Steven Speilberg

[miraclemonsters]

The art is in the artist, not the brush, or the canvas.

Graeme

I beg to differ on this one.

Art, when we speak about the visual arts, is as much about the tools as it is about the person using them.

Because the choice of tools greatly affects your art. You may have an image in your mind, but the choice of brush, color and canvas determines how that mental image will translate into reality. Painters, Renoir, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, they went through intense processes of choosing those tools, the right material for a canvas, picking ingredients for their colors.

Now you could argue that by the simple fact that the artist chooses the tools, it's all about the artist anyway and not the tools.

At any given time in history, art reflected the state of the art or more precisely, the tools available.

I think Star Wars is a great cinemactic example of what has been said here. I am sure that George Lucas might have leaped at CGI and digital cameras at the top of his career. Now that he has them, have the latter three parts been any better than the first? I have a pretty firm opinion on this...

There is an inherent danger to art in not having any obstacles. A world in which everything is possible is ultimately boring. Both in the visual arts as well as in story telling. We need those edges and difficulties!

Because as we all know, many things which are today perceived as strokes of genius, were in fact brought about by limitations of possibilities.

my two cents anyway.... Tobias

 

[number6]

It is a sad reflection that Spielberg's name has now come to be associated only with digital technology and effects. To develop appreciation of film as a "critic" should go beyond simple visuals.

What makes a director great vs. others? Is it just special effects or film technique?

There are several moments in Spielberg's films where you wonder why did a director did things in a way that he did. In "Jaws" there is a scene where the community has gathered in a room arguing about something (can't seem to remember now, but must have been the shark). And if I remember correctly there was that side door which was closed. However, as soon as the camera moved between the audience to a key character, whose voice was only heard before, you see the same door behind him as open. Now why would any director do that? But in my estimation Spielberg did that because he knew that was a very key point in the scene where every body (including the audience in theater) are now focused on that person and depth perception is really helpful in creating a great visual to go with his persona. He could have kept the door closed or had him next to wall, but then the scene would have been too flat and he wanted to give him that depth to that moment.

Same in the famous dolly/zoom shot on the beach when there was an alarm regarding the shark. He could have the guy sitting next to that wall (if I remember correctly, there was something like a wall/tent/etc., near by), but he had him sit slightly off, so that you could see far in the horizon, and when they do that dolly/zoom the depth perception really make the audience feel the moment.

In master filmmaker David Lean's last film "Passage to India", there was a scene where they showed locals witnessing foreigners off-boarding a ship. A typical special effects-minded film director might have gone to great extent to show perhaps great visuals of the ship, an object. But David Lean understood the moment of the visual reaction of the locals to foreigners is more important than glorifying an object, and he just showed that ship in the background, and for all practical purposes he might have used a simple painting in the background. But he used the moment to great effect by that simple technique of putting that ship in the background.

Joofa, you should start a thread in Adobe Workflows in re your Plug in stating it is available for dounload. Can't wait to read how it works for users, and then for the PC version.

edit: Oh, and for the purpose of making the above post on topic, Spielberg is right... and Spielberg is wrong... depending on your POV.

 

[Dj Joofa]

Joofa, you should start a thread in Adobe Workflows in re your Plug in stating it is available for dounload. Can't wait to read how it works for users, and then for the PC version.

Don't want to hijack this thread, but there is a thread in Adobe Workflows regarding the plugin. You can already tryout the plugin if you are on a Mac. Kindly download it from www.djjoofa.com. I have done some simple testing with FCP and AE and it works great.

It should relieve some dependency on Automatic Duck Pro Import AE as one can do an EDL export instead of FCP XML export. However, FCP XML export has more information embedded in it and I might add the support for XML also, as I have everything in place now; it is just a matter of reading XML files.

I do have some current limitations imposed on it currently, but they are more for me controlling its behavior while people try it out and I can remove them later.

Now back to Spielberg stuff ....

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Now back to Spielberg stuff ....

Actually Spielberg was always wanted to be charismatic film director something like a Kubrick.

But he never been more then a movie entertainer.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Digital Cinema is a technical and a financial victory for filmmaking, not an artistic one.

Art is a timeless, human phenomenon that comes from the hearts, minds and spirits of human beings.

In a mysterious way, it comes out of Life itself..

Art may reside in a cave painting, in a 35mm film, in a RED One film....

It doesn't matter what the tools and the canvas are made of...

So, I think Spielberg is right and wrong at the same time.

He is concerned about the soul.. and rightly so.... if we lose it, no 35mm film roll or a RED One or whatever would ever matter...

An HVX200, a RED One or a Scarlet won't make you a Spielberg... a man who is undoubtedly a genius of cinema...

But these tools are giving us the chance that he himself didn't have when he was starting his career...

A chance to try without being restrained by lack of money or connections.

Nevertheless, I'm a little worried of all these digital toys, they're starting to establish a new visual fashion.

