Snapper123
Well-known member
Honestly, I think that cinematography is something that is very easily conveyed through text, pictures, and DVD. Look at Tom Anton's videos, simple stuff but some of the most needed stuff to come across Youtube lately. There's not really much to it, you write a book, and throw in some pictures representing what looks bad and what looks good ex. "Picture A shows what happens when a frame is otherwise set up correctly but the camera is a positioned a bit too low, bringing the camera up a foot looks more pleasing to the eye as shown in Picture B." and it becomes the same thing that billions of lighting books have been. Almost like a photography tutorial that's geared toward shots that correlate with other shots in the scene or location.
And yeah, I think that cinematography is the #1 most important components of film, you can take away absolutely everything involving the filmmaking process (lights, sound, actors, equipment) but at the end of the day, if you take away the camera, you don't have a film. That doesn't mean all factors aren't important, it just means that even if it's by just a bit, what you do with the camera can make or break a film in many eyes, while everything else can be adapted into easier methods for the shooter's style. And the reality is that many shots are surprisingly shot like this, like I said, you can take a DSLR outside on an overcast day without any tools whatsoever and get some amazing footage for a scene that doesn't even require dialogue. The entire first 10 minutes of one of my scripts has no talk, just music, and involves this girl wandering through the woods and sitting in fields, it's practically a moving picture (a Youtube collage through and through) and will require nothing but a camera, an eye for what looks right, and good weather. In this instance, I'd say having an actor is importance #2!
Which brings it to the the reality that footage like that doesn't require years of training, it just requires some quick rules that lay down the absolute no-no's and help you know what's right for faces, shots that correlate, perception differences, emotional tributes, ect ect. For instance, if you watch RIP (a great DSLR short film by a young cinematographer who truly has some skills - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7w_6Y1HcFs ), the entire short film was shot using his family as actors and using a vacation location as the location, and I think I remember him saying that he had a reflector and a small tripod at most - not much different than many scenes in Hills Green. But his angle techniques and motions are spot on, and I think that is honestly just an incredibly important factor - a major hollywood studio would probably look at that short film and just by the visuals alone go "wow." And while the script is decent and not over the top by much, it still just the regular cheese. It's not like you can pack Harry Potter into a 5 minute short film, sometimes the visuals have to speak for themselves without words or studio sets, or even a complex script.
And yeah, I think that cinematography is the #1 most important components of film, you can take away absolutely everything involving the filmmaking process (lights, sound, actors, equipment) but at the end of the day, if you take away the camera, you don't have a film. That doesn't mean all factors aren't important, it just means that even if it's by just a bit, what you do with the camera can make or break a film in many eyes, while everything else can be adapted into easier methods for the shooter's style. And the reality is that many shots are surprisingly shot like this, like I said, you can take a DSLR outside on an overcast day without any tools whatsoever and get some amazing footage for a scene that doesn't even require dialogue. The entire first 10 minutes of one of my scripts has no talk, just music, and involves this girl wandering through the woods and sitting in fields, it's practically a moving picture (a Youtube collage through and through) and will require nothing but a camera, an eye for what looks right, and good weather. In this instance, I'd say having an actor is importance #2!
Which brings it to the the reality that footage like that doesn't require years of training, it just requires some quick rules that lay down the absolute no-no's and help you know what's right for faces, shots that correlate, perception differences, emotional tributes, ect ect. For instance, if you watch RIP (a great DSLR short film by a young cinematographer who truly has some skills - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7w_6Y1HcFs ), the entire short film was shot using his family as actors and using a vacation location as the location, and I think I remember him saying that he had a reflector and a small tripod at most - not much different than many scenes in Hills Green. But his angle techniques and motions are spot on, and I think that is honestly just an incredibly important factor - a major hollywood studio would probably look at that short film and just by the visuals alone go "wow." And while the script is decent and not over the top by much, it still just the regular cheese. It's not like you can pack Harry Potter into a 5 minute short film, sometimes the visuals have to speak for themselves without words or studio sets, or even a complex script.
