I don't remember where I got this from, but it's true that the more unrealistic a camera movement appears, the more a digital shot looks fake. Directors like Spielberg and Lucas were masters at getting around this, which is why their shots usually look good even if the digital effect isn't perfect.
Indeed, filmmaking is about the illusion of reality. If that illusion is broken in any way, the viewer "falls out of the world of the work", and thus, they find it far more difficult to enjoy the story, character arcs, actions, events, etc. Even Jackie Chan knew when too much was too much, and made certain that even his over-the-top action work felt grounded in a (heightened) sense of reality.
This was 100% deliberate on Lucas' part. If you watch the prequels BTS material such as the documentaries, commentary, etc, you'll see Lucas saying that his films are shot like documentaries on purpose to make it seem more real. He doesn't use overly wacky camera movements and shots to simulate that they're shooting something that's actually happening in front of them. In the Episode I commentary track at one point he says this regarding the scene where the heroes go back to Naboo, where you can see Jar Jar being happy to go back to Naboo while some of the heroes are going up the ramp of the queen's ship. From an "artistic" POV it might not make much sense to shoot it like that, it doesn't look as "romantic" but it sure does look more real as if we were actually there witnessing these important moments. That's also another reason why there aren't any flashbacks in Lucas' SW films. The only exceptions where these rules are sort of broken is when we briefly see Anakin's nightmares, and even then we're seeing what Anakin is seeing and hearing, just that. They're not flashbacks.
I don't think the future of cinema need be so black and white. There are lots of directors who have hit it big in Hollywood like Denis Villeneuve, Nolan and Bong Joon-Ho who are keeping classical filmmaking alive and some are even blending analogue with newer technologies.
Muppets Christmas Carol took the camera “through” a window in 1992, 4 years prior to The Frighteners in 1996. It was done 100% practically by moving the window with the camera and then stopping the window at its proper place and continuing the camera at the same pace. Muppets Christmas Carol is truly peak cinema.
I wondered why modern A and B list films looks so 'off' - even simple flat shots are green screens.Filmmakers think we can't tell that something isn't right but we absolutely can. I've gradually lost interest in large budget movies in the late 2000's as there was something about them after that point that made my eyes feel weird and now I know why.
it's a strange, "flat" understanding of cinema, as though there is only a single mode of perception. consider Kafka and Wizard Of Oz, in both there is a radical shift in viewer perception, but in neither is the audience pulled out of the "suspension of disbelief." by contrast, Schindler's List intends to bring the viewer back into "reality" with the red balloon, to prevent the scene from passing only viscerally
Agreed; this is such a backwards take. It’s like people in the 1930s arguing about how adding sound or color to films is “killing cinema” because it’s breaking the practical rules of the artform’s previous status quo.
This is why Tom Cruise can be considered one of the last classical film maker.s He still designs analogue film experiences like mounting a camera to a real sky diver or on board a fighter jet. He's the modern Buster Keaton.
Because his movies are marketed like that. The BTS is better than the movies because that's when you see how they did it. If they didnt do the bts, you'd think it was obviously cgi
All of the big Tom Cruise stunt shots are augmented with modern digital effects to augment them. Yes he's really doing these things, but he wouldn't be able to sell it without modern technology. When he's hanging off a plane they are erasing a large cable that's assuring he's not going to fall off to his death (when Jackie Chan did dangerous stunts they had to make sure the wires and harnesses were invisible to the camera). When he's doing the HALO jump they're adding in digital storms and a digital city below him. When he rides a motorcycle off a cliff is digital and for many of the shots he is on a cable. In TGII, they are flying planes, but not the planes you see in the film... the cockpits, the planes itself, and a lot of the background are CGI. (check out The Movie Rabbit Holes very good series on this: ua-cam.com/video/7ttG90raCNo/v-deo.html).
@@hmicky-mickey he IS a film maker. An actor is just a person who is only performs when the camera is on. Cruise is involved in the film making process from the the very beginning to pitching ideas to getting funding etc.. He gets the film made, he is a film maker.
