sergio film projected, you understand that the artist understands his medium, shots are composed and left on the screen long enough for eye trace, for you to scan the image, watch the action and engage or become a participant in the story.

Too many films now are so over cut that this no longer becomes possible. The editing sucks balls in most of the films I see now because everyone is so afraid that people will become bored with the image.

another film that was edited quite nicely was Polanski's film Carnage. There is some masterful cinema, from an acting, editing, cinematography perspective. But then again, we don't use the word master with many of these new films because they are the work of a collective, not really a single vision and the content hurts for it.

No balls, no risk, and edit the shit out of it to mask out anything that might allow you to feel what the movie is about.

sad.


david

Thank you for saying what I have been feeling for a long time now.

 

[Ryan Purcell]

And they are mostly composed on a small screen as well. Is it stupid to say that an optical viewfinder fills your eye in a different way?

 

[Scott Crawley]

Is it stupid to say that an optical viewfinder fills your eye in a different way?

No.

 

[Mark Phelan]

David Mullen makes a great point about cuts.

There are far to many cuts and far to many are not motivated.

These films are being made for the large screen but edited on small screens. The problem? When you project a billboard of information you want to give the audience time to reflect on the image. When you watch a Sergio film projected, you understand that the artist understands his medium, shots are composed and left on the screen long enough for eye trace, for you to scan the image, watch the action and engage or become a participant in the story.

Too many films now are so over cut that this no longer becomes possible. The editing sucks balls in most of the films I see now because everyone is so afraid that people will become bored with the image.

another film that was edited quite nicely was Polanski's film Carnage. There is some masterful cinema, from an acting, editing, cinematography perspective. But then again, we don't use the word master with many of these new films because they are the work of a collective, not really a single vision and the content hurts for it.

No balls, no risk, and edit the shit out of it to mask out anything that might allow you to feel what the movie is about.

sad.


david

Might I add that it could be a case of the emporer has no clothes. The current fad in editing is the sleight-of-hand to keep the audience from acknowledging the fact that most movies today are devoid of any substance and content. It's empty calories but hey, it's in a 32 oz big gulp, so that makes it all ok.

 

[Scott Crawley]

...it's in a 32 oz big gulp, so that makes it all ok.

The wonders of excess.

Whizz Bang Cola (bonus points if you can name the reference)

 

[David Battistella]

Then there is the whole "magic Bullet Looks thing". I think that most of these looks evolved to hide the mistakes lower end cameras like the 5D make. Yes, part of it is style and apparently right now everyone thinks that instagram and hipsatmatic are just the greatest looking thing.

This is what I like about resolution and things looking good. I barely want to do much to the image once it has been composed and captured correctly. I dont want blurry corners or vignettes that look less natural than normal lens light falloff.

I have a high resolution Camera for a reason. I want to enjoy those pixels and I want those pixels on display in my movies. I think that is the aesthetic that drove Sergio Leone, and other masters of that era, the cinematographers as well. They respected an revered the image, there was not fix it in post mentality, it was, get everything right, right now. More art, less faking.

I think that the movies used to influence advertising, but now I think that has done a 180. The ads influence movies and the movies feel like one big ad.

David

 

[Scott Crawley]

The ads influence movies and the movies feel like one big ad.

Having to sit through 45 min. of ads before the movie can add to the perception that the the movie looks like an ad. An abundance of high profile product placement can also make it feel like one.

 

[David Battistella]

I think the difference is in performances.

I'll just cite Clint Eastwood. He lets the actors work, you don't see a lot of cutting around bad acting and takes can run long and you can be in the story (mystic river comes to mind, or Bridges of Madison county) You cut when you the actor runs out of truth. When the performance has become fake.

This is why you see a lot of edits in ads, because no one is being asked to portray the truth of a situation. Subsequently, movies are turning into this. I just watched "Once upon a time in America" again. We can all admire how great it is, but with all the money flying around movies right now, that type of film would never get made, or, the filmmaker would not be able to make it that way.

David

 

[Joe G.]

