"Modern" cinematography! (or is it directing?)

[Mike S. M.]

I was going to post this in the Ask David Mullen ANYTHING thread. But I decided to start it's own thread to get the opinions of others as well. Although I hope David sees this and gives his too.

Lately there seems to be a disregard to the classic rules of filmmaking in several films. Specially action movies. Now I'm sure this is more directing than cinematography itself, but still. I'm talking about movies breaking the 180° rule like every other shot, total disregard for screen direction and the 30° rule, which used to be 45°, now seems to be like 10° or even zero. And I'm not talking about having a jump cut in there somewhere to make a point, but rather just cutting to close ups all the time without regard to the 30° rule. On top of that, there seems to be a trend for over coverage. Any simple dialog scene has like 25 camera sets ups. Maybe it's influence of Tony Scott and everybody is just shooting with 25 cameras at the same time. But seems like a lazy and unskilled way to build up tension or a cheap way to make the movie look expensive or trendy. As a result, cutting is faster than ever. It's like a strobe show.
The shaky camera is old news but it is still everywhere too. Then there are the directors, who normally are the ones that do all the above too, who seem to have all lenses between 20mm and 85mm missing from their lens set. It's either very wide or very tight and even shooting master shots on long lenses. Isn't the point of a master to show the location, geographical orientation and so on? Again, it's becoming a cliched and cheap look. Just like filming every moving shot on a steadycam.

I was just watching Taken 2 and all the above is everywhere! Now Olivier Megaton is not at all a director I would consider of high caliber. He's way closer to Uwe Boll than Spielberg. But the same thing, although in a smaller degree is all over other movies by higher director's such as Paul Greengrass Bourne series and Tony Scott films to mention a few.

What do you think of all that?

 

[Brian D. Goff]

I feel with you;-) I've never been a "rule" guy - never went to film school. I'm not to shy to break the 30 - 180° rules, grew up that way. But, I do hate the 25 cuts / second crap that's everywhere nowadays. I think it's really just a cheap way to cover-up bad directing/lighting/acting/dialog/.......It simply distracts and blends everything into a sensual mess, that let's you get away with almost anything. Sure, some great movies will have high cut rate, but i think most of the time it's the "fix it in the post" mentality. To many directors can't handle a scene in terms of timing and blocking in just 1-2 camera set-ups. And to many of them think that the only way to bring in dynamic to a scene is by means of editing.

 

[Björn Benckert]

The Music video generatipn are has moved trough commercials to features... I should look at my self as coming from that crowd. But personally I very much respect the directors and DP's that have confidence and knowledge to shoot just whats needed for each scene and that actually manage to capture what is needed for the edit without having the camera angles messed up. coming from a editing / compositing / 3d / post side of things I think it's nuts to shoot any scene without a proper 3D animatic for it. But then again I worked with some really talented DP's and directors that actually manage to have it all in their head, even when some stuff is shot with the scene mirrored etc. But I think the 10 frame per clip short editing all trough has not brought home any oscars so I think most people still like a film to be shot according to the old protocol which I think is a good thing. Not that I want people not to be creative when editing and such but most of these rules are there for a reason, braking all of them kind of garantie a poor result I think.

 

[Hywel Phillips]

These are fashions. They come and go. They get over-used, they get tired, they get retired... and finally people get a handle on the best way to use them for storytelling and start using them again, but judiciously, for proper effect.

There are many others. The teal-and-orange look or the washed out green mid tones action film look that make the last few Harry Potter films look like they were entirely shot on horrible green spike fluo tubes.

Handheld camera work goes in and out of vogue. Shallow depth of field is currently being badly abused, with features shooting hand held at T/1.3 on s35 sensors and only getting people's left nostril or elbow in focus as a result. (Les Miz, I'm looking at you).