@@hmicky-mickeyCruise is the boss. Pays for everything , hires everyone, approves the script, design and edit. Even does all the stunts. You might not like the result, but they're his movies. :)
Really interesting discussion. Lucas’ whole intent behind his technological improvements is to help the filmmaker better tell his story. His experience as a filmmaker led to him making realistic shots in unreal environments. He willingly limited his CGI shots to something a camera might realistically do. He did not intend for unreal camera movements in an ostensibly real environment. I don’t think a long-ass tracking shot through a CGI train station helps anybody tell their story better. In my view the unrealism works best in a magical/supernatural situation, ala Harry Potter or The Matrix, that kind of thing.
Stretched. In _Kill Bill,_ the Bride's escape from being buried alive is exactly as plausible as how the camera got into the coffin with her, in the first place.
@@TheFBIorange Because it gets way too philosophical about such a trivial subject, cameras going through windows and holes they couldn't reasonably fit through
@@Pocketkid2I feel like it’s more of a minor example that leads to a larger point the video is making. How the impossible once had to be made possible through clever filmmaking. And how that’s not really the case anymore.
@@Tiredofdawgz Good film-making has always been, and always will be, clever, you just have to know where to look. Techniques and approaches have evolved, but the existence of it has not. And that's why I find this video a parody, because it misses the forest for the trees.
I believe the term you're dancing around is omniscience, which has always been a potentiality baked into the very impetus of art, because within artly motivation is the promise of knowing our existence, in hitherto unknowable ways. That doesn't make it impossible, nor at all necessarily perfect, just ostensibly divine. An artist's perspective need not merely be that of a realistic subject, because the sometime goal of art is to witness our existence through a godly vantage, for "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"
The death of cinema - an ongoing event - is the death of good film writing. It has very little to do with direction and visuals. These things get killed preproduction.
This reminds me of Cronenberg responding to his critics complaining about how his movies became about "people talking in rooms". His response was just "what do you think movies were suppose to be to begin with"
The smooth camera that goes into impossible places always elicited disgust in me. Even when I was a boy watching Fincher's Panic Room, I hated that section with a 3d camera. I was not looking at a cartoon, I was looking at a jarring attempt to simultaneously pass the image as real life and at the same time obviously give away that it's not real life by making camera go pixel smooth all around the place and through the glass. That's the part that I don't understand the appeal of. It would be like actors quickly looking into the camera after each line, just to remind you that they're actors in front of a camera. One could say that the intent was to show the misenscene of the house but I say that it's way too distracting to let you bask in it and smells more of the case where the director was eager to put a gimmick in a film before everyone else. The folks who are not bothered by these impossible cameras, kudos to you, I don't know how you do it.
@@varvarvarvarvarvar assertions and arguments are not the same, nor are they synonymous with anyone who knows the difference. “Men are better drivers than women” is an assertion, but unless you’re going to state your reasoning and present evidence of your claim/assertion, you’re not making an argument. Arguments require some kind of reasoning to justify its claim. How are these shots marking a watershed between the 20th and 21st century? The first example given predates the use of recorded sound in cinema, how is this a watershed moment for the form? What elements define the cinema of these two centuries and how are these shots the ones doing away with one to promote another? Your last sentence is just another assertion as there is no attempt at persuasion here.
Because cinema is motion photography, and post-cinema is unbounded visuals. And while post-cinema has limitless possibilities, it sacrifices the sensation of being grounded in the set.
@@cambodianz Iv only seen his A Trip To The Moon. Though the objects were surreal, I dont remember the subject (cam) journeying through virtual space But sure. He concedes that the movement to post-cinema started early-on I'm compelled by his argument because I recognize that many modern films feel more like a ride than a movie, and it has much to do with the cam and where I feel it puts me
You missed Hitchcock in your analysis who pretty much inspired other directors to try to deny the existence of the camera, such as Zemeckis in What Lies Beneath, or Fincher in Panic Room... Great video!!! Thanx!!!
