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).
Kamala Harris Receives Chairman’s Prize At NAACP Image Awards
Former Vice President Kamala Harris stepped on the NAACP Image Awards stage Saturday night with a sobering message, calling the civil rights organization a pillar of the Black community and urging people to stay resilient and hold onto their faith during the tenure of President Donald Trump.
"While we have no illusions about what we are up against in this chapter in our American story, this chapter will be written not simply by whoever occupies the oval office nor by the wealthiest among us," Harris said after receiving the NAACP's Chairman's Award. "The American story will be written by you. Written by us. By we the people."
The 56th annual Image Awards was held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in the Los Angeles area.
Harris, defeated by Trump in last year's presidential election, was the first woman and the first person of color to serve as vice president. She had previously been a U.S. senator from California and the state's attorney general.
In her first major public appearance since leaving office, Harris did not reference her election loss or Trump's actions since entering the Oval Office, although Trump mocked her earlier in the day at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Harris spoke about eternal vigilance, the price of liberty, staying alert, seeking the truth and America's future.
"Some see the flames on our horizons, the rising waters in our cities, the shadows gathering over our democracy and ask 'What do we do now?'" Harris said. "But we know exactly what to do, because we have done it before. And we will do it again. We use our power. We organize, mobilize. We educate. We advocate. Our power has never come from having an easy path."
Other winners of the Chairman's prize have included former... Read More