The Cinematography in "How Do You Know?"

mentatDUKE

mentatDUKE

Veteran
Is it just me or is this a really beautifully shot film? Its almost too beautiful. It seems a lot more saturated and sunnier than his last "dramedy" I remember him shooting: "Funny People".
 
just you.

did you specifically like the color rendition and some of the framing choices before the camera movement on some of the scenes, or the cinematography as a whole for the entire movie?
 
I think the color specifically was really well done. I dont remember if Janusz does a DI or if he sticks to photochemical (or if thats just a Spielberg choice). The lighting was pretty captivating in a lot of shots too. The whole thing took on a painterly aspect and seemed almost like a fairy tale.

Not much camera movement. He seemed to stick to locked off shots for the most part.
 
it has been a while since i have seen it. but, from what i remember it looked like an expensive tv movie with some nice shots here and there and a quite a bit of drunken handheld camera work. the color palette was really good from what i remember.

the plot(s) is were the movie really disappointed, it's definitely a woman's story told from a woman's imaginary perspective (justification of woman's guilt manifesting an imaginary fantasy with love and rainbows of a woman nearing her mid life (worse than sparkling vampires and shirtless werewolves fantasies ) ). no story structure, the movie doesn't go anywhere with any of the useless plots. talent was wasted on this movie.
 
I can understand the "tv movie" criticisms due to the abundance of closeups but boy were they really good looking closeups. Did they service the story? Hmm not sure. But they definitely serviced the character so maybe that was where Brooks was going with that technique. I remember thinking "does this film have a story" during the first 30 min, then got really invested and was actually kinda cracking up at one point in the 3rd act: "You didn't GET it!?". Not a real comedy by any means but the gag worked so well due to the previous hour of character development.

This was definitely a mutant of a movie. Sometimes mutants come out like Elephant Man. Sometimes they come out like Wolverine. I don't think this was an Elephant Man though...
 
if your 30 mins in the movie and it doesn't have a story...

it's not a romantic comedy. it has fictional imaginary characters with shallow to no real problems, and they mostly don'y even deal with those small problems. not really a recipe for a decent movie to start with.
 
Couldn't you say the same thing about "Chinatown"? The first 30 minutes seemed to meander and was about setup, but by the end we were all pretty rapt.

I feel that your problems with the structure and lack of conventions are what made the movie interesting. I feel the move was full of really interesting moments.
The hug-breakup with "What did I do wrong?", etc.

Did you watch the whole thing?
 
the movie is not that memorable (and i can usually remember good movies since i was 2), but could you describe the story or plot of the movie. or the message of the movie, or the purpose of the movie.

i'm not talking about conventions, it does not have a story. and it does not have real 3d characters that an audience might connect to. there is no problem, struggle, character development, revelation or resolution.

does the rich guy have a problem, why are we watching his "thoughts" or pov, it's a woman's imaginary fantasy about the womanizer that "she" turned into the knight of her dreams. it has nothing to do with the story. it was added to make the woman choose between the rich womanizer and the other nice guy (is that the woman's struggle, did she struggle).

the woman's career had nothing to do with the story (from what i remember), you could have removed that part and it would not have made a difference.

the guy and father "problem" was stretched beyond belief (and just weakened the nice guy's resolve), nothing there. and it was daytime soap opera material, not for a romantic comedy.

was there a back story to the nice guy's secretary, that was pointless air time as well.

some of the break ups and turning points were forced beyond belief, daytime soap again.
 
On a surface level you're right. However, I found it interesting that they spent so much time on the side characters. Usually in romantic comedies. The "antagonist" is just a stock character. This film was character driven rather than plot driven. So rather than manufacture problems, the screenwriters just gave every character weird quirks and set up situations for them to interact with each other.
 
if it was character driven, we would have scenes were we can see character development through there state of mind, feelings, emotions, actions, reactions...etc. we would have scenes with the characters alone. we would have characters with strong goals and resolves. we would see the character as an observer to a side story that reinforces there resolve or make the character change their resolution. we would see a character go through an ordeal that would prove he's mettle...etc.

it can't be character driven, when the (fantasy) characters are 1d and non relate-able without any real problems(that affects them or others around them).
 
for a tv movie quality with handheld and zoom shots, they didn't even shoot on many different sets (and not many outdoor scenes?). did they buy the apartment and the baseball team?

i thought the average for a rom-com would be 30mil or less
 
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