Hey, great catch. I guess that explains why I was never a fan of Hitchcock. I LOVE Brian DePalma though. The difference is, Hitchcock's camera indeed feels unnatural often, I never liked it.
As someone who started shooting video with a clunky VHS shoulder cam, the advent of pocket digital video was a revelation. Suddenly I could place the camera in previously impossible positions to get perspectives a person would never otherwise see--the view from inside a toy truck rolling, for example, or just throwing the camera spinning into the air. It's all old hat now, but at the time it was pretty novel and wondrous. Where does that kind of impossible perspective fit in with this essay's analysis?
Great video! I'd say most mid-budget films also fall under the umbrella of genre films, which have also sadly decreased in number over the past couple decades. I love the Urukhai at 10:20 gingerly going down the stairs. "I have to be rushing but I can barely see what I'm doing..."
god u said everything i’ve wanted to say and didn’t know i wanted to say. this fully explains why i love certain movies, old or new. it’s not a simple matter of cgi vs practical effects. what a well put together video! and i think the final push for me to despite work being insanely busy to finally make all my video essay ideas, and start making short films. expression is the key to great cinema. while u can enjoy movies for so many reasons, i realize now WHY my favorites are my favorites. thank u!
Films that position the viewer in linear space, like with the one point perspective, Actually have the effect of placing the viewer AWAY from the action as a passive observer. You don’t have to imagine yourself as the camera to be involved in a film. You instead need to be required to take active participation in filling in the gaps. It’s like ‘negative space’ art. Those images that fill in half the image with solid colour and the other half with empty space, and your brain does the work to fill in the gaps and create the whole image. The isolation of the visual sense is a type of blindness. To be fully involved in something it needs to evoke MORE than just your perception of literal and linear visual space. It has to evoke all your senses.
I couldn't agree more on the state of modern cinema. I too love the old practical way of shooting films. I guess for me its all about immersion; when I watch a film I want to BE there. I want to live in the movie's world. Especially with movies shot on film, and if it's shot and edited well, every little detail of the frame draws me in; from the way the camera moves to any imperfections that are present. Now, as you say, anything is possible. I too hope that cinema will regain some of it's past prestige and wonder. Keep dreaming, lads.
u would be rite that george lucas did that runway shot for aesthetic reasons. but also a criteria he has when he makes star wars. that its a lived in world, that the audience must feel as they are in the movie. thats why there are no impossible shots
Ironically by allowing the audience fuller “immersion” into film it also takes away from our actual immersion into the world. What a silly paradox no? The joy of film is that we’re looking into a world that it isn’t. Even at its most realistic it is hightened reality.but when the hightened reality *becomes* the accepted reality,is it really serving its purpose?
Nonsense. Poor writing and poor execution creates lousy projects, and exemplary work yields awesome ones. But the ratio of jank to gems has always been pretty similar: it's 90% junk and 10% gemstones. And what wouldja expect?! THE OPPOSITE? 🤔 Nah, brah. We'd all exist in a different world if the majority of everyone and everything were competent, intelligent, and artistic.
Another thing that I've seen a video about that I agreed with because I've noticed it beforehand is that most modern movies look too clean. It was refreshing for me to watch The Holdovers because of this.
I'm not sure I quite understand why there needs to be a distinction between real and "unreal" shots. It feels like by that logic, animation isn't cinema because it isn't bound by physical space much like those unreal camera shots. Who says physical reality is the determining factor for what is and isn't cinema?
You’ve hit the nail right on the head. The cameras main goal is to tell the story visually. And if that means doing a crazy, impossible looking, shot… then so be it. It’s very reductionist to say otherwise.
@@superanimenerd13 Then why does pixar model camera shots first then add motion blur to their animation to simulate a cinematic experience? The director of Toy Story 3 commented on tricks like these, and the goal of it looking cinematic
Are movies like dreams or are they supposed to represent reality perfectly? The kind of shots you're talking about are part of the dreamlike quality of movies.
