What does a cinematographer do?

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DrewReiber
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#1 Post by DrewReiber » Sat Apr 07, 2007 3:01 am

Nothing wrote:Erm, Tarantino (like any other half-decent director) has always chosen the shots and framed his own movies. The DoP provides the lighting.
Ohhhh, so that's why Kill Bill looks so much like a Robert Richardson film!

Nothing
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#2 Post by Nothing » Sun Apr 08, 2007 6:24 am

DrewReiber wrote:Ohhhh, so that's why Kill Bill looks so much like a Robert Richardson film!
In all of the scenes where one can draw a comparison, there is a continuity to Tarantino's past work (eg. the Pasedena scenes at the beginning look like Pulp Fiction). Whereas the shot selection and framing bears little or no resemblance to The Aviator, Wag the Dog, Platoon, etc.

I'm constantly amazed by how many people overestimate the responsibilities of a DoP. In television soap operas, maybe...

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HerrSchreck
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#3 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Apr 08, 2007 6:55 am

That's utterly and absolutely wrong. It depends entirely on the sensibilities of the director, of which there are a thousand and one varieties. Some directors are entirely concerned with rehearsing and blocking the actors, and leave the arranging in depth, camera angles, and even at times movements completely up to the cinematographer. These would be your performance-driven or stage-originating director who have no visual style, and who benefit enormously from the presence of a strong dp. It's been like this since the silent era, where cameramen like Bitzer, Wagner, Freund, and on thru Glennon, Edeson, Howe, Cardiff, Perinal, through to Metty, Willis, Hall, storaro et al leave an indelible and often immediately identifiable mark on the films they work in.

Some directors pictureboard every scene and time it all out, others wouldn't go near that kind of visual pre-blocking and rely on the input of the dp and the feel that develops from the set and the rehearsals.

It's the same with editing. Some directors are utterly terrified of going near an editing facility as they are petrified of ruining the obvious potential in gorgeous dailies, as often and notoriously happens with a swaggering schmaltz who thinks he understands editing conceits and makes a total ass of himself. Others simply have the process within themselves and are completely comfortable directing the entire cutting process.

It all depends on the director. There are very few Josef von Sternbergs in the world who literally compose and light all their own films, even those with a dp credit (or at least who do so deservedly, with such raw power and luminescence).

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MichaelB
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#4 Post by MichaelB » Sun Apr 08, 2007 8:43 am

HerrSchreck wrote:It all depends on the director. There are very few Josef von Sternbergs in the world who literally compose and light all their own films, even those with a dp credit (or at least who do so deservedly, with such raw power and luminescence).
Nestor Almendros once wrote that Terrence Malick was highly unusual in that he was a director who genuinely did know a lot about photography - most others are quite happy to agree lighting and framing issues in broad brushstroke terms and let the DoP get on with it.

(And as a result, it's pretty easy to tell by eye which Eric Rohmer films were shot by Almendros, the only really world-class DoP he ever worked with)

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#5 Post by Nothing » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:58 am

HerrSchreck wrote: Some directors are entirely concerned with rehearsing and blocking the actors, and leave the arranging in depth, camera angles, and even at times movements completely up to the cinematographer.
Yes yes, I realise there are some so-called directors who abdicate responsiblity in this department - but these are generally theatre directors masquerading as film directors (eg. Sam Mendes), along with the occassional justified experiment (Dancer in the Dark, Natural Born Killers, Cannibal Holocaust). However, most of the directors taken seriously on these boards, most of the time, will at the least tell the DoP where to put the camera(s) and what lens to use.

You know, in France, a term often used for direction is 'Mise en Scene'. eg. the Best Director prize at Cannes is known in French as the 'Prix de la mise en scène'.

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HerrSchreck
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#6 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Apr 09, 2007 1:12 am

Nothing wrote:Yes yes, I realise there are some so-called directors who abdicate responsiblity in this department - but these are generally theatre directors masquerading as film directors (eg. Sam Mendes), along with the occassional justified experiment (Dancer in the Dark, Natural Born Killers, Cannibal Holocaust). However, most of the directors taken seriously on these boards, most of the time, will at the least tell the DoP where to put the camera(s) and what lens to use.

You know, in France, a term often used for direction is 'Mise en Scene'. eg. the Best Director prize at Cannes is known in French as the 'Prix de la mise en scène'.
But wait! You didn't tell me what "Cannes" meant yet. And what's this "Pricks in the mice" that they use in the scenes?? Did the French really like "Williard" that much?

