What is cinematography?

what makes cinematography good or bad?

please post examples of cinematography. explain if it is good or bad cinematography, and why.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=6hC_qfDXGBQ
youtube.com/watch?v=eX_iASz1Si8
youtube.com/watch?v=LuqmDd0EXkU
youtube.com/watch?v=LF3ZwXEG45M
youtube.com/watch?v=ke2CFuLQ6t8
youtube.com/watch?v=pCe_L9MP_a4
youtube.com/watch?v=QU8jKn7sMwU
youtube.com/watch?v=8RK4sp8aMWA
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

>good cinematography
youtube.com/watch?v=6hC_qfDXGBQ
>natural, floating camera, makes you feel like you're right there

>bad cinematography
youtube.com/watch?v=eX_iASz1Si8
>CGI CGI CGI CGI

when yu lik how the pictur looke

/thread

a combination of costumes, camera work and set design
most kubrick stuff has good cinematography, the star wars prequels are the only thing with bad cinematograohy i can think of right now

Mai was best girl

You Thea/Anzu fags can fuck off

This is pretty meh. Extremely basic in terms of composition.

Costumes and set design are not cinematography

It's camera work, which is a lot more than just pointing and moving the camera. It could also be argued that composition/mise en scene is part of cinematography.

Cinematography works best when it's being used to tell story or work with mise-en-scene to highlight certain aspects.

so what is in the shot doesn't matter at all?

See Costumes and set design are obviously important for the look of a film but cinematography constitutes how these things are arranged and shot in a scene, not the act of designing them.

A E S T H E T I C S

What's in the shot is mise-en-scene. Cinematography is how you show it.

>how these things are arranged
I hought that is what set design is in contrast to production design where it's about the look of individual things

How things are arranged in the camera frame, ie. composition/mise en scene. Not how the set is designed

bad cinematoraphy = shot/countershot

too the point where anything is a bubble of fresh air. this is why tv shows are shit

Cinematography is good when it helps convey the narrative through visual elements and provides a interesting look

Bad cinematography ignores any kind of visual storytelling and looks bland or outright shit

Revanche has good cinematography
Captain America Civil War has shit cinematography

Likewise you can have a "pretty" movie with shit cinematography that is just hollow "LOOK AT ME" visuals (like the works of Alejandro Inarritu and cinematographer Lubezki) that lack any sort of visual literacy but are hyper-clear so it gets a lot of praise because the majority of popular movies look like absolute garbage. Meanwhile people with highly dynamic cinematography that's both narrative AND inventive can get shit on because it's more than just "pretty" (Wong Kar Wai and Christopher Doyle, the works of Brian De Palma and Bernardo Bertolucci).

Films are a visual medium, and the visual portion is being destroyed by directors whose only prior experience was television before moving to movies. Their experience and mindset is a focus on faces delivering dialogue and plot-centered storytelling, lacking even basic filmmaking technique and resulting in a sea of borderline inadequacy, so a movie that slightly challenges that norm (like the works of Damien Chazelle) gets heaps of praise.

Nigga who the fuck shits on Wong Kar Wai?

>"LOOK AT ME" visuals (like the works of Alejandro Inarritu

>frog perspective tree shots intensifies

Wrong and wrong

This is a shallow and wrong observation. The use of shot-reverse shot is (although extremely basic) can be magnificently effective when done with proper editing and performance. See the movies of the Coen brothers. The implimentation of their dialogue would not work if it was done in a long wide shot of two people having a conversation. But the shot/reverse shot allows them control over the pace to deliver funny or nervous dialogue.

It's a tool, like CGI, digital cameras and child actors that a lot of "film buffs" have been trained to outright dismiss but ultimately a good filmmaker can make very good work of. By having a "no movies should only look a certain way" mindset, these sort of people are helping a sort of blandification of movies, rejecting cinematic invention or creativity in favor of boring adequacy.

>Cinematography is good when it helps convey the narrative through visual elements and provides a interesting look
pretty much just this, with a well shot movie you should be able to watch any given scene with the sound off and get clear idea what's going on.

>this is why tv shows are shit

Mr. Robot and The Knick prove you wrong

What was Orson trying to convey in this scene, I don't think I quite understood

my first guess would have been
>at first he seems alone, the initial focus on him facing the camera and pan back to reveal empty space emphasises that
>then it's revealed he actually does have company
>but his posing remains the same and the composition emphasises the distance between them
>taken al togethe the shot is showing his isolation despite not being physically alone

It doesn't show the whole scene, but the table gets increasingly bigger with every time-skip, showing the distance literally growing between them.

Yeah it's simple and maybe you're being sarcastic, but film isn't about needing a youtube video to tell you the deep meanings. The way the camera pulls back to show us the huge table is good, fun, and clear moviemaking.

