Cinematography

Enter the World of Cinematography

What is Cinematography?

Cinematography is the science or art of motion picture photography by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as film stock. Typically, a lens is used to repeatedly focus the light reflected from objects into real images on the light sensitive surface inside a camera during a questioned exposure, creating multiple images. With an electronic image sensor, this produces an electrical charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a video file for subsequent display.

The result with photographic emulsion is a series of invisible latent images on the film stock, which are later chemically “developed” into a visible image. The images on the film stock are played back at a rapid speed and projected onto a screen, creating the illusion of motion. Cinematography is used for entertainment purposes and mass communication. The word “cinematography” was created from the Greek words “kinema”, meaning “movement, motion” and “graphein” meaning “to record”, together meaning “recording motion.” The word Cinematography later had its meaning restricted to “motion picture photography.”

History

History

The first film cameras were fastened directly to the head of a tripod or other support, with only the crudest kind of leveling devices provided, in the manner of the still-camera tripod heads of the period. The earliest film cameras were thus effectively fixed during the shot, and the first camera movements were the result of mounting a camera on a moving vehicle. The first known of these was a film shot by a Lumière cameraman from the back platform of a train leaving Jerusalem in 1896. By 1898, there were a number of films shot from moving trains.

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Famous Cinematographers

Roger Deakins

1982-Present

Emmanuel Lubezki

1983-Present

Conrad Hall

1958-2003

Claudio Miranda

2006-Present

Matt Libatique

1993-Present

Christopher Doyle

1983-Present

Top Films

Skyfall - When Bond's latest assignment goes gravely wrong and agents around the world are exposed, MI6 is attacked forcing M to relocate the agency. These events cause her authority and position to be challenged by Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. With MI6 now compromised from both inside and out, M is left with one ally she can trust: Bond. 007 takes to the shadows - aided only by field agent, Eve (Naomie Harris) - following a trail to the mysterious Silva (Javier Bardem), whose lethal and hidden motives have yet to reveal themselves.

Prisoners - How far would you go to protect your family? Keller Dover is facing every parent's worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street. Heading the investigation, Detective Loki arrests its driver, Alex Jones, but a lack of evidence forces his release. As the police pursue multiple leads and pressure mounts, knowing his child's life is at stake the frantic Dover decides he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands.

Blade Runner 2049 - a 2017 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. A sequel to the 1982 film Blade Runner, the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, and Robin Wright in supporting roles. Set thirty years after the first film, Gosling plays K, a replicant (bioengineered human) who hunts rogue replicants. When he discovers evidence that a replicant has reproduced, he is tasked with destroying the child to prevent a replicant uprising.

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Elements of Cinematography

Lighting
  • Lighting is an integral part of cinematography, and it’s one of the few areas of filmmaking that has infinite arrangements of set-ups. Quite like camera terminology, there are many variations of tools and lighting language. In short; it can get confusing. There is no one right way to employ lighting design. A scene could be lit several different ways by different cinematographers, each altering the mood and overall impact of the image.
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Camera Angles
  • In film making multiple cameras (multiple camera positions of a single camera) are often used. In editing phase scenes/shots are assembled in a way that the story is told in an effective way. One of the major distinctions among types of shots is the shot size. The shot size identifies how large and area will be visible within the frame. Among the following common shot sizes the distance between the camera and subject varies.
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Composition
  • In cinematography, composition refers to the frame of the image and how the elements of scene appear in it. Composition guidelines must be observed when telling stories visually. A basic composition principle is called Rule of Thirds. To follow it, one must imagine the frame with two vertical lines and two horizontal lines, as to create three vertical sections of the same dimensions and three vertical sections also of the same size.
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