Cinematography is Changing
By Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
We are all cinematographers now. With any camera we can afford–Alexa, RED, Sony, Go Pro, iPhone–we’re producing images. But is this a great time for cinematography? Kodak’s recent demise is not only an economic or technical issue; it is also a cultural life “drama.” The ease with which digital pictures can be produced leads to the mistaken conclusion that an image is no more than just the registration of reality. In fact, the cultural richness and experience of generations of DPs, photographers, graphic artists and painters should be understood as part of any visual representation.
DPs are hired for their taste, cultivated through their life experiences and knowledge and understanding of film, music, art, literature, photography. We draw on these to shape a film’s look. This is often neglected in pre-pro, leaving the look to be achieved and refined in post. There’s nothing wrong with post manipulation as it can often be more precise to adjust an image in a colorist’s suite than on set. But these tools do not mean we curb our vision until post. So much of the look is created by the close collaboration between the director, production designer and DP.
With digital capture, it becomes easy to think of the image in the simplest of terms: contrast, saturation and color bias. But often we forget about texture and sharpness. Film has organic grain texture. I’m not a film “purist” but with radical advances in digital cinema technology there has been a certain homogenization of the cinematographic image in look and texture. It is common to shoot for an evenly distributed rich digital negative with plenty of sharpness to endure the color correction suite and create the look in post. Everybody shoots the sensor the same way.
Painting is a great influence on me. When we did McCabe and Mrs. Miller, I showed a book of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings to Bob Altman. He liked it. Then I took the same book to the lab and explained that this was what we were aiming for. They understood right away why we were flashing the film.
With digital capture, we’ve been given different tools, creating possibilities for the image to be pushed any way we wish in post. Cinematographers need to master these tools. We must re-educate and retrain ourselves creatively, to learn how to evaluate what we are doing from the technical POV while at the same time working to raise the standards of visual storytelling to ever-higher levels.
(Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, is co-founder of the Global Cinematography Institute, www.globalcinematography.com).
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XR’s offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role he’s held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossano’s expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the company’s creative talent network. Rossano’s career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that company’s inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More