Cinematographer Guideline

Cinematographer Guideline

First of, you have to acquire knowledge in the cinematography field. The best way to start is to study Photography, since Cinematography and Photography share a lot of common elements. I would recommend the Series of Ansel Adans book's. Although they speak of analogue photography, his teachings can be aplied for digital photography.

After you understand the basics of exposure and analog photography, you should advance in the studies of digital sensor technologies.

In the meantime, you should start reading books about cinematography.

There are three that I can't recommend enough:

The five C's of Cinematography (this is a more basic one)

Cinematography

Lighting for Film and Television

And you should also read the american cinematographer's manual

After that you start to understand the theory of how to manipulate the light and toher elements that allow you to shape an image, you should start watching every film that you can grab your hands on (you should be doing that anyway) but you need to try to understand the technicalities of it (if you can find an American Cinematographer's article about a specific movie, that helps)

During all that, you should start taking pictures and learn how to manipulate then digitally. Take as much pictures as you can, but don't take it for granted, put effort in each shot.

You can also start shooting some footage. Again, put effort in it. Try to emulate scenes you saw somewhere. learn color correction.

All those things are going to give you a start on the theoretical knowledge factor, but you should also have pratical experience.

You must start shooting movies of your own. You need to find friends or a crew to work with. Maybe you can join a film school perhaps...

You should also try to somehow start to work as an assistant on film crews, on the cinematography team.

You are going to hate the first few footage you produce, you are going to think that they do not look like what you see in movies (and they won't). But you will get better with time (but be warned, it takes time!).

But there's no easy way in, everything you do at first is going to feel like a small step in a infinite journey (and it is), and sometimes you are going to feel exhausted, and you are going to want to give up.

I`ve been working as a professional cinematographer for 10 years (after having studied for 4), and to this day, I still feel overwhelmed sometimes. I feel That I`m having too much trouble for nothing... Even yesterday, I was rigging 500 meters of cables across a rooftop, + acessories + the eletrical work, just so that I could light a scene the way I envisioned (and I was doing it all by myself, since it's for a No Budget movie, and I had no money to hire a rigging crew). A less dedicated person, would find an easier solution and be content with a lesser result. I wonder for how long I can keep motivated...

There is a 'hierarchy' of what you should concern yourself with.

In order of importance:

1. Telling a Story
2. Placement of Actors (and quality of actors and acting).
3. Set Design / Location
4. Camera Angle
5. Lighting & Colour Scheme
6. Recording 'good quality' or 'cool looking' imagery

I've tried to order this list as best as possible. However all the things are important really, and they're all somewhat intertwined.

The point of ordering though is that if you don't have things at the top of the list, things toward the bottom of the list are meaningless i.e if you have the wrong actors or location, your job will be almost impossible.

Most importantly - Cinematography is not about making things look 'cool', having an expensive camera, or pretty colours in your shot...

If you approach it from this perspective you will create boring films with no substance.

On the other hand, if you have a film with good acting, and shots that tell a story. It will engage people, regardless of whether the lighting or image quality is up to scratch (for an extreme demonstration of this fact see Peter Jackson's first feature 'Bad Taste').

Number one is most important.

In fact - it's shouldn't really be on that list, because it is the driving force behind all of the other 5 things (i.e you light a scene or choose a camera angle to tell a story).

Every decision should be made with the aim of telling a story... don't just include bokeh or a cool looking colour scheme for the sake if it. You have the story / script, and you must think how best to get the audience engaged with it.

The really basic choice you have is what you do or do not choose to show - don't take this lightly.

The audience will be reading in to everything they see, and subconsciously assuming that things they see are important to the story. The number one way to bore people with filmmaking is to show them stuff they don't even care about or need to know.

This is partly of course a script writing and directing thing, however as a cinematographer you can aid the storytelling with your choice of shots.

Everything else builds upon this, once you've decided to show something in the first place, then you decide what to show within the shot in terms of lighting, colours, framing etc.

To demonstrate all this I'll go through an example.

Say you have a scene with a girl in a job interview. She is nervous about being there.

Firstly you'll consider the blocking of the scene - where to put the actors in relation to one another. This is high on the list because if a scene is badly staged, it won't matter how well you shoot it, it's gonna suck.

If you choose to sit the girl next to the interviewer this will convey one message, if you choose to have her sat across the room from them, it will convey another (if you choose to have her on the ceiling, yet another). This is simplified, but you get the idea, the important thing is to be thinking about what the audience are going to read into and feel about your choices.

Simply by how the actors behave (their body language, whether or not they make eye contact with each other etc) and where they're placed in relation to one another, you can help to tell the story.

Always make sure your not just 'defaulting' to an option, and challenge your assumptions at every step.

So, you choose to have her sat across the room from the interviewer. He is behind a big imposing desk to make him seem scary to her.

Next your choice is, what do you show of the scene?

The girl is nervous, so you might choose to shoot her from an angle that makes her appear 'small' within the room. Perhaps with large imposing windows behind her.

Alternatively you could shoot in a claustrophobic fashion, with close ups of her tapping nervously and biting fingernails.

Another option is to light her in a way that makes it feel like a police interrogation, or give the room an uninviting colour scheme or decor.

Perhaps all of the above!

There are many different options, and obviously the best one will be whatever is best for the script. If it is a serious film it will be one thing, if it's a comedy, probably another. You might even choose to go against genre conventions for effect.

Importantly, you will have defined an overall tone (camera, lighting style, colour scheme etc) for the film, so you'll want to be consistent with whatever that is.

The point is that you should always be thinking story first - if you shoot in a way that doesn't help to tell the story, the audience will be bored.

A fantastic 'style' will develop from the choices you make about how to tell the story. This is the way round it is for all of your favourite films. None of them set out to look cool for the sake of it, and when you see a film and think 'wow that shot is really beautiful', you're enjoying it because of how it gets you engaged in the story. That same shot in another film might be gratuitous or inappropriate.

There are other considerations like shooting format and image ratio. Though the above things are the basics, and you want to be concerned with them most if your learning.