Academy Awards Favoring VFX over Traditional Cinematography?

[Marcus Friedlander]

Making pretty pictures is easy. Doing it on a schedule with a thousand variables that you only control a few of and dancing on the head of a pin to make it all work out is hard ;-)

Completely agree! The only thing I'd add is that making pretty pictures is easy, but creating a visual continuity between those pretty pictures is where a good DP is seperated from a bad DP.

 

[David Battistella]

Love this - totally agree. Making indie movies look hight budget is surely one of the greatest talents/skills today.

Kinda Ironic. The charm of many smaller indy pictures tends to be the way they don't look big budget.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Somewhat related... this doc on the Revenant is just as moving as the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJfTfsXFbLk

 

[Mike P.]

The problem about having a "Colourist" award is that you'd have to see before/after pics in order to know how much work was involved... Otherwise, the DoP could've made 90% of the magic in-camera, then the colourist comes in and makes a meagre 10% changes, and people are like "wow that colourist made that movie so pretty!" (when realistically, it was the DoP).

Conversely, ideally the DoP should have active involvement in all aspects of the *look* of the film (including colour correction/grading). The irony is that sometimes they don't -- like Life of Pi, where Claudio was like, 'I don't even think I deserve this award; it was the vfx guys that made it look the way it does.'

 

[Marc Wielage]

The problem about having a "Colourist" award is that you'd have to see before/after pics in order to know how much work was involved... Otherwise, the DoP could've made 90% of the magic in-camera, then the colourist comes in and makes a meagre 10% changes, and people are like "wow that colourist made that movie so pretty!" (when realistically, it was the DoP).

That's not gonna happen. There are several films I can think of -- including recent ones -- that have been extensively relit in post. But they're still under the supervision of the DP. Since there wasn't originally any awards for "Best Lab Work," I'm not sure the Academy would extend the award to digital color correction. Same goes with the Emmys. There are post awards for color for commercials and longform shows, like the HPA Awards.

Conversely, ideally the DoP should have active involvement in all aspects of the *look* of the film (including colour correction/grading). The irony is that sometimes they don't -- like Life of Pi, where Claudio was like, 'I don't even think I deserve this award; it was the vfx guys that made it look the way it does.'

I seem to recall Miranda talking about the process in the American Cinematographer article on Life of Pi, and he said it took a year of work, working every day with the VFX people to "virtually light" the scenes. All the lighting decisions were still his. I would look on the VFX artists -- literally "the lighters and shaders" -- as being his gaffers on the picture.

 

[Mike P.]

I think we're arguing the same point vis-a-vis an academy award for colour; how would academy members know which movies had the most impressive colour work without seeing examples and, more importantly, how would they differentiate what was the colourist's decision vs. what was the DoP's (in terms of making an impactful image via strictly the colour) when that's ideally supposed to be the DoP's decision anyway. (How do they do it with commercials and longform tv -- and are those awards from back when it was once lab work?)

As for Miranda, that's rad that he was that hand's on... I guess things got a little skewed (wasn't that the year that the vfx company went under days before winning the award?)

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, it's the same problem with an editing award, you don't know what the editor had to work with.

Maybe a colorist Academy Sci-Tech award could involve a "bake-off" reel similar to what visual effect artists submit.

Keep in mind that the colorist's work should be in support of the DP's, director's, and producer's vision.