I think part of it is a huge upheaval as we make the transition from film to digital, too. Digital allows new things, like you can now shoot a whole movie on GoPros, if you want- and people will put cameras everywhere. That'll get overused by some film maker who does it as a stylistic statement or as an experiment, people will copy it badly, over use it, give you a headache and motion sickness*, it'll get naff, then people will settle down to using GoPro's an dSLRs sparing and effectively.

Don't sweat it, I say. Endure the worst excesses because it'll calm down again.

Cheers, Hywel.

(* although you don't need GoPros for that- Les Miz, I'm not looking at you any more because I had to leave the cinema, you made me feel so nauseous with the cinematography)

 

[Ramesh Jai]

Very good thread.

I once asked a Director/DP how he chose where to put the camera to cover a shot when there are hundreds of places you can put the camera. He said find a place where you would want be to see that action unfolding and put the camera there. And keep it simple. For me personally, I get more engrossed in a movie when the shots stay for longer on screen.

 

[Robert Hart]

Maybe I am a relic and not moving with the times - I have been told I am stuck in the 80s with my screenplay drafts. However I believe that the fast cutting techniques and shakycam have morphed from their origin of inducing a first-person sense of confused involvement in an action event or crisis, into (and I stress - in SOME instances), expedient and perhaps even lazy filmmaking.

Just because with digital, one can hedge bets and shoot the daylights out of everything to achieve absolute coverage does not mean that one should. Likewise, excusing the economy and speed achievable by jerky handheld work as a deliberate creative or artistic choice fools fewer and fewer as time passes and the technique becomes tiresome for audiences.

Pity the poor editors. Who knows? Maybe some of the rapidfire edits we see are all that is possibly salveable out of some debacles.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?63960-Most-Played-Out-Trends-in-Cinematography-Today

 

[Marc Wielage]

Lately there seems to be a disregard to the classic rules of filmmaking in several films. Specially action movies. Now I'm sure this is more directing than cinematography itself, but still. I'm talking about movies breaking the 180° rule like every other shot...

I had a conversation with a top Hollywood TV editor around 1998 or so, who was a friend of mine at the time, and when the director was out of the room, I said, "hey -- I don't mean to criticize, but you sure broke the 180-degree rule here," and I showed him the shot. He agreed 100% and just threw up his hands and said, "that was totally the director's fault. He loved the actor's performance, which was better from this angle. He wouldn't see my point of view, doesn't understand the rules, and he won that argument. That rule is out the window nowadays."

So some of it is ignorance, and some of it is intentional. Me personally, as a rule, I don't argue with directors. I'd say when you make your own films, then you can set the rules.

Just because with digital, one can hedge bets and shoot the daylights out of everything to achieve absolute coverage does not mean that one should. Likewise, excusing the economy and speed achievable by jerky handheld work as a deliberate creative or artistic choice fools fewer and fewer as time passes and the technique becomes tiresome for audiences.

I had an occasion recently to work on a job where there were four or five top DPs having a conversation, and one of them spoke out against the ongoing trend to "shoot the moon" and create excessive coverage every day, often with multiple cameras, which as we know is often a big compromise in terms of lighting. He bemoaned the fall of the tradition that "every frame is sacred" with film, where people didn't waste footage -- instead, everyone on the set was very much aware that film was burning up in the camera, that it was expensive, and they had to get the shot right.

With digital, the respect for the frame has kind of gone away, since the footage is technically "free" -- just data on a drive. As a result, people roll and roll and roll and roll, to the point where instead of getting a typical 2-3 hours of footage a day (for a narrative shoot), you wind up with 6, 7, even 8 hours of footage a day. Trust me, an editor can't even go through that much footage in a typical day.

I can handle jerky camerawork when the subject matter dictates it, when the scene is well-staged, and the coverage lends itself to editing that makes logical sense. For example, I thought this was pretty well-done in Skyfall's editing. At least I never questioned who was throwing which punch, who was shooting (or getting shot), and which direction they were running in. There's a real art to doing this well. I think a lot of it -- for both director and DP -- is doing a lot of planning ahead of time, storyboarding the sequence, and knowing the location before you get there, so you shoot everything that you need, but no more than that.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

While there is always the need for rules... The best thing is that most of them can be broken...