PS: what do they call Direction the rest of the time in France?

DrewReiber
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#7 Post by DrewReiber » Mon Apr 09, 2007 1:31 am

HerrSchreck wrote:
Nothing wrote:Yes yes, I realise there are some so-called directors who abdicate responsiblity in this department - but these are generally theatre directors masquerading as film directors (eg. Sam Mendes), along with the occassional justified experiment (Dancer in the Dark, Natural Born Killers, Cannibal Holocaust). However, most of the directors taken seriously on these boards, most of the time, will at the least tell the DoP where to put the camera(s) and what lens to use.

You know, in France, a term often used for direction is 'Mise en Scene'. eg. the Best Director prize at Cannes is known in French as the 'Prix de la mise en scène'.
But wait! You didn't tell me what "Cannes" meant yet. And what's this "Pricks in the mice" that they use in the scenes?? Did the French really like "Williard" that much?

PS: what do they call Direction the rest of the time in France?
Are you guys kidding around? I can't tell. Mise en scene does not exactly translate to "direction" nor "director". It is a more complicated term that has to do with on camera detail as manipulated by the director. It's typically a way to gauge a director's actual talent because it concerns the plastics (props, sets, etc.), lighting, actors and other aspects captured by the camera only. It does not include post-production (cutting, CGI, additional audio, etc.) or other aspects of crafting a film outside of those physical elements. For instance, mise en scene is probably not something you spend a lot of time talking about if you're discussing Michael Bay or Tony Scott. Sorry you Scott and Bay fans out there...

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HerrSchreck
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#8 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Apr 09, 2007 1:49 am

This is getting incredible.

"STEPPS! Pistol pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaasse!"
Are you guys kidding around?
Absolutely breathtaking.

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#9 Post by Nothing » Mon Apr 09, 2007 4:29 am

Drew, sure, the term incorporates the entire physical look of the image, from the lighting and the framing and the blocking to the set design. And you will find this credit on many a French film. eg. "mise en scene - Bruno Dumont".

Or, to put it another way, perhaps there are two different 'views' on what the responsibilities of a director should be: the French/auteurist viewpoint and then the American/British viewpoint as expressed by MichaelB.

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HerrSchreck
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#10 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Apr 09, 2007 4:42 am

Someone please do something. This is breathtaking.

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miless
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#11 Post by miless » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:01 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Some directors pictureboard every scene and time it all out, others wouldn't go near that kind of visual pre-blocking and rely on the input of the dp and the feel that develops from the set and the rehearsals.
Buñuel would use a stop-watch in order to time everything to how he planned it in his head... and if it wasn't right he'd tell the actor to go faster or slower and get his preferred take in one to three takes... many cinematographers claimed to have hated working with him because he would tell them exactly how to shoot the scenes (and many complained that his films always looked like B-pictures because of it)... my favorite Buñuel anecdote revolves around Los Olvidados and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa (he had quite an ego, apparently, as he was a hot commodity in Mexico at the time). When Buñuel wanted him to frame a shot cutting off the characters at the knees Gabriel flipped out saying that nobody ever does that. Buñuel responded by saying that many great classical painters did it that way (in particular Goya) and that he'd show him later. a year or so went by before Buñuel brought him a book with particular images ear-marked (when Gabriel had either forgotten the incident, or was convinced his leg had been pulled).

There are definitely filmmakers who "collaborate" more with their cinematographers than others (some like Cassavetes would try anything)

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MichaelB
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#12 Post by MichaelB » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:25 pm

I haven't seen it for years, but didn't Rolf de Heer's Bad Boy Bubby use a different cinematographer for every scene? I don't recall it proving very much, since it's unlikely that they would have adopted a traditional DoP role - at least insofar as being given a chance to plan the look of the entire picture in advance.

Also, the Buñuel anecdote reminds me of one involving Renoir - apparently the only time he really lost his temper on set (I think it was on La Bête Humaine, but don't quote me) was when his cinematographer asked one of the actors to move because he was in the "wrong" position for the intended framing. Renoir said that it was his job to follow the actors, not the other way round - not least because the audience would be watching them, not marvelling at the way it was lit.

Which is a problem I have with many films directed by cinematographers - they're often visually gobsmacking but dramatically inert. But that's not always fair: I'm glad I had the time to read Imre Kertész' Fateless between viewing and review deadline of the film version, as the novel's rhapsodic description of the sunrise over Auschwitz made it clear that cinematographer-turned-director Lajos Koltai was being absolutely true to the text, even if his unnervingly beautiful evocation of the Nazi camps seems wildly inappropriate on a first viewing.