Roland Barthes calls that which appears in a photograph but does not claim to have intent or meaning the “punctum.” Those are the parts of photography which we cannot plan, yet they seem to be the most emotionally authentic.
Reminds me of the 180 degree rule. When a bad filmmaker breaks this rule so blatantly, it can make it extremely difficult to understand the connection between the subject of the film and the space that they exist in. A good filmmaker can use this to tell a story, for example they can use it to create a dreamlike consistency to whatever their filming but for the most part it's not something that you want to break unless you really know what you're doing.
I apologize for this coming completely out of left field and being painfully neurological, but I just found your channel and this concept you are describing is fascinating to me from a MEDICAL perspective. tl;dr I had a concussive accident in my late 20s that affected my visual system in the brain, but left my eyes unaffected. Ever since then, I have been unable to watch most modern movies where there is too much CGI/green screen/the perspective shifts you describe where the viewer is no longer "the subject viewing the action.". I am unable to watch it for 2 reasons: The first being my visual system cannot make the necessary adjustment internally to put the pieces together, so it actually appears as multiple layers trying to form one image, as if you laid cardboard cutouts over each other. The second is because of this perspective shift you describe perfectly as "the horror of the subject being outside of you, your body denying its own perspective.". The visual system is also used to calibrate spatial awareness of the body, so when watching these scenes, my ACTUAL body loses track of where it is IN REALITY. It feels very physically unnatural, disconcerting, and breaks immersion in the film. All of this to say, perhaps extrapolating out from the rawest physical elements of our biology (demonstrated by what happens to me as an extreme example) all the way out to the philosophical, there must be something fundamentally "off" that our brains are perceiving but our minds/consciousness are not fully aware of about the new perspective. It would also align with another fundamental piece of information I learned from my disorder: when the brain is having trouble visually processing, it tends to view things in smaller, atomized units. Think about how we critique and criticize and even have begun to classify movies now. There is a trend towards perceptual atomization, identification and labelling of trope-ification. It's the engine of how social media works as opposed to television or radio. I wonder if we're "seeing" in smaller packets of information, even neurologically, without knowing it, and film until this point has been longer visual, subject-oriented form. I'm really enjoying your channel! I just found it and I love the video essays. They give me a lot more to think about than the typical critiques you find out there! Thanks!
I don't really agree with your definition of "the death of cinema". Seems like a weird aspect of film making to pin it on. Sure, when done badly it can be immersion breaking. But these kinds of vfx are part of cinema. Not "the death" of it. It's like saying synthesisers are the death of music. It's not. It's just another way of creating it.
Let's be honest, capitalism killed film. Profit killed film and the only reason digital vfx film making is cveaper is because they are fucking over vfx artists. Now if the US had art grants for films like in France, you would not see cinema die at the pace it does. That being said.. The work around is easy. Don't do something digitally that you can't do on camera. Don't go through the glass. George Miller and David fincher don't let you forget that you are still watching cinema
I think that we have to acknowledge (the industry of movies as well) that we have unfortunately been watching one medium (digital filmmaking) slowly integrate with and overtake another (traditional filmmaking or cinema). I think it's important and useful to start thinking about most contemporary films as mixed media expressions rather than purely identified as one art-form. Animation, CGI, cinematography, etc. are all their own unique forms and we have done a very bad job, especially in film education, of helping people to see that these are completely different mediums with completely different skill sets. I remember when I was in film school and I wanted to use a dolly shot and was convinced that I should just use a gimbal, as it would be easier, how I wanted to shoot in 1:1 but convinced to shoot in 16:9 so it would fit on screens, and how I wanted to shoot in B&W but was convinced to shoot in color, because why wouldn't I take advantage of every tool available to me. Filmmaking is so overwhelming in its current state because of the way the industry maximilizes everything and the big filmmakers insist that if they don't use everything everywhere all at once (happy to use that, haha), then they've somehow failed their potential as artists. It's something that shouldn't actually be hard to fix though, as long as we claim distinction within the mediums to truly follow our own paths and not allow universities, unions, or corporate interests to dictate to us how our art must look.