While I do love traditional Cinematography, I also firmly believe that anything a Director must do to tell THE story, He/She should do, despite of any Rules, and this goes in 3D Movie Making as well, as far as they don't make you sick!!


I want to think as Moviemaking as a continuos trial and error experiencing of technics and shots, fireworks of mind and heart, to bring a story to life in such way to surprise, entertain and take the spectators on to a trip for those 2 hours, so, anything they can use to do this its good with me.

I specifically refused to go to any Film schools because of their traditionally unescapable ways of wanting to force upon you the ART, I wanted to remain true to my own ways of learning and seeing the world, I learned and continue to learn by watching, testing, lots of testing, experimenting, even more experimenting, and lots of more watching, mixing and mixing again any array of technics which I believe could work for me for a specific shot or story to be told...



Now, I just hope that even so I do it for my self, all that will one day watch my work, will enjoy what they see, and not view how many times I have broken or followed the rules...

 

[Nick Morrison]

I don't know, I'm a little split on this. I'm a producer/director dripping in old-school approach...but...I also live in an edit room every and have trained my mind to think/work in 10 frame bursts (I'm not kidding).

There seems to be a lot of emphasis on blaming the lazy directors, but I'd like to take the Marxist approach and consider the subtextual influences on said directors: mainly, the incredible explosion of editing technique and technology over the past 10 years.

When I first started, as a pup, at the dawn of the last decade, we were still cutting in "online rooms". Massive million dollar rooms with more wiring and tape than a Death Star. Within 3 years, we were all on Avid and our plodding 30sec promos were screeching forward at the speed of light. Those same editors who were limited by those clunking machines...had been unleashed. Finally able to edit as fast as they could think...they started to cut faster...and we followed suite. Music cuts were more ambitious, we could make selects that were these tiny 5 frame jump cuts. Bad, terrible shoots could be salvaged faster by wading through the crud and finding tiny micro crumbs of goodness.

So yes, director's have changed and evolved. And moved away from tradition. And I wont argue that the pacing of Raiders of the Lost Ark​ is infinitely more cinematic than any Bourne movie (though those are good too). But these directors, I have to imagine, are influenced by the post production process thats enabling, indeed forgiving, them for their rule breaking and transgressions. Cuz in today's day and age, we can cut the shit out of anything.

I guess my question is: what came first, the chicken or the egg?

 

[jimhare]

Heh, I shot an ultra low budget TVC for Band Aid last Saturday and later discovered I crossed the line on a detail closeup. Minor and I know it wouldn't bother anybody.

Luckily I had another shot from the same side so I could stay crossed until an animation took over, but it still bothered me that I allowed it to happen.

I got over it quickly but it's interesting how the rules stay with you and you punish yourself when you overlook them.

Breaking them is fine, but doing it by accident...

 

[Mark Britton]

It might sound silly, but I believe part of the reason that accumulated experience and guidelines that are successful and useful enough to be called "rules" are disregarded simply because they are called "rules". There's a tendency to believe that "rules" are confining, and that "breaking" them is rebellious and creative. And the old saw about you should follow the "rules" until you know enough to "break" them is waving a red flag in front of the bull. Just human nature, to some extent. No one wants to feel like they are screwing up or wrong. They'd rather believe they are inventive, creative and unique.

People make up stuff. Most of it is bad. Occasionally someone stumbles onto something that works (to some degree). It gets hailed as the hot new thing. Lots of people copy it. If it doesn't work out that well for copycats, it gets desperately clung to all the harder for a while because the copycats don't want to feel like they aren't as good as the originator. The general population is either oblivious to the new fad, or gets sick of it. If the general populous is oblivious to it, it becomes a new "rule". If the general population is turned off enough by it to not watch, it dies. Until someone reinvents it...