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Nihonophile
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#13 Post by Nihonophile » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:51 pm

MichaelB wrote:I haven't seen it for years, but didn't Rolf de Heer's Bad Boy Bubby use a different cinematographer for every scene? I don't recall it proving very much, since it's unlikely that they would have adopted a traditional DoP role - at least insofar as being given a chance to plan the look of the entire picture in advance.
This is true it had over 20 different DPs. Supposedly like every two weeks a new DP was brought in, it had something to do with scheduling. That said, the film retains a consistent look which almost certainly was from the director. The room Bubby lives in at the film's beginning had walls that could be expanded and retracted depending on the scene. This kind of planning came from de Heer not the DPs. That said, this is an example of how de Heer worked and in no way reflects any other director's system of working with a DP.

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Abulafia
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#14 Post by Abulafia » Mon Apr 09, 2007 9:12 pm

At a relatively recent festival in Australia (post 2000 anyway) de Heer was asked about the look of his films. He replied that he was a storyteller (standard Australian directorial response) and not that visual and left a lot of the framing/lighting to the DOP, which is very believable given the inconsistent "looks" of his films.

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zedz
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#15 Post by zedz » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:03 pm

One of the most intriguing director / DP relationships may be Satyajit Ray's. IMDB doesn't back me up on this - the technical credits on Ray's films all seem to be pretty skimpy - so maybe I'm misremembering this, but my understanding is that from the mid-sixties onward Ray would act as his own camera operator, but continue to work with various DPs. I have no idea how this worked in practice, and I'm not aware of anyone else who worked this way.

Actually, here's some verification in a Bright Lights interview with Ray:
I'd like to follow up with a related question: what's your relationship with your cinematographer?

Well, I started out with a very good cameraman, but after each shot he would say, "We must take another." I asked him why, but he was never precise. Multiple takes are very dangerous when one is shooting on a small budget, so I decided to operate the camera myself. Sometimes during a tracking shot in which there is a lot of action, a slight shake — inevitably caused by me — is not important if the action is good. But this man thought only about the shake; he wanted smoothness at any price.

As the camera operator, I have realized that when I work with new actors, they are more confident if they don't see me: they are less tense. I remain behind the camera, I see better, and I can get exactly the framing that I want. If I am sitting over to the side, by contrast, I am dependent on the cameraman. He frames the shot, he does the panning, the tilting, the tracking — he does everything, in fact. Then it's only when you see the rushes that you know exactly what you have. I am so used to doing my own framing, my own visual composing, now that I couldn't work in any other way. It's not that I have no trust in my cameraman's operational abilities; it's just that the best position from which to judge the acting is from behind the camera, and therefore I must be the one looking through the lens.
EDIT - Just noticed that this quotation had been truncated during a past board upgrade, so I've restored it.
Last edited by zedz on Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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zedz
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#16 Post by zedz » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:34 pm

davidhare wrote:EDIT: Zedz didn't Ray actually start his career as - uncredited - focus puller and general dogsbody on Renoir's the River?
I know he was some kind of gofer, but I don't know if they let him near the cameras! Completely off-topic: how many other great directors got their start on a Renoir set? There's Becker and Visconti as well. Any more?

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Scharphedin2
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#17 Post by Scharphedin2 » Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:40 am

I think Robert Aldrich worked on one or two of the American films, but I could be wrong...

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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#18 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:46 am

zedz wrote:One of the most intriguing director / DP relationships may be Satyajit Ray's. IMDB doesn't back me up on this - the technical credits on Ray's films all seem to be pretty skimpy - so maybe I'm misremembering this, but my understanding is that from the mid-sixties onward Ray would act as his own camera operator, but continue to work with various DPs. I have no idea how this worked in practice, and I'm not aware of anyone else who worked this way.
Von Trier has served as camera operator on all of his films since Dancer in the Dark (bar The Boss of It All), with Robby Müller as DP on Dancer and Anthony Dod Mantle on the others. Given the differences in style I suspect the dynamic was very different in Ray's case.
davidhare wrote:Doyle's ep in Paris je t'Aime is interesting from this perspective. The look is immediately his but it's even MORE garish (although largely daylight rather than fluoro) than usual. As the piece is only five minutes long the comedy pays off but I have NO idea how his particular brand of lunacy would develop into a feature film.
Wonder no more

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#19 Post by Mise En Scene » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:03 am

Nothing wrote:Erm, Tarantino (like any other half-decent director) has always chosen the shots and framed his own movies. The DoP provides the lighting.
Let's not forget the DP's role in film processing (push, pull, saturate, desaturate, color palette, etc.).