I gotta say that a lot of things that i see coming out of the digital cameras [even RED One] look sterile.

OK, this is subjective, but I don't like that.

It is NOT filmic and it IS soulless.

I believe it is mainly a question of who is using the tool and how the processing is done, CC, etc. etc.

But all this pursuit of the cleanest, sharpest image possible is a little scary.

Technically? OK, it's impressive.

Artistically? Not always.

It's lifeless.

So the question is how to mimic effectively the aesthetics, established by 35mm cinematography, using cheap-er Digital cameras and not to establish new visual aesthetics.

Art matters.

Spirit matter.

Humans matter.

Tools are secondary.

Anything goes, as long as it goes.

...

And yes, I hope Spielberg gives us many, many more of his wonderful movies, in a way that he sees fit.

He is truly one of the greatest filmmakers.

 

[Dj Joofa]

Richard Bare in his famous book "The Film Director" describes that when Spielberg was young and wanted to move into filmmaking, he just one day wore a suit and sneaked into Universal Studios and even hijacked an office and setup his base there and then would stroll around the sets talking with famous people, who would think that he were some employee. One day he was caught, but Universal seeing his passion let him continue.

 

[laguun]

I am a great admirer of Mr. Spielbergs work and art.

I personally however prefer perfect and pristine image quality as "canvas", and wish for recording, production and distribution where the artist can choose the "grittyness" of the work - so i have to disagree with his wish having an recording/distribution medias fault providing an paradigm of an art and business.

I however think he is wrong when he still gives film 20 years, that would be 2028.

One can only guesstimate, but i would suppose:

-majority of cinemas in the USA become digital: 2011-2014.
digital projectors are outselling their mechanical counterparts since 2006.

-majority of sold 35mm cameras in the world become digital: 2007 or 2008, depending if basing that on sales or deliveries. I expected that rather later 2010-2014, when nikon etc automatically enter our industry, simply as their dslrs probaly will do 30 fps and up soon enough.

the inner workings of all industries being translated from mechanical / magnetical to digital are pretty similar, and the smaller the niche, the slower they happen. our niche, being the smallest, is the last to reinvent itself, but its basically an old hat - tv, science, and photography which used mechanical cameras with film as main system dropped this decades or yeras ago.

 

[Gary Stone]

Gary, not to dash your dreams or anything, but out of a $300m budget, very little (less than 0.3%) would've been spent on film stock. I think the budget wouldve been the same had that $300m movie been shot on RED.

dashing my dreams is not an option :biggrin: i meant that as a general "holy crap, they spent 300M dollars for 2 and a half hours of entertainment?!!"

i just find that incredible. i'm pretty sure i knew it wasn't all spent on film stock.

 

[Aiden Cornwell]

Film is dead and I can't wait.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Film is dead and I can't wait.

That's good line for a song lyrics.

Next RHCP hit?

Film is dead and I can't waait.
Got a couple of redheads at my gate.

 

[Ramesh Jai]

In 20 years time there will be a whole generation of film makers who would have never worked with film. There will be no 'film nostalgia' for them. The little imperfections of film will be replaced with the little imperfections of digital cinema. Life goes on. Stories will continue to be told. The only thing that cannot be replaced is Mr.Spielberg's genius.

 

[subfreq]

It's an odd quote from the guy who also said,

“A little movie called Once gave me enough inspiration to last the rest of the year,”

That was miniDV, shot on a Sony Z1. The art of the DP and Director is what made the film. The format was immaterial.

I understand his sentiment because the classic film process is changing, but what should be exciting is that film making at a high level is now possible from your front room with a Red and FCP.

I think it's an exciting time in Film history.

 

[jpp]

With all due respect to Graeme, the tools used in a visual medium determine its ultimate nature. Oil paints will not produce the same results as acrylics, water colors or Photoshop, and no amount of digital simulation will close the gap, unless the viewer brings very little attention to the matter.

Modern digital audio recording may be far, far more "accurate" and artifact-free than any vinyl recording ever made, but no one has ever established that these margins of "accuracy" are decisive or necessarily desirable in a playback system which is fundamentally inaccurate to begin with. And whether this level of reproduced "accuracy" in a flawed and delimited reproduction chain actually gives pleasure is a whole other question.

Though it's hard to explain why, there is something ultimately humanizing in the defects of a film print (up to a point, at least!). Grain, for example, seems to have its own organic life, which is absorbed into the dramatic texture, making it more real or, at any event, making a deeper appeal to the imagination of the viewer. The same can't be said for digital distortion and artifacts.

Sure, grain and all the other painterly qualities and humanizing imperfections of film can be credibly recreated with plugins, and the stuff about loving the smell of film, etc., is stretching the argument (open a film can, and the toxins are enough to knock you over), so perhaps Spielberg is simply expressing nostalgia. But you don't have to love Spielberg to see his point.