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm fine with intentional rule-breaking by people who know what they are doing.

My biggest beef is that with the average shot length decreasing, but the average shooting schedule also decreasing... the math tells you that the daily emphasis on the set is placed on quantity, not quality, of shots. Simply because they need more fodder for the editing room (not that editors appreciate being buried by more mediocre footage either... shot without a point-of-view by the director, not with their decreasing post schedules.) Hence running multiple cameras on even average dialogue scenes with eyelines all over the map and no real composition going on. Combine this with the fact that if the shot is only going to be on the screen for a second or two, what's the point of designing a complex composition and camera move that tells the story beautifully when they are just going to use quick cuts to tell the story? So not only are you given no time to set-up a shot, you also know in the back of your head that the editor will probably barely use many of your wide shots.

Now in my case, I've been luckier than most DP's -- I've only shot three TV series and two of them were produced by Spielberg, who prefers a well-designed moving master shot over a bunch of close-ups. In fact, directors get notes if they overuse close-ups. The other series I did, "Big Love", had already established a "no shot tighter than chest-up" guideline even before I arrived. It's great because you still can see the sets and locations if you are allowed to compose more loosely.

As for using multiple cameras, Kurosawa and the Scott Brothers were masters of that -- Tony Scott used multiple cameras on "Man on Fire" like an impressionist painter, and the shots were chosen in editing with a real aesthetic eye. Which shows you that what matters most is having good taste.

 

[Chris Gearhart]

Of course, there is the effect of the need to pound out more material, quicker, with less budget and deliberation. In an industry that is . . . what is fair, here . . . saturated?

I wonder if some of this is attributable to the fact that there are so many more works being created by a much more diverse population--and by diverse, I mean experientially diverse. I will over-generalize and overstate here, but there is more of a sense of discovery by the "masses", rather than a steady, disciplined group of individuals applying a measured development--the oft-noted "democratizing" of filmmaking. And I'm not saying this is a bad trend. Styles come and go quicker, but the over-all pace of advance is maybe comparable.

It might sound silly, but I believe part of the reason that accumulated experience and guidelines that are successful and useful enough to be called "rules" are disregarded simply because they are called "rules". There's a tendency to believe that "rules" are confining, and that "breaking" them is rebellious and creative. And the old saw about you should follow the "rules" until you know enough to "break" them is waving a red flag in front of the bull. Just human nature, to some extent. No one wants to feel like they are screwing up or wrong. They'd rather believe they are inventive, creative and unique.

People make up stuff. Most of it is bad. Occasionally someone stumbles onto something that works (to some degree). It gets hailed as the hot new thing. Lots of people copy it. If it doesn't work out that well for copycats, it gets desperately clung to all the harder for a while because the copycats don't want to feel like they aren't as good as the originator. The general population is either oblivious to the new fad, or gets sick of it. If the general populous is oblivious to it, it becomes a new "rule". If the general population is turned off enough by it to not watch, it dies. Until someone reinvents it...

So true. An inevitable result of more people in the game. And it's easier to adopt a consistent or extreme style than to have a well-developed toolkit from which to draw.

 

[Justin McAleece]

I would believe that a lot of the "indie" DP's are in the same boat as me on a lot of shoots. Occasionally we all get to work with good directors that have good scripts and are trying to make a top-notch project and they really "get" it. BUT most of the time we work with mediocre to decent directors who have no real clear vision, a bad script, poor art department and props, lame locations, miscast actors and a generally stacked against the DP deck. So what does that DP do?

He/she can use a measured, aesthetically cohesive approach that takes its time to develop, uses subtle lighting that is strongly motivated and never uses cheap camera tricks to make a quick impression --- All the while dealing with a director that wants to shoot from every angle imaginable, wants to slap people in the face with the "cool" imagery he can get out of the new tech that's available and has a script that is devoid of subtlety, slow deliberate character or story development and that will probably be a hellacious watch unless somehow improved by "pretty pictures."