Until camera drones became widely used, I always thought shots like the one in "Apollo 13" where the camera goes down the length of the Saturn V rocket in an impossible move, totally broke my suspension of disbelief. That, along with the launch itself a few moments later, just ruined it for me. The rest Ron Howard's space epic is great but those shots just blew it in my opinion. At that time, they were impossible to attain without CG and it turned that part of the movie into a video game for me- just as you say at the outset of this great video. Well done.
I wouldn't call it "imperfect" cinema. Unpredictability is what makes life exciting, on film or otherwise. I think practical shooting fosters creativity, because the filmmakers must find ways around the restrictions imposed by the world itself.
Because on set it wasn’t water coming out of the prop shower head. It was some kind of flimsy material that was being shaken to make it look like water. For me the reason they likely didn’t want it to get wet is more of a form thing. These days most audiences won’t mind having water droplets on the camera but back then they might have found it distracting. Or at least that was the assumption that film makers were working under. But I wouldn’t say that having the camera do impossible things is the death of cinema but rather just a different aesthetic of cinema.
I think one of the main problems is that Hollywood seems to be reluctant to hire more new directors and producers. Sure many teenage and young adult actors have reached fame during the 2000s and 2010s but not that many aspiring directors dreaming of becoming the next George Lucas or Steven Spielberg are supposedly being ignored by Hollywood.
The big problem with cinema is that it no longer depends on the audience's willing suspension of disbelief. As a result it no longer depends on the audience.
If movies speak to us in the language of symbols and can be viewed as a shared dream. Could one say that the camera is the dreamer But even dreams have rules. Rules when broken, begin to destabilize the dreamscape. Scattering verisimilitude, at least unconsciously
Very astute. I think we can apply much of this to the state of music as well. There is still plenty of 'real' music being made, but as a whole, the field is 'bifurcated' into two camps, with disparate aims. One, that functions as simply content - pop culture fodder - that uses technology to create 'perfect,' flawless music that is pre-ordained to act on people's subconscious to derive an expected reaction (and to drive sales and profit.) The other, that relies on showcasing the humanity of the process of its own creation. The 'flaws' are where we find everything we're looking for, whether that's an answer, or just a question. Like freckles or a malformed ear lobe on a lover. The things we remember because they ONLY exist on the object of our affection. No matter how AI and other technologies impacts creativity, human knows human, and we're social animals that need each other to survive. That will never change.
The most important elements in a film are the story, characters, acting and the direction. Not CGI or any other technical enhancement or manipulation of imagery on the screen. Your essay might have more appropriately been titled the death of cinematography
It may be a physical impossibility but it actually helps put us into the world we are viewing by placing us into the scene as direct observers not as camera operators.. Even in print we can have the point of view of the omnipotent narrator. We accept our point of view going through the glass in Harry Potter or Citizen Kane because we have been prepared for it in stories. We are the Ghost of Christmas Present passing through and viewing the characters and action without the limits of a physical body and so we feel we are really there.
I don't know how you do it, but you're the only 'serious' film essay channel I've encountered that manages to present pretentious film content whilst simultaneously not coming across as toe-curlingly, skin-crawlingly pretentious yourself. It's earnest and intellectual, but doesn't come across as masturbatory. It's a unique skill. I think it's the subtle self-awareness. As somebody else has already commented, "This is both a perfect video essay and a perfect parody of video essays". Put it this way, I'd have a pint with you and I couldn't say that for any of the others that come across my feed. The lack of MUBI shilling is a nice touch too. Keep it up mate.
Thank you for articulating something that has bugged me about many films from the past 25 years (and increasingly more films), what I had thought if as "videogame-ification," (not just the CGI per se, but the absence of actual perspectivism itself) which the physical body is erased altogether. The unreality of it too often ruins it for me.