Every time there's a major technological shift, something gets lost. And as the digital revolution coincides with what is probably the slow death of cinema, through a combination of economics, profit motive, narrative exhaustion and the mass-market work of people like Steven Spielberg, that loss becomes all the more regrettable.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

Let's look at the original quote again:

"Sadly, in twenty years, movies will all go digital. There will be no photochemical steps - no film, no developing, no correcting the color in the lab and having a hellacious time doing it. It will all be too easy and very clean and very slick and, I think, very souless. The little imperfections are what make film a great art. When it loses that -"

My comment was that it was the artist that makes the art, not the choice of media. I think that's still valid. I don't equate digital with souless. I don't equate it with clean or slick. After all, 65mm film can look incredibly clean and slick.

The tools and the media can define the look, to an extent, but there is not a single unique look to each media, and it's the artist that defines how, precisely that media does look. I do paint with oils, and my techniques do not look very much like traditional oil paintings, for instance.

To me, it's almost like saying that unless the script is typed by hand on a mechanical typewriter, it will have no soul. Using a word processor or computer to produce your script will render it without artistic merit. And that's just not true.

Graeme

 

[Morten Eriksen]

...oh and 16 bit digital audio has a dynamic range almost twice that of vinyl and tape by the way...but vinyl definitely has a sound.

 

[Stephen Williams]

Technically with digital you can FAKE any film look.

All it's about an attitude.

Hi,

I am not sure you can fake the soft roll off of highlights that film achieves as standard.

Not accepting the advantages & disadvantages of any system both film and video would also be an attitude thing IMO.

Stephen

 

[Harry Clark]

And there's a soft roll-off (distortion) when you saturate 2" analog tape. Just like film.
And 16-bit 44.1K CD standard captures 20 hZ to 20Khz, but tape can capture far higher frequencies.
Digital (sound or video) has to contend with quantization errors, aliasing, and other defects of a "sampled" image.
And I DO believe that the kludgy nature of typing on a typewriter alters how much you revise and second-guess your work. Ditto for cutting on film. Ditto for endless permutations of a song's mix in Pro-Tools. What about auto-tuning vocals? What about CGI? Spell check for poetry?
If you paint with acrylics, your painting dries faster and you can revise on a dry canvas. With oils, you really have to want to wait and "mean to" revise, or accept a certain stylistic choice of painting over slightly wet and soft paint.
Not bashing anyone here. I own a Red, HDX-900s and an SDX-900. I still shoot film sometimes. I love the fast feedback and flexibility of digital systems but really enjoy the dynamic range and forgiveness of film... and now I'm rambling.
But you cannot say that there is not a difference between mediums, nor that the work you achieve is somehow not affected by the choice of medium.
Anyway... just sayin'.
Harry

 

[number6]

From my point of view, the film vs digital argument is pointless. I cannot and probably would never be able to work with film. I can work with RED.

 

[jpp]

To me, it's almost like saying that unless the script is typed by hand on a mechanical typewriter, it will have no soul. Using a word processor or computer to produce your script will render it without artistic merit. And that's just not true.

Graeme

Believe it or not, a number of people have made exactly that argument and anyone who's ever written a book length manuscript on a typewriter can tell you why: when you have to to retype large blocks of text which would otherwise go untouched to make even minor changes, it amounts to forced rewriting and reconsideration, usually a good thing. And some people use what amounts to a film stock analogy: if you know a change is going to cost you 5 hours of typing (or a few hundred or a few thousand dollars in film stock), you think very carefully before doing it.

But, anyway, I don't think the analogy is a good one. In theory, no one can tell whether a book was written by hand or on a word processor (though, again, some people would dispute that). But differences between film and digital cinema are far more obvious.

Don't get me wrong. Fighting the d-cinema revolution would be absurd, not to mention a losing battle. It's also true that modern film stocks look more and more like digital acquisition as they get "better". But I still think something will be lost, when the transition is complete. Can't speak for Steven, but I think that's all he's saying.

[Edit: Harry Clark kind of beat me to it, but we'll let this one stand.]

 

[Michael "Dorkman" Scott]

Again, I think the most significant words in Spielberg's quote are "too easy". It has nothing to do with film vs. digital per se and everything to do with the mindset of filmmakers who essentially get everything handed to them on a silver platter. Compared to dealing with film, us digital types are incredibly spoiled with an embarrassment of riches as far as how much easier it is to get an image and how much easier it is to work with it -- especially thanks to RED. We can polish and revise something until time or money runs out -- and I think that's what he's most concerned about. It is possible to polish the life out of something, and while technically "perfect" it does become, in fact, soulless. Seen lots of shorts like that in my time.

Whereas in the photochemical process, you've gotta work for it. You can't click a button and try a dozen different things. You've got to have a vision in advance and you've got to be clever in getting it. I think he's trying to remind everyone that you still have to come at filmmaking with that mindset, even in the inevitable digital era.