I think filmmaking is a science as much as it is art

Zachadoodle

Zachadoodle

Well-known member
After doing a ton of research on the physics of light, reading tons of instructional books, understanding a lot of technicalities, seeing how difficult academically film school is, and understanding the engineering of an image of a camera... I'm really beginning to believe filmmaking is as much as it is a science as it is art.

I know this is going to sound confusing to a lot of people, but to me making a photographic image is essentially engineering an image as opposed to painting which is designing an image. CGI is programming an image.
 
Last edited:
It's neither science nor art. It's a technical craft. You can interpret it artistically or scientifically, medical, astronomy but I have objected to modern notions of digital camera imagery as an art form at the Texas State Fair judging's because a digital camera is a copy machine, and what goes on print is subject to innumerable manipulations after the capture. If it were so, that all digital was conducted as Doug using in-camera color, that would be different, and a more honest depiction of camera art, but photoshopped images are not camera art and I breeze right past the blue ribbons in the glass case even though many are extraordinarily beautiful. A blue ribbon for craftwork is 100% in fairness, and expressions of camera sourced imagery are artistic, but the device itself is a copy machine. I once put my hand on the copy machine glass and made a print as a show of support to friend going through rough times, someone who is truly artistically gifted, and sought after worldwide for her stained glass in churches, statues and clay modeling. She thought it was symbolically supportive, artistic which was nice, but it might as well have been a xerox for all the effort I had made.
 
Zachadoodle, I think your argument makes sense but probably more logical to define it as cinematography vs filmmaking, as the latter is a broad enough term to contain facets that I think would be hard to argue are scientifically based (directing actors for instance).

Tom, that's an interesting distinction. Are you also suggesting that traditional photochemical photography is more inherently artistic than digital photography? And/or that manipulating the image in-camera vs post alters the level of artistry in the final product?
 
Tom Roper said:
It's neither science nor art. It's a technical craft. You can interpret it artistically or scientifically, medical, astronomy but I have objected to modern notions of digital camera imagery as an art form at the Texas State Fair judging's because a digital camera is a copy machine, and what goes on print is subject to innumerable manipulations after the capture. If it were so, that all digital was conducted as Doug using in-camera color, that would be different, and a more honest depiction of camera art, but photoshopped images are not camera art and I breeze right past the blue ribbons in the glass case even though many are extraordinarily beautiful. A blue ribbon for craftwork is 100% in fairness, and expressions of camera sourced imagery are artistic, but the device itself is a copy machine. I once put my hand on the copy machine glass and made a print as a show of support to friend going through rough times, someone who is truly artistically gifted, and sought after worldwide for her stained glass in churches, statues and clay modeling. She thought it was symbolically supportive, artistic which was nice, but it might as well have been a xerox for all the effort I had made.
Click to expand...
With film we changed lightning and added filters and greatly manipulated the scene being photographed. It also depended on the film choice. The in the dark room there was dodging and burning. Using mattes and piecing multiple negatives together. Also the chemicals used and the changes to the development process. It was common to "push" films in development.

With digitial cameras nothing has changed except you can keep the lights on and the options have become more refined.
 
JAMedia said:
With film we changed lightning and added filters and greatly manipulated the scene being photographed. It also depended on the film choice. The in the dark room there was dodging and burning. Using mattes and piecing multiple negatives together. Also the chemicals used and the changes to the development process. It was common to "push" films in development.

With digitial cameras nothing has changed except you can keep the lights on and the options have become more refined.
Click to expand...
I agree. The techniques are different but many of them are replicated virtually. Photoshop's dodge and burn tools have icons that suggest the physical darkroom versions of the process. Certainly there is a specific artistry in being able to cup one's hand to expose a little area of a print for just the right amount of time, vs the ease of selecting a tool in Photoshop and having at it with the knowledge that you can undo it and try again ad infinitum. It's not dissimilar from the ease of making a cut in modern edit software vs the constraints of doing it to a film print on a flatbed, or in an offline tape bay. But the ultimate art that the viewer sees comes from the final piece of work which is the culmination of scores of decisions that were made along the way, regardless of how they were made or how complicated it was to achieve. Even within an art form that is non-technological such as painting, do we judge the level of artistry by how difficult or how long it took to create? Pointillism is a long and complicated process compared to a brush stroke, but does that make it better or more legitimately artistic?
 
Well, I don't know what to think about film making. Let's ask the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
 
Last edited:
Paul F said:
Well, I don't know what to think about film making. Let's ask the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Click to expand...
That is just one, and many say outdated, organization. Also, it is aimed at one type of film work, the "Hollywood" film. There are many other organizations and groups. I don't think you are going to get a single clear answer for this.
 
You don't think we can get a clear answer if film making is a science as much as an art from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

C'mon JA, work with me. I spent a lot of time coming up with that one.
 
Paul F said:
You don't think we can get a clear answer if film making is a science as much as an art from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

C'mon JA, work with me. I spent a lot of time coming up with that one.
Click to expand...
Fair point I missed that! Sorry. It is the application of Science by an artist.
The medium dictates the scientific options the artist has to play with.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Tom, that's an interesting distinction. Are you also suggesting that traditional photochemical photography is more inherently artistic than digital photography? And/or that manipulating the image in-camera vs post alters the level of artistry in the final product?
Click to expand...

100%, I would agree that traditional photochemical photography is inherently artistic and digital photography is not. Almost any true Art form involves a labor of the hands, sculpture, wood carving, painting, and not to include operating computer assisted controls, 3D printing, CNC turning lathes and mills, computer aided imagery. Those are the tools of production, not art even though the results are pleasing.
 
