Confession time: I have no idea what actually makes for a "kino shot...

Confession time: I have no idea what actually makes for a "kino shot." People talk about good cinematography all the time but I don't really know what I'm supposed to be looking for. Like, I guess I'm impressed by a long take, or something that just looks visually cool like this, but there seems to be more to it than that and I don't really understand it. What constitutes good filmmaking?

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What most people mean by this usually is just a visually pleasing shot.

But what actually makes it visually pleasing? That's the next question.

A few things. Symmetry, lighting, set design, use of colours... much the same things that make a photograph visually pleasing.

Look at the one in your OP: Kinda symmetric with cars on the left and the right, neon lights, lightbublbs that reflect on the cars...

I still don't know what kino means

are images that make a film kinographic, the same types of images that make us feel strong emotion IRL when we see them?

It's German for cinema or film. Sup Forums uses it as a meme to say that a piece of art is the highest level of its craft, transcending its genre. Of course being Sup Forums it is often ironic such as when dcucks claim that bvs is Kino.

Some of them. I mean, there are images that make me emotional, just because of what they depict, not because of how pleasant they look.

But think of a painting that you find pleasant to look at just for its own sake. It probably has some of the same elements that make a shot in a movie visually interesting.

BvS is pretty kino for a super hero movie.

>just a visually pleasing shot
actually the best definition of good cinematography. If you can put narrative into it, you have good filmmaking.

Sure. But we're just talking about individual shots outside of their narrative context here.

Then it's up to the viewer.

means movmeent in ancient greek

Visually pleasing is the first thing you want. Then you want to see if the shot informs the story. That is it's conveying something about the story, the characters, or the themes.

There was a video essay awhile back talking about Spider-Man 2 and how Peter and MJ are rarely in one shot alone together, and when they are it's those moments that they've decided to be together. This is a simple example.

Consider also the montage of Superman saving people in BvS. The whole movie is a humanity's reaction to Superman. During the scene, people are debating whether Superman is a divine figure and he's shown hovering above people who are waiting to be saved. Because to them, in that moment, he is a divine savior

That's what I go by, but art constantly reinvents standards.

I'd say it has a lot do with editing and pacing. A poorly edited scene/film can ruin the filmmaker's efforts of creating kino

iconic shots that you remember even if the film was bad.

Like the first image in your brain when I say star wars? Which images come to mind.

This is an old question in philosophy. Ask /his/ about art theory, you'll get better answers than here.

Kino shots = images that can tell a visual story (i.e you don't need words to explain the story, it does that visually not verbally)

If it doesn't have narrative, can it be Kino?

Does inmediate meaning of a shot has more importance in the Kino definition than the grouped coherent meaning?

Just trying to found the boundaries of the meme here

BvS is kino, you stupid whore.

>use of colours
>batman vs superman
what colours lol
every image there is either brown or blue

Art is subjective, user. You just have to be able to defend your argument

...

If a shot is contrsucted in a way that actually takes you out of the film/narrative to think how nice it looks, that is considered good cinematography nowadays. If it's artificially beautiful it's considered good. You know what good cinematrography actually is? If you never think even once during a film about cinematography. If it's so natural that it never even comes to mind. The way a film is shot should never enter the audience's head because it detracts from the actual film. From the narrative. If an average audience member mentions cinematography in their review of a film, even if positive, you can be sure that it's bad because your average audience member should never be concerned with that during a film.

>There was a video essay awhile back talking about Spider-Man 2 and how Peter and MJ are rarely in one shot alone together, and when they are it's those moments that they've decided to be together. This is a simple example.
It's interesting that you say this is a simple example because I don't even notice stuff like this until people point it out. I don't know what's wrong with me that I'm like that.

But for someone who watches a lot of film, isn't that going to happen whether they want it to or not? I feel like when you've seen too much you become detached from it and lose your ability to immerse yourself. It takes a very rare sort of film to be able to lose yourself in it despite everything.

