In depth analysis of cinematography
- Adam Haynes
- Feb 23, 2018
- 6 min read
In this blog post I will be talking about Cinematography and the boundaries that surround it.
Firstly I will be talking about the history in cinematography;
Cinematography has changed a lot over the years from the cameras and equipment to the types of camerawork used.
I will start off by talking about the history of cameras;
Below is an image of one of the first proper cameras, there were other cameras before this but this is one of the first proper cameras. This camera was made in 1839, over 150 years ago. This camera was announced by the French academy of science and is now considered to be one of the most valuable inventions ever. From here cameras have improved in many of ways with Quality being the biggest change.
Below is one of the first photographs known to man, as you can see it isn't very high quality and doesn't have much definition to the colours and shape. The image is of a tartan ribbon if you couldn't work it out.
Little did the inventors of the camera known that cameras would become one of the most popular accessories owned by people. Most people have some type of camera wether it's a DSLR, a point and shoot or even a mobile phone. I don't know of anyone who has a Mobile Phone that doesn't have a camera in it.
Further on, almost 100 years later, The first film camera was invented (Below);
This is the common shape for most cameras these days. It is an easy shape to hold with the shutter button on the top of the camera. This is one of the earliest film cameras known to man. Film cameras started a whole new wave of camera technology with film becoming more accessible and easier to develop. film cameras like this one were capable of taking pictures like the one below;
As you can see from this image it is a lot more clear and bright, the first film cameras were not capable of capturing colour but as the technology behind them improved the ability to capture colour was introduced to the people who could afford these cameras.
Moving to the current day where the capabilities of cameras are incredible;
Above is a standard DSLR made by Canon (One of the biggest camera producers) This camera costs roughly £500 which is pretty good for the top of the range camera at the time of release. This is the common type of camera owned by any beginner photographer or videographer. That is another point, DSLR cameras are now able to take photographs and videos.
Above is an image that can be taken on a DSLR camera. Nowadays there are many image editing softwares such as PhotoShop and LightRoom, these are some of the most common programs used to edit images.
Information and images from;
All of the cameras above helped to create Video cameras but Photography cameras were invented first as they were a much simpler concept. Below I will talk about the history of film cameras;
Video cameras were invented in the 1920's and were based on the mechanical Nipkow disk, they were used in experimental broadcasts.
Above is an image of one of the very first video cameras. The equipment on his back is all part of the camera that is needed for it to function.
Above is a video of the first ever broadcast on the BBC. You can see that there is no quality to the image and i is black and white, video cameras have come a very long way from here. The BBC the the biggest Television channel in the world and attracts over 372 million viewers every week. At the current population of 7.6 Billion over 20% of the population watch the BBC.
Nowadays cameras are a lot better in picture quality and smoothness. Video cameras these days uses small sensors inside the camera to create an image and write it to the save device, in most cases an SD card.
Above is an image of a professional video camera, the camera can shoot in 4K resolution and in super slow motion. This camera costs around £5000, that is a pretty good price for a camera of this quality. There are more expensive cameras out there but this is an extremely good one for this price.
Above is a video shot on the Sony FS5 in 4K, This shows the incredible quality of this camera and how clean the image is. This shows an incredible development in quality over the past 80+ years.
I will be filming my video on a Canon DSLR, it is a very good camera but not quite as good as the Sony FS5. It will allow me to create a high quality video in 1080p which is a good quality to upload a video in.
I sourced information from these websites;
Social:
In this section I will be talking about the social aspects that surround cinematography in society. I am going to start by looking at some adverts and how they have changed over the years.
Above is a video showing some adverts from the year 2000, you can see that all of the adverts are very product based and have the sole purpose to sell the product in question. All of the adverts are very informative lots of information about the certain product. The colours in the adverts are bright to attract viewers to buying their products. All of the adverts in this video seem to be very uplifting, this is a good aspect to put in an advert as it will give the viewer a positive vibe making them feel happy when they think about the certain product in question. I feel as if putting across a positive vibe in most examples of cinematography is good as it puts an opinion in the viewers head before they ever experience the product. A good way to put across a positive vibe is to make the actors act very happy but there are cinematography techniques that can be used to give an uplifting feel, such as the framing of the shot and the position of the subject in that shot. I believe that when these advert were filmed there wasn't much thought put into the framing of the shot, instead they just made sure that everything that was needed in shot was in shot and that was it. Whereas in the current day a lot of thought is put into how the shot is framed as it could give the complete wrong vibe if they frame it in a certain way. But framing is a big part of today's cinematography influence.
Above I have linked a very good video that talks about many different types of framing and how the framing of the video can tell the story itself. It is very clever that you are able to tell a story just by placing the camera in certain ways and angles. Framing will be very important in my video as I will be trying to portray some emotion using the position of the subject in the frame.
The biggest thing that persuades the viewer that the product is good is the colour grading on the video. I don't know if colour grading was used in these adverts but if it was then that is the easiest way to make the viewer to feel a certain way inclined. Colour grading is very key in adverts in the current day as it really helps to sell the product. For example if there was a company trying to sell you some flowers or some paint for a house the advert would be very colourful. This gives the viewer the impression that the product can potentially effect an area more that it actually would in real life but with the power of colour grading the advertiser can easily make the colours of the product pop a lot more than they would in real life.
Above is a video by Dulux, a very well-known paint company, as you can see in the video the colour of the room is very subtle but you keep your eye on it. Even parts of the advert that aren't to do with paint such as the toy soldiers are very bright and colourful. This makes the viewer instantly associate colourful items with Dulux. This is a very clever advertising campaign as it makes the viewer always think of Dulux whenever they think of paint. If they can achieve this with everyone who watches the advert then they have created a very successful advert as they will sell a lot more paint because if one of the viewers wants to paint something and they are looking for paint then they will instantly look for Dulux paint because they saw a very appealing aesthetic in the advert and that will make them want to use that paint as they believe that it will give the same effect with whatever they are wanting to paint.
Ethical:
With Cinematography there can be a lot of underlying issues that may not instantly be recognised when planning for a shoot. For example, filming people with disabilities may throw up some problems as some people believe that people with disabilities, learning difficulties or people with mental health issues may be unable to grasp what is happening and feel unable to remove themselves from the situation. To slightly reduce any chance of this happening cinematographers must get the subject who has the disability to sign a contract to say that they are happy to be filmed and the cinematographer must ensure that they tell the subject that they are allowed to leave whenever they want just to ensure that they do not feel trapped and under any pressure to act or say something that they don't want to say.
Comments