In my forays into the world of video I have been pleased with the results my dismal lighting knowledge and digital camera can create but I have been keenly aware that much of this has been due to luck or chance. Many of the images I have had to work with, simply because I could not reshoot the footage, have required hours of finessing and tweaking in post. At best I have created images that I have found interesting. At worst I have hoped that fast cutting and effects would mask my lack of craft.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying I shoot on video and I never have a budget. Therefore I can pretend I am a cinematographer if I need to and if and when I fail that consequences are not overly severe.
My mind of course drifts to the inevitable, "What if..." scenario. I can say with certainty that if that ship comes in, if I were to be helming a picture with the ample budget and full crew that despite the format I would shoot on I would still hire a cinematographer.
Why?
I think this article concerning Oliver Stapleton's work on The Shipping News provides a wonderful answer to that question
http://www.cineman.co.uk/shipping.html
For those of you who need a little more enticement to visit the link (and if you just read through all of what I wrote that should be enticement enough!) let me add another line or two about this article.
The number of choices that were made on this particular project, from where to shoot, how to light it, what cameras and lenses to use to the how the film was processed are staggering. This article, like nearly every piece of information Mr. Stapleton provides, offers the choices he made as well as explanations as to why. He illuminates the process of how he works and in doing so gives people like myself enough insight into the role of a cinematographer to know that this role is indispensable.
The article is riddled with examples that prove this point, so let me choose just one to paste here.
Stapleton’s sensitivity to landscape also impacted discussions about the
film’s aspect ratio. He felt that Newfoundland’s rugged features deserved a
widescreen format, but conceded that the height differences among actors could
make 2.35:1 framing awkward. That Hallstrom had only worked with widescreen once before (on The Cider House Rules) also created concern. “Right up to the last
week, we were still tussling about which format suited the film,” Stapleton
recalls. “It’s simply easier to shoot in 1.85:1, but that format doesn’t give
you the same kind of tension when you go out into the land. So I got Steve Dunn
to produce both actors [Spacey and Moore?] and the child for me four days before
we were to start shooting. We were lucky that the child was quite tall, and
neither of the actors was. We went to the set with a viewfinder, and I kept
switching it between 1.85 and 2.35 and handing it to Lasse. In the end, he said,
'You know, 2.35 is just cooler.'”
It's a long article and well worth the read, if you made it this far you owe it to yourself to follow the link.