The point is that cinematography isn't about making shots look, what many call, beautiful. It's about making shots that convey the narrative in the most effective and efficient manner to the audience. Good cinematography is when the average person doesn't even know it's good cinematography. Now of course if you know a bit about movies, about the filming process and the dos and don'ts then of course you can talk about that in a more objective way. But what most people call good cinematography is in the ending nothing but good looking shots that makes the audience go "that's good cinematography!" instead of focusing on the narrative.

Nothing wrong with a muted colour scheme. Hell, even a black and white movie can still have a visually pleasing use of colours, or rather, of light and dark.

I know art theory that's why I said that. Image cognition and the subsequent tabulation of beauty /aesthetics is determinant on the individual. This is critical theory 101.

Nah it's all good. I mean I didn't notice either. Granted I was a kid when I watched that. I don't think you should really notice that shit on the first viewing. Good movies for me totally immerse me the first time, and then I pick them apart on subsequent viewings. Notice details like that, or look for them.

A fun exercise is to take a scene of a movie you like and analyze shot by shot. Just look at everything. Everything in a movie is placed there artificially and ideally for a reason. Do that and see what strikes you. Maybe the colors, maybe what the focus is (like is one thing clear while everything else is blurry). It can be a fun way of looking at something through a new lens

It kind of makes me sad that a bunch of people put so much work into the little details of a film only for it to get torn apart by the critics and end up with like a 30% on RT.

Double sunset, but I credit that to John Williams. Blade runner is probably a better example for this question.

It's what bothers me about criticism these days. Critics go out and see every movie that comes out. They watch it once, don't pay attention, miss details, and then are treated as the experts we should pay attention to

I thought of the Death Star exploding, which is weird because that is actually an awful shot.

I think what you're missing a base in art photography, as that's where all cinematic shots come from. At this point film has only in rare cases managed to rise above photography as a distinctly artistic genre.

Maybe buy a cheap camera and take pictures yourself; I find that really only photographers actually care about photography. At any rate it will help you understand what it worth appreciating in movies.

Bingoooo

Goo girl

>BvS
>good cinematography
In all seriousness its shots didn't stick out to me. most of DCs movies have pretty meh cinematography IMO

I hate blade runner and its shots are boring but the costumes are good and the set design is fucking god tier.

I kind of agree but that's just one way of thinking about it. I like to know exactly what I like about a movie. It helps me enjoy it that much more

the outside of cloud city is a gorgeous shot.

Do you even know the name of the planet Cloud City is on?

Don't answer. It's Bespin.

Hm.

Hm?

Composition, texture, motion. Cinematography is more to do with the texture and motion than the composition, as most directors you'd be looking at compose their own frames.


Don't say "symmetry", nobody needs help seeing symmetry. Symmetry is not the main thing in composition, at all. Set design isn't cinematography.


If you're purely talking about "kino", that's a meme. It's Russian for "cinema", and comes up a lot in accounts of early Soviet formalist filmmaking by people like Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Kuleshov, Dovzhenko and Dziga Vertov. If we take "kino" to mean, broadly, kinetic films with intelligent rapid cutting, no image is intrinsically "kino" because composition wasn't of primary importance to that school of filmmaking.

To the thread generally, I'd say that there's someone, possibly more than one person, who keeps using "nowadays" to refer to phenomena that have always existed. Film critics have *always* written in a hurry about films they haven't had a chance to evaluate properly; people who know what cinematography is in the first place have *always* been more concerned with the beauty of individual shots than with the purely functional role of those images in relation to the narrative. I assume that the person or people saying "nowadays" thinks these are recent developments because they've only just become aware of them themselves.

This is just a baseless puritan reaction to people being interested in aesthetics. The layman might not know about cinematography, but everyone who watches films knows when the images have impressed them and will say something about it.

There is when it's done without finesse, as in those shots. A color scheme is best achieved with a mixture of design and cinematography, not by whacking a tint onto everything and either underexposing or simulating underexposure in post. Snyder's style is kitsch without even the redeeming brio of honest vulgarity.

you got a link for the spiderman video?