The director may tell the DP what he wants, but the DP knows what's possible with what lenses and film stock (etcetera) are used.

I don't think there are that much directors out there that know as much info on lenses, film stock, film processing, and other technical matters as much as DPs. If I'm wrong on that, I'm okay with it and will gladly admit so, but that's my impression at the moment.

In short, even with a director heavily involved with camera setups and moves, the DP provides more than lighting.

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HerrSchreck
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#20 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:28 am

Wait until this sucker is finally restored and tours in 35mm resto and goes on dvd. You will see one of the most notorious (along of course w his more obvious collab w FW You know who from the year prior) examples of what a genius mann on de kamera can do to a film....

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#21 Post by Nothing » Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:00 pm

MichaelB wrote:insofar as being given a chance to plan the look of the entire picture in advance
For someone so clearly concerned with clear sentence and paragraph structure, that's an awfully muddy statement. Yes, the DoP will usually be involved in planning certain aspects of the entire picture in advance - eg. the film stock, the desired f-stop, the tone of the lighting, maybe the colour scheme. Things like that. The technical means by which to achieve a certain look. NOT the shot list.

And whilst some directors like Pialat and Renoir will allow actors to miss their spots, this, then, is a directorial choice, a visual choice.

And, zedz, many directors also operate (outside North American Union shoots, where the unions forbid the practice). The practice was even more common before the advent of video assist (although Kubrick was both operating and using video assist on The Shining).

Of course it can go the other way too. Christopher Doyle is absolutely a DoP who will usurp the role of a less-established director on set. I have heard many stories of this, but then I would consider him a co-director on these movies (at the least), whether credited or not. I also consider this trait a failing as a DoP.

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domino harvey
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#22 Post by domino harvey » Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:49 pm

Will Oldham to thread

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#23 Post by carax09 » Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:53 pm

Yeah, it's too bad Doyle didn't keep his thoughts to himself. That way the movies wouldn't have been as visually exciting or inventive, but at least you would have been able to respect him more. And whoah, like omigod, that is so important (to be read like a valley girl).

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HerrSchreck
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#24 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:41 am

Nothing wrote:
MichaelB wrote:insofar as being given a chance to plan the look of the entire picture in advance
For someone so clearly concerned with clear sentence and paragraph structure, that's an awfully muddy statement. Yes, the DoP will usually be involved in planning certain aspects of the entire picture in advance - eg. the film stock, the desired f-stop, the tone of the lighting, maybe the colour scheme. Things like that. The technical means by which to achieve a certain look. NOT the shot list.

And whilst some directors like Pialat and Renoir will allow actors to miss their spots, this, then, is a directorial choice, a visual choice.

And, zedz, many directors also operate (outside North American Union shoots, where the unions forbid the practice). The practice was even more common before the advent of video assist (although Kubrick was both operating and using video assist on The Shining).

Of course it can go the other way too. Christopher Doyle is absolutely a DoP who will usurp the role of a less-established director on set. I have heard many stories of this, but then I would consider him a co-director on these movies (at the least), whether credited or not. I also consider this trait a failing as a DoP.
Sir I says it before and will say it again-- there is no rule in this zone. The boundaries flux depending who's working with whom. You're statement
Nothing wrote:Or, to put it another way, perhaps there are two different 'views' on what the responsibilities of a director should be: the French/auteurist viewpoint and then the American/British viewpoint as expressed by MichaelB
is one of the most amusing I've heard on this whole site. You're clouding this decent forum with stuff you're virtually making up on the spot as you randomly organize the information in your head for your own convenience. You'd do well to develop an internal monitoring device that reminds you that, like all individuals, your voice and your identity is the center of the universe for you and therefore is apt to be assigned far too much weight when looking to summarize The Whole World filled with activities which are beyond your eyesight and perception, performed by strangers who are the centers of the universe in their own heads, and would read your comments about What They Do-- like the unanimity of folks here-- with amused astonishment.