"I think these days what's now getting lost in film in the art of 'texture'. If you watch say Bladerunner, it's like you can feel the dirt and the griminess of everything as though you could put you hand into the image and feel the wetness of Rutger Hauer's hair or the flawlessness of Sean Young's face."​

That's what I said about Prometheus vs. Aliens. Give me film and texture any day. Forget the dumb story in Prometheus, the advertising sensibility of the visuals had me hating every second before the dumb gaffes even occurred.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Every decade of filmmaking has some sort of visual trend driven partly by technology, partly by changing tastes, modified by economics, etc. Obviously there is a current trend towards increased resolution and very clean images, in still photography and in movies, and in general, that's what the average person wants to see -- even in the past, even in the film days, the push was to improve image quality, meaning reduce grain and increase sharpness. Of course there were artistic reasons to buck this trend for select projects, but for the most part, there has always been some sort of implicit notion that everyone wants something technically "better" all around when possible. Fine, that's driving things today as it drove things in the past. And for the most part, it's always better to start out with more detail, more information, because you can always throw some of it away, it's harder to create it from nothing, whether that extra information is subject detail or exposure detail or color, whatever.

But that doesn't mean everything has to end up looking the same, it doesn't have to result in bland technical slickness without heart or soul. In the wider swath of what's out there, including indie movies, foreign movies, cable TV shows, commercials, music videos, etc. I think there is certainly some variety to be found though a large bulk of it seems to be aiming for a similar look -- soft-lit, clean, open shadow detail, natural colors. I just feel that in the bigger budgeted stuff the commercial forces are driving the visuals, just as in every other element, to some sort of bland, homogenous white-bread non-offensive, non-challenging product, easily digestible but also easily forgettable.

It's tricky because I don't want to advocate the opposite either, heavy stylization or technical roughness for its own sake, distracting the viewer and showing off how clever the filmmaker is. But what's missing in a lot of bigger movies is a personal point of view, the human touch seems to be lost, it feels to much like computers and committees (or committees using computers) made most of the choices. To me, an ideal would be something like the work of Gordon Willis, who managed to create a look, a style, that was reserved, restrained, classical, subtle and yet clearly personal... while also supporting the story and the performances. Roger Deakins is like that today. But it's a tough balancing act, between expressing a personal aesthetic and yet not overpowering the material. And there are a number of more expressive, mannerist, cinematographers I like as well -- Richardson, Kaminski, Storaro -- whose work is best when tied to subject matter that allows a more operatic, theatrical, highly dramatic visual effect to be employed. It's the old "let Orson Welles be Orson Welles" call, I don't think everything has to be visually restrained, it just has to be appropriately scaled to the material.

I guess what I'm asking for is more personal expression and less corporate blandness to be visible in high-profile projects.

 

[PatrickFaith]

... I wish David Lynch was still making features with decent budgets, if only to listen to them.

Thanks for the insights David ... when I looked up David Lynch on IMDB I didn't realize all he had done, so I just finished his book "Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity" - which has helped me out on some scene's I have been stuck on. I need to study ERASERHEAD next ... hehe ... keep the homework assignments coming Another book that I just finished, which in afterthought, I think is related to this thread is "The Great Animal Orchestra".

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Cinematography books 20##:
"At the beggining of 21st century technology advancements opened a multitude of new possibilities for storytellers, so many started relying on the achievements of technology, and the effort previously invested in good storytelling was greatly weakened. As a result the trend of exaggeration appeared".

Technical superiority is often used in attempt to compensate for the emotional and intellectual inferiority. Increase of visual data, whether by more pixels, elements in a shot or number of shots is just one of the attempts of sugar coating and a poor substitute for the lack of essence underneath. It is easier to make a fancy wrapper, works of value that move and inspire require inspiration to be created and inspiration gate doesn't open on demand or on inadequate basis.

If it feels "souless" it is, because the part which puts Soul into it is not generic, automated, made upon market analysis, added in post, or calculated in any way by an algorythm.

By focusing on a wrapper depth gets out of focus. Sooner or later digestion makes that wrapper dissolve and content or the lack of it unavoidably appears.

(I'd say...)

 

[David Battistella]

I guess what I'm asking for is more personal expression and less corporate blandness to be visible in high-profile projects.