I think the modern method of creating digital environments with a cameras position in mind before the environment is created is what can make new shots feel lifeless. I am an environment artist for games and No matter how much detail I cram into my environments, it will never rival the real world and its because I created the world i am trying to capture. There is no exploration or discovery of a scene space. But I do think it might become possible in the future when I have lost my job and digital worlds become endless accurate real world depictions of what our world looks like or other worlds could look like. We can find that desire to capture imagery again instead of creating it.
I think the idea of "the digital" itself is often overstated in theory, maybe because it overwhelms old timey researchers but idk exactly. Ideas such as digital capture, projection, CG, digital broadcasting etc are often conflated for no reason. I don't see creation of computer graphics as inherently different than any other type of visual creation, we as humans have been doing impossible perspectives since cave painting. And any type of visual expression can be a part of cinema, not just purely photographic expression and animation in many different forms has been a part of cinema since the beginning, or we might even say predates cinema as in the medium of the motion picture. At the same time I will agree that the economics and popularity of digital effects has lead many filmmakers into terrible practices.
Interesting take. I always wondered why Fellowship is one of my favourite films ever yet I despise the two other films in the trilogy because they jump the shark stylistically. Don’t get me started on the Hobbit trilogy. But I get why the shots got more ridiculous- it’s easier to film in a studio than on location
For me it's simple. To be immersed in a movie the camera is the stand-in for my eyes and my body in a physical space. If the movie shows shots that a normal camera cannot achieve, then I'm taken out of the immersion. There's a reason there's a finite set of possibilities of how you can frame a shot, since the camera obeys the same rules of physics that I do. Examples are the final fight in Black Panther where they fall. Or going through physical barriers without a physical cut. Like so many times you go through windows. That's why animated movies are so hard to do. The more estranged the camera movement, the more you are taken out of the immersion. In animated movies/TV-shows the best are those who follow the physical constraint of a real camera to the letter. For example 'Arcane'. Watch the camera movements. Look how much they mimic a real physical camera. Because this immerse you in the show and makes you forget that you're watching animation.
"There is no way out, or around, or through." Not 100% positive, but I believe Gurdjief said this. I have been reading nothing but Modernist novels for the last 24 years, so I'll let you guess which camp I will reside in.
Cinema has always been a product to be consumed and entertained by. But in the capable hands it can be art. The same with all of this technology that has been used over time. While most of it will be used to make entertainment, artists will find their way on how to use it. Technology advances cinema. Use it wisely
Impossible camera moves in normal stories are distracting from the identification with the movie. In AVIATOR was that camera move through the front windows of a plane and the movie turned into an animated movie.
Very interesting essay. It gives something to think about. I think the audience is unaware of the camera though, whether it's there as a object realistically or is breaking physics. They're usually focused on the characters. It is people with a more academic mindset who are thinking about camera placement, edits and moviemaking in general. So I don't know if it makes a difference
This is fantastic. I’d love to hear an assessment of Fincher through this lens, I think he uses the tools of impossible/perfect cinema with the mindset of the old guard…but maybe I’m crazy haha
Don’t know about Fincher of late, but Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is an interesting case. Dominik directed multiple Mindhunter episodes, which some featurettes I’ve seen show that its production is very green screen heavy, like the digital library set shown in this video. I think there’s lots of digital shortcuts or augmentations in Blonde, but it’s cinematic art, even as it’s impossible to decide whether to love or hate what it is.
Great analysis, I knew it was Peter Jackson when I looked at the thumbnail. I think modern pop culture cinema looks like a video game, its why I think all plates should be shot as traditionally as possible before VFX are added, likewise I think even the most grandiose action shots should have a fixed camera. I actually love that shot in LOTR FOTR where you know its an extremely complicated zipline camera rig, it's my favorite shot in the trilogy.
