Still vs Motion picture technique

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boojum

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There has been a lot of interest in the movie industry in vintage and specialty lenses, like Cooke, which impart warmth and glow. Kubrik's Barry Lyndon is a good example of using lenses which add that special dramatic "something" in color and image. But Kubrick started as a still photographer. Cross fertilization? Movies, of course, have great control of light indoors and will wait long times outdoors for the light to be right. They have the luxury of time and money that we do not. And they also have ace lighting people.

And the vintage lenses tame the precision and lack of "art" in digital turning it back into more painterly and filmic images. There will always be the question of whether this is better or whether we are trained to believe that it is better through consumption of the cinema images, the really good cinema images. But that aside do you find cinema imagery inspiring and something to be learned from? And how so?
 
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Joel Meyerowitz has spoken often of the huge influence Fellini had on his street photography. Just as Fellini would only allow a brief glimpse of an activity at the edge of the frame before he panned past it, Meyerowitz learned to throw his compositions off-balance, including disparate activities in different parts of the frame to create a new reality that only existed as a photograph. He continues to use that technique even with his large-format work.
 
In short; room to breathe when you break out of that 3:2 ratio of 35mm film.

The much wider cinematic aspect ratios allow much more environment for your subject while still retaining the subject's impact on the image. On standard 35mm frame, with an extreme wide angle, either the background needs to be pushed far back to maintain your subject's impact vertically, or the subject becomes vertically very small in the frame.
 
It goes both ways for me, still photography influences the video work I do, and narrative film influences the kind of images I take. I like the idea of my images looking like a frame from a movie, and I like my video work to look like well composed still images.

Techniques from cinema play into how I like to shoot stills - I actively look for back lighting and side lighting in stills, and I tend to compose with the rule of thirds. I also look for foreground obstructions to create a sense of depth where appropriate in both stills and video.

I also look for visual stories in a frame for video, which comes from studying the masters of documentary photography. Coming from a stills background, I had to learn camera movement and focus pulling, but the sense of composition was helpful.
 
It’s definitely worthwhile to study some of the great cinematographers, directors, and DPs. Some have very distinctive visual styles.

While still and motion pictures can play off of each other - ultimately I think cinema has an enormous edge as they often have huge budgets, control of light, scene, and talent. The film industry understands light and color in ways that put still photographers to shame.

“The Tragedy of Macbeth” with Denzel Washington by A24 is a masterclass in B&W. Every. Single. Scene. Is perfect.

Anything by Akira Kurosawa is worth watching.

I like to pay attention to the light, compositions and camera placements/movements to think about how each scene could be a still. Taking photos in my head.

From a color perspective, count how many distinct colors are in a scene, and try to understand why those colors were used. What is the white balance? Has it changed? Is the main character wearing complimentary or contrasting colors? Why? In cinema, someone is making all those decisions with intention.
 
Watching Kurasawa’s movie “Dreams” and checked threads during a commercial break. Memorable movies are often a series of still images for each scene. The composition is what makes each scene. One can see the storyboards as the film progresses.

In some of my better advertising projects, I had storyboards to guide how to plan each image for the campaign. A few times, I used my illustration background, and made my own storyboards. Even for photographers not working professionally on ad campaigns, I think a little scene planning can go a long way. Telling a story in a single frame is a worthwhile challenge.

On lenses, or filter usage, it’s a matter of personal taste. Sometimes, I find digital sharpness to look too clinical, almost to the level of looking hyper-realistic, or looking a bit fake. Our eyes don’t see that much detail in a scene, so extreme sharpness can seem crunchy. Again, it’s a matter of taste, but worth considering to create memorable images.
 
johnsonjj22 said:
It’s definitely worthwhile to study some of the great cinematographers, directors, and DPs. Some have very distinctive visual styles.

While still and motion pictures can play off of each other - ultimately I think cinema has an enormous edge as they often have huge budgets, control of light, scene, and talent. The film industry understands light and color in ways that put still photographers to shame.

“The Tragedy of Macbeth” with Denzel Washington by A24 is a masterclass in B&W. Every. Single. Scene. Is perfect.

Anything by Akira Kurosawa is worth watching.

I like to pay attention to the light, compositions and camera placements/movements to think about how each scene could be a still. Taking photos in my head.

From a color perspective, count how many distinct colors are in a scene, and try to understand why those colors were used. What is the white balance? Has it changed? Is the main character wearing complimentary or contrasting colors? Why? In cinema, someone is making all those decisions with intention.
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Try The Third Man. Every scene can be printed and win a prize as a still. 1948 IIRC. A classic.
 