>During the scene, people are debating whether Superman is a divine figure


Which would never happen. The biggest sign that comic books and their ancilliary media have, despite their recent prominence, entered their red giant phase is that white elephant art is being made about them. Snyder's pomposity won't just date, its current fans will become embarrassed by their former enthusiasm. It will age worse than any other iteration of the characters, including the 40s serials.

Shots that you personally like, you don't have to understand why

What do you think of del Toro work?

Well around here people have memed the fuck out of "cinematography" to the point where still images have become the representative for "good cinematography"

That's only a part of the definition of the word tho. What people around here do is just post visually pleasing stills from movies. These stills are selected by a certain aesthetic quality relevant to the viewers tastes. Some are selected for their use of color, natural elements (like a sunrise or sunset), or use of light and darkness. Or maybe the shot is perfectly symmetrical or contains a visual theme that ties in to the overall film. That's what it means around here.

But in reality, cinematography means everything you see on screen when watching a film. Everything that can be categorized as visual. It's how the camera moves, it's how shots are edited together in sequence, it's the visual tone of the film, its how different scenes are shot for dialogue or action, stuff like that.

Hope that helps

It's a fucking shame Zach Snyder is such a hack.

Give that man control over just the camera and scene composition with a second director managing the plot and story and he'd be great.

Del Toro's strengths are story telling and costume design/design direction (since he doesn't make the costumes himself). He often pushes for pushes for practical effects where he can, if it isn't too out of the way. He wanted to do Hellboy 3 but Ron Perlman didn't want to spend 12 hours a day getting into costume. Del Taco has vision.

>it's how shots are edited together in sequence,

No, that's editing. You nearly did well, the rest of your post isn't bad.


No, he'd be shit then too, because his imagery is not interesting or original to anyone who's seen... anything, really.

example of kino

I would only partially agree that set design isn't cinematography. That's where the visual world of the movie is built. Ok, maybe it's built entirely in post production but good set design (like in Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now or Dark City) can guide the visual language of the film heavily

DUDE ORANGE AND BLUE FILTERS LMAO

Snyder is such a hack

I think it is important that we, as humans, try to figure out what motivates us to think in the ways that we do.

It's still matter of which shots are to be used in succession and what can be inferred by the use of sequence. The editing wouldn't matter much if you didn't get the right shots in the first place but I know what you mean

dude...shallow biblical analogies lmao

he fooled you retards hard

please be fucking joking

jesus fucking christ

Cinematography has nothing to do with the selection of that sequence, though. I'm glad you know what I mean.

>To the thread generally, I'd say that there's someone, possibly more than one person, who keeps using "nowadays" to refer to phenomena that have always existed. Film critics have *always* written in a hurry about films they haven't had a chance to evaluate properly; people who know what cinematography is in the first place have *always* been more concerned with the beauty of individual shots than with the purely functional role of those images in relation to the narrative. I assume that the person or people saying "nowadays" thinks these are recent developments because they've only just become aware of them themselves.

Why did you spend a whole paragraph talking vaguely about this person instead of just responding to their posts and pointing out what you're talking about?

Because I don't find it difficult to write and read paragraphs, and because I don't want to have to read every post to find out how often it was done.

look at the way the lights reflect off the cars. understand that this was manually captured on film. it's beautiful. can you not tell beauty on your own? there's no scientific way to define it; it's art. one man with talent captures something he sees as beautiful shares it with others. it's not so much more extensive than this. it's used to immediately communicate feelings and thoughts through a visual perspective; what Michael Mann felt when he designed this shot is felt by us when watching the movie. that's what makes a good shot

it's like the plinkett saying
>you might not have noticed it, but your brain did

>can you not tell beauty on your own? there's no scientific way to define it
hmmmmmmm

Cinematography and choosing what the viewer sees always comes first. Take all the quick shots in Hot Fuzz for example. The magic of those shots is created in editing but it ties in to the overall visual language of the film. It wouldn't work the same without the perfect selection of shots chosen for comedic emphasis. In this case it's the job of the editor to make it funny but they've already been provided the material

I shouldn't have used the word editing at all in my original post

>special edition

>I hate blade runner and its shots are boring
you aren't allowed to talk about cinematography anymore

the irony is that the shot in your pic is the wrong aspect ratio, lmao

also whether you're joking or not, the top image, like most incredible shots, are really only incredible in motion.

