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The proffesional look?
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virgilxavier,
The press stories you have been reading touting the miracles a certain director had using pro-consumer equipment on his last movie are at best promotional hype with a sense of confusion added by the writer who could not tell the difference between a Panaflex and a fisher price camera.
The professional look you are seeking is the result of what so many on this thread have cleared pointed out which is raw creative talent first and foremost. Talent combined with technology equals memorable images. The combination of talent,experience, motivation, desire along with technology are some of key ingredients necessary for creative productions.
Any movie analog, film or digital toliet paper needs to have a crew who understands and is experienced in the art of creative lighting and movie making. Mastering any new digital medium still starts and ends with the most essential analog element lighting, lighting and lighting.
Buying a prosumer camera and expecting the internal digital marvels to outshine those who have spent a lifetime mastering the craft of moviemaking is similar to buying a VW bug at the flea market and then showing up at Nascar in an attempt to qualify for entry.
However learning the craft of moviemaking only requires a keen interest and desire to learn from those before them. If you are sincerely interested consider taking an introductory lighting class to learn how to shape, mold and draw with a palette of lighting instruments and tools.
The core elementary skills you learn will last a lifetime.
Good luck,
Tony Salgado
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[virgilxavier] “another movie Full Frontal by sondbergh that meets the “look” criteria
“turns out he’s shooting with a “bare-bones” XL-1s with a Century wide-angle attachment from Birns & Sawyer. The editing for the movie is being done on Final Cut Pro 3.0.””Interesting…I thought the parts of full frontal that I saw looked a little rough actually…
There are lots of publicity stunt sort of projects going on out there with prosumer equipment over-achieving. We actually made a video with the Z-1 the year they rolled it out at NAB that was shown in the Sony booth. I was stationed in the Adobe booth so they were sending people to me with questions…it was very odd.
The most heard remark was “I can’t believe you made those images with a $5,000.00 camera.”
My response was “I didn’t.”
I made those images with a:
VERY skilled Director of Photography
a professional gaffer
two grips
two stylists
a steadicam rig
a doorway dolly
…and a 3 ton grip truck (relatively small equipment truck-cube van loaded with lights and related gear…HMIs, tungsten, silks, rigging, etc.)…and me (directing).
Oh yeah…and a $5,000.00 camera. Never mind the crew and gear cost more for one day than buying the camera outright.
Cameras CAPTURE images…YOU make them.
People have to understand that technology will NEVER trump technique.
TimK,
Kolb Productions,
Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net -
Thank you, Tim, for your terrific post.
Personally, I find it shockingly ignorant, if not insulting, when people suggest that you can create great cinematography simply by purchasing a more capable camera or modern film stock.
Artists can make beautiful films with virtually any camera; higher quality cameras or film stocks may well help, but it really depends on what look is best to tell the story. I think of the contrasting styles in “Bringing out the dead,” which is deliberately gritty and blown out, and the lush majesty of “Geisha.”
There is no substitute for talent and skill.
Good shooting!
Leo
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Hi Leo,
I don’t think people intend to be insulting…they just simply don’t know.
My point to them is that no one expects someone off the street to buy the world’s most expensive stove and become Emeril or the highest quality paint brush and be Picasso, but Emeril could probably blow you away with something he made from left overs on a campfire and I suspect Picasso could create compelling imagery with Crayolas.
I think the field itself has propagated some of this. Part of the standard marketing throughout the mid-late 80’s and all of the 90’s was the infamous “equipment list”. You could have a 9 year old who barely knew anything beyond playing Pac Man operating, but if it was on a Media Composer…you could book it. We had Media 100s and we regularly got pushed out by the pitch that Avids were the only “professional” system…even though in many cases our professional credentials were superior.
Don’t even get me started on Sony cameras or Sachtler tripods…
All of this hardware-oriented posturing is coming home to roost for the mid-level production shop, which must now come to terms with the fact that anybody with some cash can buy this gear these days…but then, as I wrote in my very first article on the Cow…the equipment has always been a commodity no matter what it cost.
TimK,
Kolb Productions,
Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net -
Well said Tim,
The marketing machine is all about hype, lies, mistruths, half truths, speculation, puffery, and somewhere in there more BS than you care to step in anyday.
People first, last and in between is what it is all really about.
Tony Salgado
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I think I hit a nerve, the truth hurts.
In the early 90’s Vilmos Zimond was interviewed in American Cinematographer, saying, today with the new film stock and lenses its easy to create beautiful images, its still hard to tell a story.
Sounds right to me. He was responding to a question regarding how the new stuff made it easier. He acknowledges the effect of the new stuff, and how utterly irrelevant it is in being a Cinematographer.
Chris
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[Blub06] ”
I think I hit a nerve, the truth hurts.In the early 90’s Vilmos Zimond was interviewed in American Cinematographer, saying, today with the new film stock and lenses its easy to create beautiful images, its still hard to tell a story.
Sounds right to me. He was responding to a question regarding how the new stuff made it easier. He acknowledges the effect of the new stuff, and how utterly irrelevant it is in being a Cinematographer.”
He, he…yeah, well if that is true, wouldn’t you guys be out putting us technique guys out of business instead of here asking us how you make your pictures look like you’re a professional? You have the gear, correct?
Vilmos Zimond is a guy with obvious experience and talent and he’s probably forgotten more than a lot of guys will ever know. I suspect his remarks were aimed at other experienced professionals…not anyone who wants to buy a prosumer HDV camcorder for $1500.00.
If the camera or gear could do it by itself, virgilxavier would be taking our work instead of asking for our advice I would think…
Good luck with your career if you plan on creating it based on tape stock or a particular camera model.
TimK,
Kolb Productions,
Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net -
What we have here is failure to communicate. I guess that
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[Blub06] “I think what is causing this miscommunication is the word professional. I don
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First, learn to spell “professional,” at least when you’re posting to umpteen thousand people.
You’re lucky to have gotten such fantastic advice. There are some great responses here. It’s a very tough thing to achieve, largely because when you succeed, nobody notices WHAT you’ve done, only that it attracts their interest. Here is my sense of what goes into “the look.”
1. Actors — people that you want to look at on screen. Interesting faces, not necessarily pretty ones. Even when you’re making a documentary, when you see one through the camera, you silently go “Yippee.”
2. Shallow depth of field. Big blurry backgrounds, often with light sources creating blobs.
3. Shoot on film or a very high-end video camera. A creamy look rather than a harsh electronic one.
4. Lighting which undergirds the story. It could be the delicate use of fill in an otherwise strongly motivated scene which creates a nice luminous light on the faces (the current version of the “obie”) or it can be no light at all where that helps sell the character (exterior/porch scenes in “Unforgiven”).
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