So the DP decides to only shoot it in a motivated and subtle way, but in the end, what has that DP gained? Most of the time, the poor script/concept and poor direction is not the DP's fault (unless he has the luxury of choosing whatever project he wants) and so the only thing that might be worth doing is shooting the hell out it in an attempt to at least flex some muscles, try out some new things and (gasp) make some images that call attention to themselves. I know that I'm not the only who has had to say: "The story sucked and the acting was okay, but at least it looked good!" But that doesn't usually mean subtle.

I believe that if you give the master Roger Deakins a shitty script, poor art design, weak casting and lackluster locations that his work would actually look a bit boring too. No offense to him at all, but I think that he can have an extremely simple tripod closeup with one big key light and no back light in an engrossing movie with good dialogue of Leonardo DiCaprio and it will appear to be infinitely better "cinematography" than the exact same camera, lens, lighting and framing in a boring room with an actor that spouts inane words in a pointless movie with no set design. In many situations at a lower indie level, it is Everything BUT the camera, lens, composition and lighting that make the shot look better than those things do. So it comes down to the fact that if I'm a hired gun and I'm the most experienced person on set I have no real choice but to spice up the cinematography as much as possible, which means I'm often relying on cliche'ed, over-used, flavor of the month, excessive and shotgun-scatter-fire cinematography to try to bring something worth watching to the edit room. (cuz that's what the director probably LOVES anyway).

So I know what these debates are about, but sometimes I feel like I don't have a choice. Sometimes a slider move is the best thing about a scene. Sad but true.

 

[Justin McAleece]

I just thought of more.

And inevitably, the director who didn't have a clear vision to begin with gives the footage to the editor who is just trying to salvage what interesting bits he can and cut around the bad acting and so he ends up chopping it up way too fast and making it look like a muddled mess. So the DP and the editor look like jerks because the script and pre-pro for the project, which they were not involved, sucked. So they end up looking like cheap prostitutes... Even though they had the best of intentions. And I'm sure this goes for big-budget Hollywood movies as well.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Finally able to edit as fast as they could think...they started to cut faster...and we followed suite. Music cuts were more ambitious, we could make selects that were these tiny 5 frame jump cuts. Bad, terrible shoots could be salvaged faster by wading through the crud and finding tiny micro crumbs of goodness.

Pardon me, but I can remember dozens of 1980s music videos I worked on that were shot on film, edited on 3/4" videotape (the hard way), that had hundreds and hundreds of 10- and 5-frame cuts. And some iconoclastic filmmakers did this years before that, cutting on film. It can be done -- it's just easier today. Not better. All digital editing gives you is the ability to change your mind more. The flaw with this is giving filmmakers a crutch to be indecisive and cloudy with their judgement. In that sense, freedom can also lead to a lack of discipline, and I see a lot of that -- both in terms of the amount of footage shot, and the decisions being made in the edit room.

I'm fine with intentional rule-breaking by people who know what they are doing. ...My biggest beef is that with the average shot length decreasing, but the average shooting schedule also decreasing... the math tells you that the daily emphasis on the set is placed on quantity, not quality, of shots. Simply because they need more fodder for the editing room (not that editors appreciate being buried by more mediocre footage either...

Amen to everything that David says. He is 100% right here.

People are fooling themselves if they think a lot of rules on composition, editing, coverage, exposure, lenses, and so on on were done to force filmmakers to exist in a box. I think you can get away with pushing at the rules a little bit, but some of these are rules of logic and good taste that anybody with half a brain should understand.