Off the top of my head here .... Other than the possible cross-over use of some lenses and processes, cinema incorporates time/change at its very core and this is something that still photography cannot directly do. The audience experiences cinema in a very different way than still images. One can spend as much time as they please looking at a photograph, but (barring technological interventions such as hitting the "pause" button) this is not easily done with cinema; the very process of "watching" a film differs from looking at a photograph or a series of photographs. Speaking personally, I can create a book of photographs but I have no control over the order that the audience will follow in looking at these photographs, or if they will skip over some, move forward or backward, reviewing images, etc. I cannot (easily?) create a motion picture, however, that directly (that is without extraordinary intervention by the audience) gives the audience the same editorial controls. (This brief observation does not even consider the impact of dialogue, music, and other elements that, arguably, one could incorporate in a "slide show" of still images, but it's unclear to me that this would operate at the same level as what is experienced by the audience watching cinema ... .)

These, as well as other, observations imply that the kinds of images created, their meanings implied and audience experiences desired are fundamentally different.

Many years ago, I attended an installation exhibit at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, DC. I cannot recall the dates or the name of the artist. Essentially, the exhibit consisted of a darkened room and a large projection screen. Upon this screen, the artist created a frame by frame display of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. This proceeded at the rate of (approximately) one frame per second.

I think about this experience from time to time ... especially when sequencing images for books or exhibits.
 
I can't recall any film used movie with vintage, effects lens. Perhaps I'm limited by the mainstream. Would it be from west or east.

Quality film (a.k.a Kodak) is still unsurpassed by digital. But I have seen special effects movies. Those are from FSU with film made in FSU.


Some were really "special".
This is how cinema lab day was in Soviet time.
Morning. Most are sitting and waiting. For non-expirienced to come.
Non-expirienced comes. Film gets developed.
Odd colors comes. Lab knows how to correct it to make it looks more less OK.
Experienced ones get their rolls processed.

So, this current (distasteful) PP fashion with green and blue cast color balance is nothing but Back in the U.S.S.R.
Or it just how modern Sony/Nikon records colors 🙂 .

Also, cinematic view comes not just from some lens kit, but with huge amount of work with light.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
I can't recall any film used movie with vintage, effects lens. Perhaps I'm limited by the mainstream. Would it be from west or east.
Quality film (a.k.a Kodak) is still unsurpassed by digital. But I have seen special effects movies. Those are from FSU with film made in FSU.
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Ko Fe: have you seen the 1964 Russian film "Soy Cuba" (I am Cuba)? It originally was not well received in either Russia or Cuba. But 30 years later, it was discovered by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese who were impressed enough to buy the rights and re-release it. Technically it was shot with one Éclair CM3 Camiflex, which I understand was a WWII vintage camera that was hand held. 90% of the movie was shot with a 9.8mm Kinoptic lens and the rest with a 18mm. Film was b&w with one of the 4 distinct segments being infrared b&w, supposedly from the Soviet military. The movie is famous for its long continuous scenes. One of them, the almost 4 minute long funeral scene has become famous because it starts close up ground level and the camera moves up 4 stories, moves through a cigar factory, and back out to the street. All one continuous shot. The 14 minute video explains it. The film is feature length but not available for free viewing on the internet.
 
I find my still photography, others' movies / video, as well as written text to all be essentially methods of communicating. Observations or lessons learned from one communication medium can easily be adapted to another.

I wrote of the Russian movie "Soy Cuba" in the preceding post. That post addressed the technical aspects of the movie. But, it was intended to be a propaganda piece. There are key messages about communicating your thoughts woven into that movie that are applicable to still photography any communication medium if your mind is open enough.
 
Bob Michaels said:
Ko Fe: have you seen the 1964 Russian film "Soy Cuba" (I am Cuba)? It originally was not well received in either Russia or Cuba. But 30 years later, it was discovered by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese who were impressed enough to buy the rights and re-release it. Technically it was shot with one Éclair CM3 Camiflex, which I understand was a WWII vintage camera that was hand held. 90% of the movie was shot with a 9.8mm Kinoptic lens and the rest with a 18mm. Film was b&w with one of the 4 distinct segments being infrared b&w, supposedly from the Soviet military. The movie is famous for its long continuous scenes. One of them, the almost 4 minute long funeral scene has become famous because it starts close up ground level and the camera moves up 4 stories, moves through a cigar factory, and back out to the street. All one continuous shot. The 14 minute video explains it. The film is feature length but not available for free viewing on the internet.
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No. Like I mentioned, I'm not into something cinematically special.
Here is the link to full version in Russian https://id52.lordfilm.codes/37207-ja-kuba.html
They say Mosfilm has restored it.

During Soviet time we have plenty of movies kept on shelves for many years.
This one was released from captivity by Gorbachev time.
 
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