Tom Roper said:
100%, I would agree that traditional photochemical photography is inherently artistic and digital photography is not. Almost any true Art form involves a labor of the hands, sculpture, wood carving, painting, and not to include operating computer assisted controls, 3D printing, CNC turning lathes and mills, computer aided imagery. Those are the tools of production, not art even though the results are pleasing.
Click to expand...
100% disagree! petrochemical photography is no more or less artistic than digitial photography.

Incidentally photo-chemical film processing, and in deed producing positives (photos) is all fully computer controlled these days other than the very few people who do it manually.
 
JAMedia said:
100% disagree! petrochemical photography is no more or less artistic than digitial photography.

Incidentally photo-chemical film processing, and in deed producing positives (photos) is all fully computer controlled these days other than the very few people who do it manually.
Click to expand...

Who is arguing art is emerging from photo labs? Not me. Just another tool of production, like computer assisted anything.
 
Tom Roper said:
Who is arguing art is emerging from photo labs? Not me. Just another tool of production, like computer assisted anything.
Click to expand...
So what are you saying? Since all wet film movies and most still wet film photography goes through a computer controlled system.
 
I have to disagree also. In the case of photography, I think we can get behind the idea that there are many artistic choices the photographer makes before pushing the button that is common to both film and digital acquistion; lens choice, framing, shutter speed, exposure. Processing the image is largely mechanical/functional--the few choices to be made there could be paralleled in the digital realm (altering the time in the bath vs processing a raw image digitally). Just because one is using one's hands to dip a piece of photographic paper in a trAy doesn't make it artistic per se, that's more of a craft. So now it comes down to how the image is turned into what the viewer will see. I think the closest argument for an artistic distinction is dodging and burning, which is done with tools or with one's own hands, vs clicking a mouse to achieve the same thing digitally. But even here, I would say that the true art is in the design and choices that are being made. The idea of dodging or burning a section of the image is the art, the application of the tools to do so is the craft. Doing it in the darkroom is working blind vs the immediate feedback of Photoshop, which makes it much harder and requires much more practice to do efficiently, but does mastering a more difficult technique equal artistry? Once again, I consider that craft. The art comes from having a vision of the final image and what needs to be done to achieve that, the craft is implementing the techniques required.
 
Last edited:
Tom Roper said:
100%, I would agree that traditional photochemical photography is inherently artistic and digital photography is not.
Click to expand...

Remember, photography was not considered art when it first came out. Since it used a machine instead of an artists hands. So it is no different from chemical baths and hand-cranked cameras to digital bits manipulated on a computer. Those that experienced the mechanics of loading film, chemistry, and all the other hands-on aspects of analog photography may dismiss the bits in a computer. It's what we do as humans.

It's art that uses different scientific inventions. From glass plates to plastic film to bits in a computer.

From JSTOR - "When critics weren’t wringing their hands about photography, they were deriding it. They saw photography merely as a thoughtless mechanism for replication, one that lacked, “that refined feeling and sentiment which animate the productions of a man of genius,” as one expressed in an 1855 issue of The Crayon. As long as “invention and feeling constitute essential qualities in a work of Art,” the writer argued, “Photography can never assume a higher rank than engraving.”"
 
Chemistry is still a science though, so would that mean film photography is still scientific in a way?
 
Last edited:
Paul F said:
"100%, I would agree that traditional photochemical photography is inherently artistic and digital photography is not."

Remember, photography was not considered art when it first came out. Since it used a machine instead of an artists hands. So it is no different from chemical baths and hand-cranked cameras to digital bits manipulated on a computer. Those that experienced the mechanics of loading film, chemistry, and all the other hands-on aspects of analog photography may dismiss the bits in a computer. It's what we do as humans.

It's art that uses different scientific inventions. From glass plates to plastic film to bits in a computer.

From JSTOR - "When critics weren’t wringing their hands about photography, they were deriding it. They saw photography merely as a thoughtless mechanism for replication, one that lacked, “that refined feeling and sentiment which animate the productions of a man of genius,” as one expressed in an 1855 issue of The Crayon. As long as “invention and feeling constitute essential qualities in a work of Art,” the writer argued, “Photography can never assume a higher rank than engraving.”"
Click to expand...

This is right Paul, and so I say to Charles and JAM, remember these points you make because you're going to see your same logic used against you from generative AI proponents. We're at this point because we defer to technology to do things for us that are easy. Michelangelo didn't become renowned for his vision and planning. Painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and The Last Supper cemented his legacy as one of the major artistic accomplishments of human civilization. The carving of Mount Rushmore was the vision of Doane Robinson who wanted to feature Lewis and Clark, but it was John Borglum with 400 others hanging from ropes that carved the four American Presidents instead.
 
Tom Roper said:
This is right Paul, and so I say to Charles and JAM, remember these points you make because you're going to see your same logic used against you from generative AI proponents.
Click to expand...

I already have, and I know my position on it. I use AI tools within and external to Photoshop, it's freed up some of the more laborious tasks and I'm good with that. I disagree that Michaelangelo's vision has nothing to do with his legacy; he had to conceive of the images he created before he could paint them. I've not seen the Sistine Chapel in person but I know the imagery and can appreciate it without marveling at how many days he spent on top of a scaffold laboring away.

I shot plenty of motion picture film from the 80's up to 2010. There was also all the video I shot throughout that had the look burned into it, pre-log. Are we saying that all of that could possibly be classified as artistic, but everything after 2010 (shooting log and grading later) could not? The yardstick seems a little...awkward.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top