Cinematography = the art of photography and camera work in film
Cinematographer = a person who oversees or directs photography and camerawork in film making
A cinematographer is in charge of directing the cameras and photography, while a director controls the entire cast and crew involved with the film.
In Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott, 1982), one scene which stood out for me was the death of Zhora, one of the escaped Replicants. This scene occurs around half way through the film, and is significant for a number of different reasons.
The costumes used in this scene are very different for the characters of Zhora and Deckard. Deckard wears a long coat and scruffy clothes, which is quite a simple outfit. This reflects the typical costumes that detectives would wear in this neo-noir genre of film. On the other hand, Zhora’s outfit seems more futuristic, due to the see-through coat she’s wearing. Both costumes have elements of eighties clothes in them, but also futuristic qualities to them, which both sets the scene of 2019 but keeps it grounded in reality for the 1982 audience. The costume designer for this film – Michael Kaplan – would have thought carefully about the costumes for each of these characters. Deckard’s costume has been used to reflect his personality as a Blade Runner, while Zhora’s strange style makes her easily identifiable to Deckard. The detail that has gone into these costumes helps to immerse the viewer into the advanced society, making it more believable for them.
In this scene, there are also lots of extras, making the city street seem very overcrowded. This is important, as it helps the audience to imagine the city life in future Los Angeles, which makes it more realistic for them. Also, the confusing noises and sounds of a typical street help to increase the believability of this scene for the audience, as normally a futuristic world would be difficult to imagine. Many of the extras featured in this scene are wearing clothes that would be typical of Eastern cultures, such as China. This is because, in the film, these cultures have become more prominent in America as the countries became more wealthy. Some of the props that the extras use also help to remind the reader of the futuristic society that is in place – for example the man with flashing glasses or the man whose umbrella has a light in it.
As Zhora falls through the series of glass panes, there is harsh neon lighting which fills the screen. This helps to capture the scene, as it contrasts against her dying. Again, it creates verisimilitude for the audience by making the world of 2019 Los Angeles more real for them. The heavily lit background around Zhora also contrasts the darkness that surrounds Deckard. This section of the scene also has sad music in the background while Zhora is dying. This could have been used as a way to show Deckard’s empathy for Zhora, as he didn’t really want to hunt the Replicants down at the start of the film. It helps to create a poignant tone to the scene, and makes the audience feel sorry for Zhora, even though she is just a Replicant.
In the background of this scene, there are also some neon advertising signs, for example the Atari sign. These small details in the set design make the city appear to be well thought out by the designers involved in production. It also adds a bit of context for the audience, as it helps them to understand the culture of the 2019 society. There are many neon signs with Chinese writing on them, as well as many umbrellas designed like traditional Chinese paper umbrellas. This is anther way of showing the audience the Eastern cultures that have dominated the society.
The moments when Zhora is shot are in slow motion, emphasising her fear that she feels just before she dies. It also could be representing how she is helpless to do anything in this situation. The fact that it is in slow motion means that the flickering of the neon lights are captured more than they would have been otherwise. However, this is quite effective, as it adds a dreamlike quality to the scene, making the audience relate to the suffering that Zhora faces in her last moments. The sound of gunshots bring the scene back to reality, rather than allowing the dreamlike qualities of it become too intense.
When filming Rope (1948), Alfred Hitchcock intended for the film to have the effect of one long continuous take, but the cameras available could hold no more than 1000 feet of 35 mm film. As a result, each take used up to a whole roll of film and lasts up to 10 minutes. Many takes end with a dolly shot to a featureless surface (such as the back of a character’s jacket), with the following take beginning at the same point by zooming out. The entire film consists of only 11 shots.
This film is notable for taking place in real time and being edited so as to appear as a single continuous shot through the use of long takes. In film-
making, a long take is a shot lasting much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general. Significant camera movement and blocking are elements of long-taking, and elements used in the film “Rope”.
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I find that a “good” film has a balance of many different elements throughout. For instance, a film can be directed incredibly, have amazing cinematography, impeccable sound design and talented actors, but if the writing is awful, it brings the whole film down, and this is interchangeable with many of the micro and macro elements of filmmaking.
As well as this balance, there also must be a reason for people to want to watch your film; this could be due to a unique but recognizable editing style, like that of Edgar Wright’s films, or Quentin Tarantino’s writing and directing style of extended dialogue and non-chronological storylines. The style of a Director will attract different audiences to see different films. It is also important for a “good” film to include things that many audience members will take for granted, like sound design and editing. In my opinion, these elements are some of the most important as they can really immerse the audience into the film, and help the director get across what they want the audience to feel.
