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I think it depends on a lot of elements: family (both as time and as financial support), job opportunities in you area, links in the industry and so on . Roger, David and the others here may advice you better than me, but my opinion is that your (and mine and everybody else’s) problem is not actually the age, it is the AI. The real question is for how long cinema (and tv) will still need cinematographers, VFX artists, etc etc, no matter the age. No doubt that established professionals will keep on working (perhaps re-inventing themselves as some kind of AI cinematographers coordinators, like in animation, or i don’t know what their job will become) . But for people starting now i think there will be fewer and fewer opportunities. This doesn’t mean that people won’t do movies in the traditional way (oil painting and clay sculpture still exist today, after all), but i am afraid there will be an ongoing reduction of jobs (and it’s happening yet) . Interesting times for watching, sad times for creating.
Hi! While i’ve got no professional experience – so i can be of little help – i’m in your same situation (shooting a short with a flashlight scene) and from what i tested you could consider these details :
– some lights could cause flickering and bands in the camera (a frequency problem, if i am not wrong), so do a test if possible before buying or shooting the real scene. This said you can obtain good results even with cheap flashlights from DIY stores, as long as they are strong enough
– you could use a reflecting surface to lighten a bit the actor face (when i asked a similar question Roger wrote that he did something like that in the cave scene of Prisoners) in close ups, since actually the flashlight points forward, not on actor face
– i am altering the WB to mimick a night scene and i’m setting the other ligths color temperature to create some kind of color contrast or armony with the flashlight color, according to what suits better the scene
– to actually see the light beam you need thickness in the atmosphere, and it’s complicated to create it in a forest without hazing machines
– good luck and have fun!
I could try that. I mean establishing shots. What do you think about static shots? For example, I imagine someone sitting in a chair in front of the camera, trying to convey feelings through lighting.
I suppose that would be a nice excercise about creating mood through lighting and framing a subject. To take the most out of it, you could choose a given zoom of the camera and keep it for all the shot and see how different camera movements and different framing of the subject create different effect (in other words, using the phone as a simulation of a prime lens: Roger often says that since prime lens have not zoom, when you use them you are forced to make decisions on how to shoot the scene, instead of simply zooming it). I did something similar but since i didn’t want to bother family and friends in my experiments i used a teddy bear as model. For ridiculous it may sound, it helped me since i focused only on the framing and the lights. When i found the light and composition i wanted, i put the camera on the tripod , i took the teddy bear place and experimented on camera angle, movement of the actor, etc. With a little creativity you can learn a lot even alone.
I have to admit that the teddy bear was a better actor than me, but that’s another story.
From “Team Deakins Podcast – SEASON 2 – EPISODE 139 – Camera Movement”
- Trial of Joan of Arc
- Diary of a Country Priest
- A Man Escaped
(note: Roger mentions these three Robert Bresson’s movies as good examples of movies that manage to tell a story even with quite static shots and little camera movement)
Thanks for your reply, Roger!
The Jesse James scene inspired me for the blocking of a scene in one of the shorts i’m working on (this in particular is a little school project, actually). I loved the crossing movements of Jesse and Robert and it suggested me how to make my scene a bit more interesting, moving the characters in two different diagonals across the room. A great plan, with a nice storyboard, a shot list, etc etc.
Too bad that everything went downhill because of a series of unexpected problems and so goodbye to my great planned shot. I found an alternative on the spot but i hope to use that crossing movement somewhere else, it’s simple but beautiful and effective.
We would love to do that – it would just have to be arranged.
I hope it will happen then, sooner or later!
By the way, i just noticed that while the Hachette page is just for US orders, through Amazon the book will be available in Italy too (and, i suppose, in other countries too). So, for readers outside the US perhaps it will be easier to check their country Amazon page to buy the book, at least for pre-orders (i think that with time it will get easily available in many other sellers worldwide).
Did you consider still photography then (unless you have experience with It yet). Even if cinema and photography have of course different approaches and different goals, some of the concepts (exposure, framing, depth of field, etc etc) are more or less the same. Roger published first a still photography book and then an (upcoming) cinematography book, after all.
Another approach to exercise could be to shot just environments and objects like establishing shots or details of an imaginary scene. A shot of a wood for an horror or a comedy are different. A detail of a diary could be a plot twist in a thriller or a melancholic moment in a romantic movie.
Are you interested in a specific genre? You could either write a simple script on a good story (and in my case it’s been the hardest part) or, as an exercise, trying to reproduce a shot from a movie you like (lights and vfx apart).
Besides that, are you going to shot a scene? You’ll need actors and you’ll Need to be a director too . 😉 And perhaps some kind of lights to begin thinking as a cinematographer.
And to organize everything you Need to be a producer too, ah ah!
Well, if it’s not your main job at the moment you are free to shot what you want, so take advantage of that. But it depends on what are your expectations and projects. In my case, i’m working on some horror short movies and i’m focusing on that but honestly i don’t hope it will become a real job for me one day: i wrote two scripts that tells the stories i want to tell in the way i want them to be told. You may have different interests (comedy, drama, documentary, etc) but the idea Is the same. When you begin studying the movies and not Just enjoying them for their entertainment value you begin to learn and find suggestions and teachings everywhere. For example, the last three movies i watched are from Ozu, Bresson and Kieślowski and they of course have absolutely nothing to do with horror but still there were a lot of things to learn about the grammar of the cinema and they suggested me some shots and camera movements for my shorts.
Hi! I’m without experience and still learning like you, so i don’t know how useful my thoughts can be, but a thing i noticed (and Roger somehow says it often, in a way or another, but the core of the concept is similar) Is that the tool you use Is less important than how you use it and how you use your brain and instinct to tell the story.
For a little school project i gave to my middle school students a very old and poor camera to shot some shorts. In half an hour they all were not thinking anymore about the camera, they were Just using their instinct to set the lights, direct movements of actors, blocking the scenes, thinking in terms of cuts to be made, without any input by me, in a spontaneous way. They were learning by doing. And i’m doing the same, the more i play with the camera the more i learn. So, being in your same situation i can Say that i’m learning by studying masters’ works (i.e. Watch a lot of good movies and try to understand why they are good) and experiment. Write a nice scene, shot It with whatever you can, learn and have fun.
I see It in a simpler way. People have ideas and opinions. I’m interested in the ones of the filmmaker, since they should explain the movie meaning. I find less relevant actors’ ideas, but i am happier when they are similar to mines. Just my opinion of course!
I don’t think cinema is just entertainment. Entertainment movies exist, of course, but there are also movies dealing with moral and ethical problems that also have something to say, not just make you spend a couple of fun hours. I think it for every kind of artistic expression, there’s space for entertainment and for a lot more.
My humble opinion is that director’s ideas and desire to tell a given story are relevant, not actor’s aderence in real life to the role (but i agree that it’s a delusion when you discover that an actor you admired in a role Is not a nice person). The message of the movie and the role of cinema will always be the same, while actors are just people faking something as a job, not heralds and champions of the truth. I wouldn’t mix the actor and the role (but of course Is a nice feeling when the actor Is in real life the Hero that he plays on the screen). Just my opinion, of course!
