Posts Tagged ‘Cinematography’

Alice in Wonderland’s 3D problem

March 6th, 2010

Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland

When I posted my thoughts on Avatar I talked briefly about those moments when their was a short depth of field and it clashed with the 3D effect. Basically when an object in the foreground is out of focus and your eye passes over it you want it to be in focus, it’s the way your eyes function and in a 3D movie you want to create a natural viewing plane that is essentially like looking through a window. Failing to do so and having objects in the foreground out of focus can become jarring and confusing for viewers because as their eyes migrate over them they expect them to come into focus.

Avatar kept this problem to a minimal because it was conceived and designed to be shown in 3D. James Cameron is a very technically minded director and a lot of thought went into the 3D effect and the films depth of field. Even with so much thought going into the process there were still times when Avatar suffered from this problem with depth of field. Perhaps this is because they made the film with the idea that it would be shown in both 3D and a traditional 2D prints.

(more…)

Making of Old Spice commercial

March 2nd, 2010

This is coming from Chase Jarvis’ Blog, it’s a fantastic Old Spice commercial that aired during this year’s Super Bowl. The video is a bit long but it’s well worth it, they deconstruct the complicated commercial and go over how it was made.

Enjoy!

Nuit Blanche (Short film)

February 20th, 2010

Check out this cool short film done with the Phantom camera at 1,000+ pictures per second. Then go and check out the making of the film here.

Avatar & the future of cinema

December 30th, 2009

I saw Avatar almost two weeks ago, I wanted to immediately write something about it on this blog but my Christmas vacation got in the way. I left for Italy the day after seeing the film and didn’t have the time to do any blogging. Needless to say this post is little bit delayed.

Scene from James Cameron's Avatar

(more…)

Gordon Willis finally receives an Oscar

November 17th, 2009

Gordon Willis, the Cinematographer best known for his work on The Godfather trilogy received an honorary Oscar awarding his life work in the film industry. Willis, who was referred to as “The Prince Of Darkness” after the first two Godfather films, is responsible for shaping an entire generation of Cinematographers that followed him. While his work on The Godfather trilogy is what he will always be remembered for, Gordon has a long list of fantastic films that he shot including Woody Allen’s “Manhattan.”

The Godfather

While it’s great that they finally recognized such an important cinematographer, this trend of ignoring certain film makers and then giving them a make up award is really disappointing to me. I felt the same way when Martin Scorsese won an Oscar for “The Departed,” a good film but not a timeless classic like his other work. It just screams “sorry we ignored you for so long …. my bad.”

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the trend is going to change anytime soon, Emmanuel Lubezki really should have won an Oscar for his cinematography on “Children of Men,” if not then for his stunning work on “The New World” which is one of the most photographically beautiful films I can remember seeing.