When a director & dp go to work they do not say "Let us now owing to our geographic and cultural traditions adhere to the American/British viewpoint of cinematography," or vice versa with "French/Auteurist", simply because the reality of such oversimplified rubbish, if held as authentic by any brain anywhere, is that they are... well... oversimplified rubbish. And so where do the Russians fit in? The Swedes? Bergman's style shifted enormously with the arrival of Nykvist. And what about the Germans, who were pioneers of the "art film" and provided perhaps the most muscular examples of the "asset" cinematographer.. that is, dp's who were jealously coveted and hoarded by directors lucky enough to work with them.

As I mentioned a few days ago there are as many variations of the director/dp work-divisions as there are directors/dp's themselves. There are no paradigms in actual practice governing the precise boundaries of "what a director does" photographically. There are two things in operation here in this discussion: what goes on out in the real world on sets/location, and what we say here regarding that work that goes on. The two are not connected. We are just Talking Here. It seems you are almost determined to miss the reality of the variety of human cooperation, & talent-quirks, moods from picture to picture, laziness from moment to moment, enthusiasm from project to project, etc... especially the way you minimize as "so-called" directors those who lack a distinctive visual style (like those who come from the stage). The difference between What Goes On Out In Industry, and What We Say Here About It are as mutually exclusive as the act of Fucking, and your attempt to describe in universal terms What Fucking Consists Of. You say there is a French Pepe le Pew style of romance, and there is the Brit/American style of in/out-in/out. The truth is that among the French are probably as many if not more boring lays than the rest of the world, and that in America where the stick it in.. go-in/out-then-come paradigm rules, there are sexual nutheads like me who climb and slither around their woman like a cross eyed rapist klanking and nudging the wand against and into all soft parts from forehead to ankle and demanding the messiest possible finish. Some want their partner to work them over while they lay back, others are the aggressors.

It's like this not only with photographing a film but editing it, scoring it (some directors famously dictate precisely what they want scene by scene to their composers, others place this entirely in the composers hand), and performing it. Some Bressonian directors want "models" who express no opinion on what a part should consist of, others have far more technical (versus aesthetic) talents and would be finished without a stellar cast of imaginative performers of the Attenborough/Jannings/Laughton/ Simon/(early)DeNiro stripe.

And I'd warn against denigrating directors with no extravagant visual style, or those whose strengths lie in the working with actors (Scorsese, Coppola, after all-- the contributions of Willis and Storaro in his two masterpieces cannot be overstated.. counting GODFATHER as one work) and in the conception of the idea and feel of a scene, and leave the deep painterly beauty and atmosphere of cinematography to a brilliant cinematographer. Look at the work of Vittorio Storaro for Bertolucci in CONFORMIST.

The work of William Friedkin in FRENCH CONNECTION & EXCORCIST; the work of a man like Fleischer in TEN RILLINGTON PLACE. These are films with non-extravegant visual styles, and thank god. Comments like
Nothing wrote:Yes yes, I realise there are some so-called directors who abdicate responsiblity in this department - but these are generally theatre directors masquerading as film directors (eg. Sam Mendes), along with the occassional justified experiment (Dancer in the Dark, Natural Born Killers, Cannibal Holocaust). However, most of the directors taken seriously on these boards, most of the time, will at the least tell the DoP where to put the camera(s) and what lens to use.

are absurd, as anyone who doesn't fit into your own idealized version of What A Director Should Do Photographically is naught but a fraud masquerading as a director. You're probably not aware that you've lopped off probably more than half of the memberships of all the directors guilds of the world. The kind of reply represented by your above quote signals to the person conversing with you the brick wall you've erected to the possibility of learning and expanding your worldview with impressions of reality. It's like we're talking about cars, lets say, and you say "The only real car with an engine worth anything must have at least six cylinders," and I say "Waitaminnit! The BMW for example has some excellent four cylinder engined models with excellent power and acceleration," and you say "Yes yes I know there are some so-called cars with four cylinders but these are not real cars, they are contraptions masquerading as cars etc,"..

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#25 Post by GringoTex » Wed Apr 11, 2007 5:04 pm

MichaelB wrote:(And as a result, it's pretty easy to tell by eye which Eric Rohmer films were shot by Almendros, the only really world-class DoP he ever worked with)
I never really gave it much thought until you brought it up, but there is a distinct difference between the Almendros Rohmers and the non-Almendros Rohmers. There is a more conspicuous recognition of the settings. That said, I'm not sure I don't prefer his more "insulated" films like Aviator's Wife, Good Marriage, and Full Moon in Paris.

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