Thank you for the thought-provoking upload! I would love to see you respond to some of the criticisms expressed in the comments here. Like many other people, and as someone who has dabbled in visual effects, I don't see an inherent problem with what you call "perfect" visuals, surrealist imagery, etc. Why is it important to limit the techniques used to make movies and define the audience's "relationship to the diegetic space"? What is wrong with images that look real, but because they are made of multiple elements, are "fragmented in time and space"? Do you truly think that every film with an unrealistic grasp of space is not cinema? While I agree that modern franchise films are often lacking in artistic value, I don't think that that is because of the shot types they are composed of. As someone said, "there is no such thing as bad effects, only bad filmmaking"
Thanks for watching, and thanks your comment! I must say, I am a little confused by these criticisms because I didn't mean to say post-cinema was a problem to be resisted. I might have my own tastes, and have a personal attachment to old school cinema, but I believe my conclusion was quite optimistic and open-minded ;) People in film theory have been saying "Cinema is evolving into something new," since the 90s, and in this video I'm just exploring the specific use of the medium that finally convinced me they're right! The perceptual and aesthetic logic(s) underpinning the medium are changing. Death is always a rebirth. Some things are lost but new things are gained. Is it good or bad? I deliberately danced around that question. Seems I didn't dance quite enough! :) I'm as huge fan of many of the "post-cinematic" films I show in this video, especially Peter Jackson's work. I ended with a clip from Hugo because I think it's an absolutely brilliant film grappling with these very questions. I look forward to seeing the post-cinema of tomorrow.
Every shot in a film is fake in that we know these are actors pretending to be other people, the situation was written by a writer, no one is killed or hurt for reaL, ETC. So the new tech that allows impossible or perfect shots doesn't bother me. yes, love old films and the knowledge that they did amazing stuff without easy tech. But cinema isn't dead as a result.. You want to call this a new era of cinema, fine. But it is still cinema. Scorsese couldn't recreate a 1920s Paris train station without CG unless he spent huge money on sets and props which would have freaked out the studio execs.
You hit the nail on the head. Film makers were always trying to make the camera do impossible things. They just didn’t have the tech to do it as convincingly.
I'll have to consider this. How is this different than a book? Why is attempting to mimic the minds eye as it may work in a book a death knell to a visual medium? I think it simply differentiates movies from theater and books in that it bridges the two, making it both similar yet unique.
Maybe digital filmographers should put artificial limitations on their camera movements, in the same way they may choose not to use a specific colour when filming. So that even a camera movement that could easily be done in real life might be off limits would breed creativity born of constraint.
I do not think anybody has killed cinema. The future of cinema seems to be that there is going to be a large scale increase in the presence of movie theatres. You might see movie theatres in new places you have never seen them before. New blockbuster rental stores will show up but this time you can probably rent playlists people made from their own videos. This will be a nightmare for people like the Kardashians who used to prey on the fears of others. Now others will finally have their chance to turn parts of their lives into profitable film reels.
Marty Scorsese once said that Marvel movies aren't real cinema, they remind him of theme parks and he's right, think of Joker Folie á Deux, which is an insult for what they liked the first movie like me, and also I think they ruined the movie on purpose. Moreover, I'm a fan of Sci-fi films unlike Tarantino, who can't stand movies with CGI
While I can understand this line of thinking and believe that in the turning of time there is always context and texture lost this also highlights a frustrating aspect of this conversation I feel is missing. Which is that the craft and journey of vfx to solve problems and even try to create verisimilitude within movies is undervalued or if not even overlooked in favor of drawing a conservative conclusion that these films are too stale and lack passion. While new technologies and hundreds of people dedicate themselves to pixel fucking every frame they are overshadowed by a negative perception of an ever growing medium of talented and dedicated artists. While certainly the proliferation of this medium is partly due to the market cycle it also seems kinda silly how quickly people play reductionist to an art that take hours upon hours to create. We can apparently marvel at the use and timing of cameras being physically drawn through a window but cannot appreciate the craft of even animating the musclegroups and fur of a lion in the lion king. By dedicating oneself to seeing only on context we might fail to see the new context being created.
