Hollywood Ingenuity

[KyleProhaska]

I think doing something unique is nearly impossible today. Maybe not completely impossible, but when you have 1000's of filmmakers trying to do something "unique" your going to get plenty that don't do it. Lots of minds thinking in a short amount of genres will get similar ideas, especially when they don't know who is getting what ideas so they can change theirs.

I guess the question is how many ways can something be done before finding unique things are extremely rare, especially for an entire community of people in the same medium. Its like music, there are always new beats to create but how many of those sound like something you heard before? Ideas always come from previous ideas or experiences.

None of this includes the fact that people have their own likes/dislikes. I guess thats why they call it ART.

- Kyle

 

[Rubbersquare]

Ideas always come from previous ideas or experiences./quote]

They say there's nothing new, no new ideas, but there are twists on old ideas and juxtapositions of different ideas. Look at Saw. It took elements of videogames (puzzle solving, and very prevalent in the Silent Hill games), mixed it with the horror/crime thriller and took it into a very dark, very serious tone which had been abandoned for far too long (the horror genre had been a joke since Scream "revitalized" it).

Or Grindhouse. Actually a lot of Tarantino's films do a mish-mash of retro/exploitation films with splashes of modern filmmaking. Fact is, you could make a Blaxploitation, psychological thriller set 2000 years in the future acted by puppets and, if you manage to pull it off, create the next "new" genre.

There may be nothing that's original. Like you'd never "discover" a new ingredient in cooking. But if someone had suggested jalepeños and chocolate 20 years ago, people would have freaked. Filmmaking is a lot like cooking. You can make mac 'n' cheese. Or you can make penne 'n' pepperjack. Then roll it in a tortilla, deep fry it, something it in ice cream and top with basil. Gross? maybe. But to some palates it may be amazing. And new.

 

[ESTEBEVERDE]

You guys sound like the patent lawyer who said there is nothing left to invent.


It's all a matter of imagination.


Nothing more.

 

[ProfessorU]

I have to step in and break up the old codger convention. Cinematography is young and evolving. In some form, it will be around in 200 years.

The handheld camera has the opposite effect of the classic third-person hollywood view. It is first-person integration. Instead of shooting to amplify the emotion you can let the amplified emotion affect the shot.

Not everybody wants to make something "classic". Most audiences aren't going to sit through movies that look like they were directed by Sergio anymore. Using handheld or the ECU is no different than the decision to use color stock, zooms, or digital... an artistic decision. Shoot a film like United 93 with an old-school director and it will look like a Ken Burns doc. Plenty of intelligent, forward-thinking filmmakers have used handheld as a tool to control intensity (think Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan). Some use a broader brush than others, which is to be expected. To put it in historical perspective, look at Alton, who used light and contrast to an extreme and wasn't really recognized as a pioneer until a decade later. We're not going to know how to really use handheld for ten or twenty more years, but directors like Greengrass will be finding the rules and guiding the technique until new young directors find new ways to break convention.