It's a strange paradox. As budgets get larger or the stakes become higher, everyone involved moves their work towards this safer way of creating. It's the smaller films with less budget where more risk can be taken. But those smaller films breakout, not because of technical superiority but mostly because of good writing and good acting. Focus features had a great run of these types of films a few years back.

If you take it back to the business, it's all about large budgets and wide reach and box office. Hollywood has created this, a films value (the value of the art) is discussed in terms of Box office and how much it did on a opening weekend and whether the film can "stay on top" for subsequent weeks.

That model is what is soul sucking because it drives the storytelling. Stories need to reach the widest audience (6-60). The same thing has happened in music. It's all boring. A band can no longer enter the scene because the product is over manufactured, the reasons for creating are driven by market forces, not by the willingness or wanting to share human stories.

Even watching RED evolve you can see this. They choose to put their studios in the middle of Hollywood and promote major feature after major feature being shot with their cameras, but in the first few years on the RED it was Indy features and foreign language films that were driving RED production and being nominated for awards. Tthat was ok at first, but that isn't going to grow the company, they had to attach to the reputation of Hollywood A listers. At least RED are very different in the fact that they have a lot of respect for the individual and other work being created on their technology and they treat their customers as a growing family. My perception is that Hollywood has grown way beyond the family model and into the global corporate model and that might be why we are seeing what we are seeing.

David

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I also notice it in Color Grading.

I like the stylized look in Minority Report, because there it really fitted the story.
But if you look at older blockbusters (Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, even Star Wars, ...) the images look natural in grading.
Now, every blockbuster looks graded like Transformers. (Not really, but sometimes it feels like that).

Every blockbusters gets scored by Hans Zimmer, which has been scoring rather blandly the last years. Every score sounds the same, although I think the man is capable of great music (The Thin Red Line, The Lion King, The Rock, ...) but now all superhero-movies have to sound like the Transformers-score too (not composed by Zimmer, I know).
Ah, and let's not mention the fact that 90 percent of what comes out of Hollywood SEEMS to be 300 million dollar superhero movies or remakes or franchises. It's getting painful.

I still love Spielberg's filmmaking, because he still uses nice longer shots, that don't feel long because they move a lot. At the same time, he really uses blocking of actors well, in an old-fashioned way. I'm not a fan of how Peter Jackson often lets his camera fly like in a video game. It *feels* CGI, because you know a camera cannot fly like that. Sometimes it works, but often I think the movies should be more told, not from a CGI perspective, but from a human perspective, both in camera-placement and as in story focus, etc.

Once Upon A Time is a great movie. I saw it when I was 17. I was the age that Hollywood thinks I'm only interested in the new Spiderman.
I was just staring with mouth open for 2,5 hours to all the amazing moviemaking at the screen.

It's also so much in the script. I don't think I'm really a genius-writer (anything but) but I just worked for 3 years to get my first draft of a 40-minute science-fiction movie. Although I have to refine things, I'm really happy with the first draft, and I was being really tough for myself. I *learned* a lot by structure, just by writing for 3 years and trying to get my story feel 'right' and exiting, etc.
If I look at movies now, I can often say afterwards where I think it felt flat, and it's OFTEN the script (start shooting before the script is really good? being rewritten too much by too many people? look at Prometheus which was being rewritten by Damon Lindelof because the studio was too afraid of just letting the draft of a unknown writer being used for such an expensive movie. Not that the first draft was a masterpiece, but it was much better then what ended up on the screen). What do you want? Studios put out dates for sequels even before there are any scripts written for it (for instance, the new upcoming Star Wars Movies).
Common sense would be waiting to get the script *right* and then announce a date, and start making the movie. But it's all down to marketing now (http://movies.yahoo.com/news/why-hollywood-setting-movie-release-dates-5-years-131732408.html)


It's a pitty because I'm sure Hollywood has a lot of talented people still sitting around (maybe not the ones deciding what's get made or not), and from what I've heard from the writer of the oscar-nominated Kon-Tiki a lot of people inside Hollywood are as frustrated with the current situation where only very low budget or super high budgets get made, as a lot of filmfans are.