>a thread where Sup Forums actually discusses film comprehensively
Holy shit

It's about both the growing distance between the two characters and the increasing empty opulence of Kane's life

...

What makes Cinematography good is whether or not it looks good, but more importantly how the shot makes you feel about what you are seeing. David Lynch films are often a great example because he frequently shoots a scene in a fashion that's engineered to make you feel a certain way or have a certain expectation and then he totally flips it on it's head.

>tfw the switch in Mulholland Drive from that soft-focus hollywood-y look to the hyper-clear reality

He didn't say it didn't matter. It does matter to the quality of the film. He said it's not cinematography, and he's right.

So just point the camera at the thing you want to shoot?

wow, that's like objectively wrong on both cases.

here:
youtube.com/watch?v=LuqmDd0EXkU

>I hought that is what set design is

You hought wrong.

...

I know you think you're being clever, but that movie came out in 1941, so that pan was clever back then.

Lads, I was being sarcastic because of how obvious and over the top that camera move was. Citizen Kane is shit btw

You're shit, Bergman

It really wasn't, films had been around for decades at that point

I didn't say films hadn't been around for decades at that point. I'm saying what he did in that scene was clever and new back then. It was.

>camera movement, a technique in regular use at that point for 26 years was clever and "new"

they're both shit though.

explain why

you can say whatever you want about Malick but not that it's one of the most stellar digital cinematography of the current decade

Alien is a good example of good cinematography

Good inematography is depth and staging which good use of foreground and background with small amount of mise en scene for highlighting, telegraphing, and foreshadowing. You can overdo it, but it's a balance and marriage of content and form. When you emphasize form over content, you enter style over substance. For good examples of good cinematography, see anything by DW Griffith or Scarface from 1932.

Shot reverse shot is not cinematography, it's basic editing. But it's one of the most crucial editing tools because it can emphasize contrast in less overt ways when done right.

It would be better for starters if you didn't use his only shit film.

Regardless, i can hardly say BvS has "the most stellar digital cinematography of the current decade", but i can damn well say that simply because something use CGI, it has no objective impact on whether it has good cinematography or not. Sure you don't have to like it, but to say its bad makes you sound like a pleb.

Here, more shit for you:
youtube.com/watch?v=LF3ZwXEG45M

And you're a complete numpty. You don't deserve our (you)

>one of the most stellar digital cinematography of the current decade
kek what is this gibberish?

John Sturges would say just that. Just point it at what you want. As long as it's true to the characters and story.

>We shoot up at Bob and down at Tracy. Well it so happens that shooting up at Bob makes him menacing and interesting and he and the gas pump and the sky and the mountains are a very effective angle. But the reason we shoot up at him is because Spencer's sitting down and he's looking up at him. And vice versa. We shoot down at Spence for the simple reason that Bob, who's 6'2'', is looking down at Spence. So a lot of talk about angles reduces itself to your eye. You don't go out there with preconditioned notions about how you're going to set the camera for every scene. You watch the scene. And there's a place to see it. Anybody watching something will drift over to the place where you should see the scene and you do it. That's where you put the camera.

Of course this is reductive, but a lot of filmmakers think as a general rule that the audience should not be aware of the camera.

Got any examples?

literally any silent film

I'll just leave this here

youtube.com/watch?v=ke2CFuLQ6t8

>muh subtlety
Kys

youtube.com/watch?v=pCe_L9MP_a4
this one has no dialogue anyway, and it's very easy to tell what's happening, and hat the potential conflict is visually

youtube.com/watch?v=QU8jKn7sMwU
conversly this scene has a lot of (important) dialogue, but you can still see a lot of the tenor of the conversation through the visuals

Obviously in both these cases the actors' performances are also a large part of this, but the camera plays an important role in terms of what it draws attention to

Long shots are boring and take you out of a film.

And The Passenger is the most boring film I've ever seen.

So is the Academy Award for best cinematography ever right?

I love Herzog and Nosferatu, but maybe you just don't get Malick's minimalist approach to cinematography. There are different kinds of cinematography you know, there's colorfoul and bombastic or muted and subtle. STS isn't the best Malick but we're not talking about story/characters here, Malick's cinematography is generally spotless but not in a clinical way.

I disagree, getting CGI flung at your face every single shot makes a film look aesthetically gaudy.

if it's kino like this

Reminder that retards created ''blood on camera'' kinomatography

Malick's shit was already done by Murnau and Jean Vigo

is it you Griffith fan? I watched your movies, they were mediocre at best.
to my knowledge Murnau and Vigo never did Malick's floating camera, and even if they did I don't really care.

No

i love malick generally, i just detest some of his more recent stuff, song to song especially.