In connection with this to this, there is the cinematography of a film, and while it is a slightly more obvious part of filmmaking that audiences will likely notice more than sound or editing, there are still many people who will take for granted the way a film is shot. For instance, when I saw ‘The Revenant’ for the first time, I took the incredible sweeping shots of the forest and natural lighting for granted, but after researching it, finding out how it was shot and how there was no artificial lights used, it made me appreciate an entirely different side to the film that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
The narrative of a film is shown in many different ways; most obviously there is the narrative through dialogue and characters, however using visual elements to convey the story, when used effectively, can produce a much more realistic and immersive world for the audience to get involved in.
In conclusion, a “good” film must have a balance of all the key micro/macro elements, as well as a style to distinguish it from other movies and directors, making your film recognizable, without people necessarily knowing whom the director is before hand. However, I find the most important characteristic of a film is to get the audience immersed in the film using all of the micro and macro elements.
I agree with Spike Lee’s opinion on films staring black people must be directed by a black person to some extent. I think that Spike Lee has the right to be critical of people misrepresenting or misappropriating black culture or black individuals, however, I personally don’t believe that ONLY black people can create an authentic experience of a black character in film. Most directors,no matter their race, want to convey a good story, and i believe that if there has been proper research and planning carried out, especially in a film about black people in the past, that directors should not have to limit themselves in terms of how they cast and portray a character. Just because films like Django Unchained(Tarantino, 2012), or Detroit (Bigelow, 2017) star black people in leading roles, does not mean that their culture or race has been misrepresented. To conclude, I believe that it is understandable that Spike Lee thinks that his race is being misrepresented, and i do believe that there are a lot of films out there which do misappropriate black culture, however, just because a director is white, it should not limit them from the kind of films they should make, and similarly i believe that black directors can use white actors to portray characters in their films.
I have chosen this scene from The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980) as it is an interesting example of a long take. Creating long take scenes are very difficult for directors, as everything must be filmed in one continuous shot, with no stopping or camera cutting. This means that the entire scene must be well rehearsed, especially when it contains lots of extras. If anything goes wrong in the scene, then the entire thing must be started again. Even though this scene doesn’t contain a lot of characters, it is still difficult to get something like this right. This scene adds to the suspense of the film, as the audience thinks there could be something around any corner.
I think that this scene from Thor: Ragnarok (dir. Taika Waititi, 2017) has used the idea of spacing very effectively. The director has chosen to have the Valkyrior coming from above, and for Hela to be positioned below, which creates a stunning contrast between the two. The audience could also interpret this as having a symbolic meaning – as the Valkyrior above represent heavenly angels. This was a very good decision by the director, as the positioning emphasises how Hela is bad and could bring chaos to Asgard. Even though nearly the entire scene was made using visual effects in post production, it still looks amazing.
There is a notable formula to the box office numbers in 2018. for instance, almost all of them are action movies, as action movies are usually fairly easy to follow and understand. Action movies are also trying to compete with video games to try and keep the audience engaged in the film.
Many of the films also star A-list actors that lots of people know about. films with well known actors in them are more likely to be successful as people can go to the cinema to see someone specifically in a film.
Seven of the highest grossing films are either sequels or part of an established franchise – this means that many people will be drawn in to see a film because it is part of a franchise they already like, or because they enjoyed the first movie and want to see more in the sequel.
Half of the top ten highest grossing films are either adaptations from books or comics; this is because,of the people that read the book/comic, many of them will want to see how faithful of an adaptation the director has created, while others go because they want to see the pages that they’ve read turn into a movie on the big screen.
The Sixth Sense (dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 1999), has a clever use of color throughout the film. For example, whenever something bad was going to happen or ghosts were going to appear, red would appear in the scene in some way In this scene, when Cole goes into the tent, he sees the ghost of a young girl who was killed by her mother. The red tent symbolises that the ghost will come, making the audience already feel tense before it happens. The use of red throughout this film is very clever, as it is a subtle hint towards the ghosts appearing, as red is usually associated with danger.
I think that Planet of the Apes (dir. Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968) has an excellent use of makeup, and the level of detail that went into the apes’ faces was incredible, even though the movie was made in the 60s. Their faces were applied using a mixture of makeup and prosthetics, which would have taken a long time to apply. As there were many extras in the film, a lot of time would have been spent applying everyone’s makeup. More modern Planet of the Apes films use post-production effects for the large cast numbers, which is more efficient than applying each person with makeup. However, this doesn’t look as realistic as the prosthetics do, because CGI effects can start to look outdated.