Cinematographers & visual aesthetics - 1

Cinematographers & Visual AestheticsMay 15, 2008

Cinematographers & Visual Aesthetics



Cin•e•ma•tog•ra•phy (sin’c.mc.tog’rc.fē) n. The art and process of making motion pictures.



Moving images are inspiring narrative, sometimes powerful, sometimes emotive, sometimes still and sometimes drab, colourful and pleasing, grey and sober. They convey umpteen emotions rapidly changing and altering its form and carrying the audience with it to the desired destination or conclusion. It is a medium replete with challenges and numerous permutations and combinations to portray the images to convey the story. It is complex and there is no foolproof laid out operating procedures which says that for this situation, light and move the camera in a way to get the result. It may simply not show what one had desired for. The examples of failures are many and they have been inspired by those successful films which have been critiqued and written a million times over. Yet films fail. It could be for many reasons – poor narrative, bad performances, tackily shot, bad film grammar, inappropriate visualization. I am going to dwell on the last factor.

Motion pictures have always been considered a Director’s medium because he is telling a visual story which is performed by actors, recorded by the cinematographer, the shot fragmented and put into a cohesive narration by the editor, and the overall narrative supplemented with background score to augment the performance or underline key moments by a music composer. Not to mention the significant contribution done by production designer, who in tandem with the cinematographer and the director helps to create the right ambience and mood, the numerous production executives who slog to get the film going in the right way, make up artists, Visual effects supervisors, the technicians at the lab who carefully handle the sensitive photochemical process. The team a director leads is becoming huge as the technology brings in new facets of filmmaking.

A director could be a titular head relying on his well chosen team to deliver while he concentrates on stage and performance or he could be a control freak taking over the role of every department. Whichever way he chooses to function he is responsible for the success and failure of the film because it his visualization that has to come out on screen with the help of his team.
The person who comes closest in delivering what the director wishes to is the cinematographer. It is the visualization that must be understood lucidly by the cinematographer with no room for doubts. And that is possible only when these two individuals collaborate on a project shredding the script down; page by page, line by line, as to how the story should unfold, in terms of looks, co lour, texture, emotional or action moments accentuated by camera moves or lack of it. The tempo of the film to a large extent can be pre-decided because that eases shot formulation and breakdowns. Viewpoints held by director and cinematographer over a particular scene’s or shot’s picturisation have to be exchanged and discussed as to which one is appropriate and the other not. Reasoning in short has to be the mother behind every take. That doesn’t mean someone is questioning a director’s or a cinematographer’s vision but that’s how it is often perceived by people not so adept in the field of collaborative art form. In brief the duo should click together to function in unison lest there be problems.
In my view I hold the cinematographer equally responsible for the visualization aspect of the film as much as the director is. What a cinematographer lights, sets the exposure, chooses the emulsion, lenses, location and movements is not just by experience gained from repetitive exercises – it is often intuitive and driven by the subconscious. It is therefore imperative for a director to know the background and the persona a cinematographer brings with himself on the set. It will certainly contribute towards the imagery.
Who could be a cinematographer? Ideally, anybody with a good visual sense. Who has a good visual sense? How do you know the person will be able to execute and replicate reality onto negatives or capture metaphorical hints with dreamy looks. Contrast or variety, stems from the Cinematographer’s past. What all he has been exposed to in life? Because it is always the past experiences in life that help us build the scenes to be shot. A cinematographer with a staid or uninteresting lifestyle will definitely affect the film as well.
You can copy cinematographers, slick camera movements, glossy lighting, noirish looks, with some effort execute shots in cinema verite style. These things are not styles any more as they have been done so often that they have become some kind of alphabets for the cinematographers. The question is how can you combine these alphabets to make a new word and subsequently a new sentence. It depends upon the quantum of enterprise and novelty a cinematographer brings with himself to contribute to the film.