There are always exceptions. I remember very well the very famous 1986 Honda TV commercial with Lou Reed, "Walk on the Wild Side," which is the first TV spot I can remember that used hyper-grainy film, countdown leader, scratched film, 16mm, B&W, color, whip-pans, camera roll-outs, and 35mm all in one spot, edited by Larry Bridges. It broke every rule in the book, but was a huge eye-catcher when it came out 25 years ago. This thing hit LA like an H-bomb and was an instant, stunning visual trend that affected tons of commercials and music videos that followed it. I asked a pal of mine who was an editor what he thought about it, and he sighed and said: "I liked the commercial. What makes me sad is knowing all the really crappy imitators that are going to follow it, only they won't break the rules nearly as effectively and artistically."

Here's that 1986 Clio-award-winning spot, for those who don't remember it:

 

[Mark Toia]

I was tempted not enter this discussion as I'm more a director these days... but I still shoot and edit most of my work ( probably because I'm bored )...
This thread seems to be beating up the director a little bit and rightly so in some circumstances.

I say this because a lot of directors that don't know how to shoot or edit themselves really rely on the brilliance of a good DP and editor... and if they cannot afford the good DP or editor... they tend to start gripping onto trendy looks and styles to enhance there story telling. Its survival and thats what people do.
Right or wrong... but sometimes this works and that director is deemed a film making legend if he pulls off that happy accident.

I'm a huge fan of experimentation though, I encourage it with alot of young people I'm mentoring at the moment. I havent created a "COOL NEW LOOK" of late, but in my early days, it was easy to be innovative with new cinematic looks and new editing styles... because the days of the slow drawn out editing process became hyper quick the moment I entered the scene when the latest AVID showed its face. All of a sudden we could cut 50x faster and experiment with different edit styles all day every day.... and now able to keep editing on the plane or train on the way home or to work. So so simple...

Is there a right way and a wrong way.... NO... I don't think so.
Ive been breaking the "RULES" for the last 15 years to alot of people disgust and I've made a fortune from breaking the rules of this business.

As far as I'm concerned, What ever style sells and gets bum's on seats wins... What ever excites you and tells a strong story wins. What ever makes my client leap up and hi five me... WINS. And if I have broken the rules of editing and cinematography.. then so be it.
Who really cares if its shot on 16mm, 5D's, 35mm or RED or Alexa... with great lighting or know lighting at all...
If it works, if it feels right... if it makes money and pays the bills, the crews, the next film gets made... It WINS.

Fans vote with there feet and there wallets...
Tv commercial clients do exactly the same.

As far as Im concerned... following the "RULES" died many years ago, pretty much around the same time FCP /AVID came onto the scene.. The RULES have been crushed dead again when cheap 35mm sensored cameras came to the game.
NY TV show "Hill street blues" started the shakey cam for drama shows.... and for ever more it will stay.
A crappy $69,000 dollar film called "BLAIR WITCH" changed the film making land scape for ever as well...
All of a sudden it wasnt about how good it was shot or edited , it was about all about the content and the hype.
Everyone is now shaking there cameras and shooting in all directions... And the "RULES" continuity fly out the window.
As far as I can see... there aren't anymore. And the old film school teachings of "Crossing the line" is all but dead..

I watched 2001 a space odyssey a few weeks back with my son.. I raved on and on about it being the best film I ever watched as a kid and blazed on about how awesome it was shot and edited.... I watched it again in complete shock, my son questioned my movie credibility and walked out. All the RULES were abided by within that film.
Watch the first Lord of the rings again... You will sit back and say to yourself, I cannot remember the editing being so slow and drawn out... At the time it felt so... perfect.
I hate 48fps 3d... My 15 year old son thought it was the coolest thing ever !!! ... Already I see myself having OLD SCHOOL...

I can see the future, some what.... And the future is what the hip young film makers are creating in there laptops using there little Canon 5d's or Scarlets... These New kids on the block with know formal training what so ever are stumbling over cinematic and editing gold with there trendy new styles... and they are not to be ignored.
Why I know this is becuase i used to be one of those kids... I burst onto the scene so strong in the mid nineties, I had peoples heads spinning, my local competition were decimated in about two years... I broke all the rules at the time (and still do) and I cleaned up to the shock and horror of the "OLD SCHOOL" players.