In what context did he say this?

There's nothing interesting about the framing or even the colors in that movie. The real achievement is in environment and set design. some of the shots like the opening scene chasing the synth through the streets are good but frame by frame it's fucking boring.

just watch literally any of the prequel videos. he uses it to talk about small details in the way films are structured to influence you emotionally and how they are intentionally done.

I didn't realize the explosion was changed, but I just looked it up and the old explosion still looks like shit. No matter what they all look like a toy blowing up, it's pretty bad.

Well that's because Ridley Scott is a hack who can't direct for shit. I'd still never say Blade Runners cinematography is bad but I agree what makes it good is the aesthetic of the films visual world, not the actual skill of the people behind the camera

What is the purpose of a shot? To convey information, and the information is being conveyed to the audience, to you.

Look at the shot you posted. All the elements are converging towards the lone figure in the center. The lights, the cars, the gap between the cars all point or curve towards him, the black sky and the illuminated parking lot meet at where he's standing as well.

eyy fellow Blade Runner isn't that good bro.

it's you, me and Roger Ebert against the world.

While we're on the subject, does anyone know what they mean when they say something "tracks the eye well"?

Roger Ebert is dead.

Two more to go...

I think it just means the direction of the scene is built off of the natural behavior of the human eye. The brain/eye is drawn to certain colors, objects, and movement

I could be wrong tho

Don't get me wrong I still like the movie but at this point I feel like it's ok to hate Ridley Scott's guts

watch Walter Murch on editing on youtube. visual legibility is one element an editor must focus on, along with rhythm and emotion.

IT'S NOT THAT GOOD

I want to do very lewd things to CamCam

*rubs knives together menacingly*

Frames are chosen in cinematography, but the sequence of shots and their duration is editing.

Anyway, it's not magic, or funny. I hope you haven't been watching that everyframeapainting cocksucker.

They mean that they're trying to make up for never having been to college by watching YouTube videos. Nobody who works in the arts talks like that, trust me.

there is literally nothing wrong with every frame a painting other than the fact that he goes too light on modern blockbusters and capeshit

Nothing wrong with that either.

There's literally everything wrong with it. He has never said a single valuable or accurate thing about cinema. The reason he goes "light" on them is that they're the only thing his target audience watches. These perpetual teenage boys who present themselves as educators for other perpetual teenage boys are a real menace to cultural education.

Why is "middlebrow" getting thrown around all the time recently? What the fuck does that even mean? Is it just a new buzzword people use to dismiss things out of hand, like "pretentious"?

Only mention of it on this thread is you.

Your statement raises a question about whether or not the camera's only purpose in a film is to immerse the audience. Is there no merit to a more abstract form of filming? If a film can express something in a single shot is there no more merit to its 'cinematography' than that of one that conveys the same information in a form less central to the medium, like expositional dialogue?

As for your use of the term 'natural', I think that's not always a necessity. Depending on the film the fact that it is a film can be made a focal point of the piece itself.

But what does movmeent mean in English?

Yeah, this was the wrong thread, but I'm still annoyed about it.

Kino.

I think thats the point though so it's okay. Film experts / critics are trained to notice these details; we aren't. As a casual viewer, we merely 'feel' more for peter and mary jane.

...

This movie is a terrific example. Shots play out in a way that informs the viewer not onpy of the main plot, but the littke background stories that make the world come alive. Often, long shots are used to present tense moments to oush a viewer to not look away. Contrast this with the new Transformers which is such a visual mess that you have no reason to pay attention; nothing important happens.

Weird that Cuaron went on to make that after the shitfest that was Harry Potter 3. I wonder if that wasn't his fault or if there's something I'm missing about that film.

vimeo.com/216496825

took me a bit to find it.

>Harry Potter 3

That was the best one though

*freeze frames the end of your post*