Knight of Cups was great though mind.

how can you like KOC but not STS? they're basically the same movie but with more characters

because i liked what i did and dislike what i don't care for?

While i don't care to go in to detail, as i really don't need to explain myself over my opinion, i really don't see how "they're basically the same movie".

>/threading yourself
>with fucking plebeian manchild garbage
i really hope you fall over today

>comprehensively
nobody knows anything are you retarded

sorry to trigger you, nice argument.

They're both stories about somebody rich and famous living in ennui and leading their lives superficially until they repent and discover their true selves with heavy Christian undertones.

whoops your pleb is showing

>sorry to trigger you, nice argument.
Eh?
Matey i ain't triggered, and what argument did i make there?

took you this long to find a single scene? Neither of them does this frequently enough to be comparable with Malick, just like I am a fugitive from a chain gang had absolutely nothing to do with Il posto. I know you're full of shit.

I don't know why you think you're patrician for liking Terence Malick or imdbshit

kys pretentious fag

I misunderstood your tone, no problem mate

Griffith is shit. Kill yourself, faggot.

no harm done.

how was any of that pretentious?

>expecting this thread to being anything other than shitposts and griffithautist

unlike you I don't like films to be cool but I recognize when something is good despite of how famous or well known it is
and unlike you I have an extensive knowledge of non-imdbcore films that would be considered 'obscure'
I just take the best of both words really, while you miss out on every masterpiece made after 1930

i thought cinematography was just the scene looking pretty, but it's actually camera movement and symbolism of things in the shot?

>costumes and set design

Nigga do you have any idea what you're talking about.

>Best Cinematographer of all time
>Never even nominated
yeah nice one Academy.

>says cinematography should be used to tell story
>shits on WKW

Just how dumb are you?

>Best cinematographer of all time
What did he do new that James Hong Howe or Karl Struss didn't already do

WKW is pretty shit

>muh reds
literally vincente minelli

He single-handedly ruined the yuropoor Oscars
youtube.com/watch?v=8RK4sp8aMWA

>it's an "user failed 6th grade reading" episode

IMHO, good cinematography suits the film, its mood, story, pace...

Bad cinematography is distracting, annoying and just plain wrong. Very saturated colors or glossy, tv ads-like lightning usually are bad signs.

For example:

- In the Heart of the Sea (horrible, horrible palette)
- Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
- Most american movies or series set in Mexico, which is always yellow for some reason
- Thor

babby can't into silent films

Good cinematography that adds to the lofty, fantastical storytelling mood of the film or distracting, immature wank?

Wes' widescreen movies>GBH

you want good cinematography? this is a good cinematography

>being this intentionally confrontational over what is near universally approved of as true

Cinematography isn't just about pretty frames.

The visual narrative is the most important aspect.
Quality cinematography isn't just empty pretty pictures but actually telling the story using visual narrative through framing and composition and the performances.
So the context is important, you can't judge it by a screenshot alone.

There is technically bad cinematography, like too strong obvious night scene lighting or breaking the 180 rule for no reason.
And there is bad cinematography because of the lack of actual substance, empty pretty pictures which only fill the form without actually using framing and composition to propell the visual narrative.
And I think the second one is a bigger problem in today's industry because everyone can learn basic photography and produce balanced pictures, but it takes talent/vision to be able to actually tell the story through the visuals.

End of blog post

>Quality cinematography isn't just empty pretty pictures but actually telling the story using visual narrative

could you at least make an example of a film where this happens? Cinematography and story are two separate things, unless you mean shit like zooming in on a particular detail that's relevant to the plot, or changing color filter to represent different emotions but those things don't make good cinematography.

>Cinematography and story are two separate things
Yes they are separate elements, but they should work together. Every decision in the cinematography department should be solely to support and add to the narrative, not call attention to itself with an unnecesary "impressive" long take or camera movement just to look "cool" if the narrative doesn't call for it.
Everyone can learn basic photography and make balanced framed pretty pictures, but they are just "empty" pretty pictures with no idea or vision behind it, it's just a pretty picture.

You should use framing and composition to tell a story with the visual narrative just like you tell a story with a written one, they should form a whole.
Tarkovsky is the best example, he truly used the visual medium where his written narrative is merely plot lines for the actual "story" to be told through the visuals. You can't just retell his films by retelling the story, you literally have to see it to get a grasp on it.

>unless you mean shit like zooming in on a particular detail that's relevant to the plot, or changing color filter to represent different emotions but those things don't make good cinematography.
Yes that's exactly good cinematography (a bit of simple and surface level example, but true). Also the visuals don't even need to be "pretty" for the cinematography to be considered good, if a script is gruesome dark nasty and uncomfortable than the visuals should do the same thing.

the cinematography, much like the rest of the film was incredibly kitsch and gimmicky

>literally none of this is real