The youth are the future of TV & Motion picture and there cool trendy new styles will roll into movie land quicker than quick.

To use the word "OLD SCHOOL" is just that... "OLD SCHOOL" If you don't look forward or try to be innovative with new styles... editing or cinematography, you will fall away into the shadows. This is an age old fact, I've seen many great DP friends and editing careers die off over the years, due to thinking the old way is the best way.

I personally say have fun and keep on experimenting, break the rules and see what you may end up with.

Saying all that... David Mullens reply was smack on the money as well.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Pardon me, but I can remember dozens of 1980s music videos I worked on that were shot on film, edited on 3/4" videotape (the hard way), that had hundreds and hundreds of 10- and 5-frame cuts. And some iconoclastic filmmakers did this years before that, cutting on film. It can be done -- it's just easier today. Not better. All digital editing gives you is the ability to change your mind more. The flaw with this is giving filmmakers a crutch to be indecisive and cloudy with their judgement. In that sense, freedom can also lead to a lack of discipline, and I see a lot of that -- both in terms of the amount of footage shot, and the decisions being made in the edit room.

Hey listen Marc, I didn't mean to offend. And I by no means suggest that there weren't fast edits in the 80's, it was just HARDER. And in my world of promo, we don't got all day. We usually have to turn a spot around in a couple of days. We don't have weeks. So, yeah Avid changed our life completely. And our edits became exponentially faster, and for the most part...the promos exponentially better.

And that's the thing. For those who had the money and the time (like you agency guys), the technique's were not a limitation. You could still cut a fast commercial as long as you had the time and the resources. But further down the pay scale...in indie cinema...and in promo...Avid/FCP changed the game. Because it finally allowed us the freedom to cut like you agency boys, but in three days time. We became more creative. The rules became ripe for breaking. And all our shoots changed. The way we directed our shoots morphed. Because of all the freedom we suddenly had in post.

Post has had a huge influence on production. It's allowed rules to be broken/ignored, because it's so much easier to cut around them. Especially if you have 4 cameras. If you do it well like Tony Scott, then great. Do it badly, and you look like a TV Movie.

In the end, as Dave Mullen correctly points out, it's all about taste. In this do anything atmosphere, I think ironically it's the DP's and Directors who are the MOST EXPERIENCED, and MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE, that are able to break the rules effectively. Those that just wing it in the name of "genius" or "inspiration" are asking for trouble and inevitably flame out.

There's no substitute for knowing the rules and being classically trained. Picasso could draw better than his father by the time he was 12, and was impeccably well trained (he was doing exact replicas of Velazquez masterpieces by age 15). And yet it was this incredible foundation that allowed him to explode the western canon and reinvent modern art in his 20's and 30's. If he had just wung it, he wouldn't have had the ability to surgically dismantle tradition. It was BECAUSE he was a master of the rules that he was able to precisely look at them and pick them apart.

To me, the intersection of classicism and innovation is where it's at. It's what floats my boat anyway.

 

[Christopher Mills]

I think that the democratization of tools has led to a huge quantity of poorly made material that we are NOT seeing.
Why? Because it sucks.
As in cooking, if it tastes good, it is good, and people want and enjoy it.

If it tastes bad, then people don't.

If your indie project is not getting picked up, maybe it's not any good.

Have seen a plethora of people who have no sense of what to point the lens at, how to shape the light, and what coverage will be useful.

The ultra sharp resolution, dynamic range of the cameras, and flexibility of color grading the image have been a huge crutch for them.

There are reasons for the rules of composition and cutting.

Only people who either natively or by training have a sense of taste and reason for diverging from those rules can create a tasty set of images when they do so.

Which leaves us with the other issues of rotten scriptwriting, tone deafness to performance, and lack of ability to understand character arc and story points in unpracticed directors.

Not jaded, I keep getting work... some of it is even on projects I like