I first noticed this shot in the movie 'Contact' and didn't like it. It took me out of the scene because the "camera" was doing something cameras can't do.
The mirror scene? In theory it's possible but you would have to move the mirror and camera in front of the girl up the stairs and down the hallway in a very smooth manner, but I get your point.
yooo just wanted to say this kind of shot happens at the beginning of Edward Scissorhands in 1990 - at the beginning where the grandmother tells the child the story
Honestly, big studios are killing cinema. Big studios don’t care about the lore or the fans - they just care about money. This leads to low quality sludge designed to get as much money as possible.
"Jar Jar is the Key to All this" - George Lucas, 1999
I don't remember where I got this from, but it's true that the more unrealistic a camera movement appears, the more a digital shot looks fake. Directors like Spielberg and Lucas were masters at getting around this, which is why their shots usually look good even if the digital effect isn't perfect.
Indeed, filmmaking is about the illusion of reality. If that illusion is broken in any way, the viewer "falls out of the world of the work", and thus, they find it far more difficult to enjoy the story, character arcs, actions, events, etc. Even Jackie Chan knew when too much was too much, and made certain that even his over-the-top action work felt grounded in a (heightened) sense of reality.
This was 100% deliberate on Lucas' part. If you watch the prequels BTS material such as the documentaries, commentary, etc, you'll see Lucas saying that his films are shot like documentaries on purpose to make it seem more real. He doesn't use overly wacky camera movements and shots to simulate that they're shooting something that's actually happening in front of them. In the Episode I commentary track at one point he says this regarding the scene where the heroes go back to Naboo, where you can see Jar Jar being happy to go back to Naboo while some of the heroes are going up the ramp of the queen's ship. From an "artistic" POV it might not make much sense to shoot it like that, it doesn't look as "romantic" but it sure does look more real as if we were actually there witnessing these important moments. That's also another reason why there aren't any flashbacks in Lucas' SW films. The only exceptions where these rules are sort of broken is when we briefly see Anakin's nightmares, and even then we're seeing what Anakin is seeing and hearing, just that. They're not flashbacks.
Idk seems sus… I think this guy did it. Why make a video trying to blame someone else unless…
How do you know that *I* didn’t do it? Money, power, likes,….
WHOEVER SMELT IT DEALT IT
Yea people like this guy can’t handle change
@@justice_productions_ It’s not about change but the physiology and psychology of vision
I don't think the future of cinema need be so black and white. There are lots of directors who have hit it big in Hollywood like Denis Villeneuve, Nolan and Bong Joon-Ho who are keeping classical filmmaking alive and some are even blending analogue with newer technologies.
Muppets Christmas Carol took the camera “through” a window in 1992, 4 years prior to The Frighteners in 1996.
It was done 100% practically by moving the window with the camera and then stopping the window at its proper place and continuing the camera at the same pace.
Muppets Christmas Carol is truly peak cinema.
Brilliant movie.
but isn't that shot simply homage to the one in Citizen Kane?
Psycho also did it in the 1960s.
Hook also did it (1991 I think?), the scene with Phil Collins as the police detective.
How did I miss the Hook one?
i had a teacher who voiced his problem with present day non-cinematic films by saying that these were movies where "there is no space"
love that; very nice share indeed. I'll be pondering that for a good while.
I wondered why modern A and B list films looks so 'off' - even simple flat shots are green screens.Filmmakers think we can't tell that something isn't right but we absolutely can. I've gradually lost interest in large budget movies in the late 2000's as there was something about them after that point that made my eyes feel weird and now I know why.
Just because a shot is physically impossible doesn't mean the art of cinema is dead.
it's a strange, "flat" understanding of cinema, as though there is only a single mode of perception. consider Kafka and Wizard Of Oz, in both there is a radical shift in viewer perception, but in neither is the audience pulled out of the "suspension of disbelief." by contrast, Schindler's List intends to bring the viewer back into "reality" with the red balloon, to prevent the scene from passing only viscerally
Agreed; this is such a backwards take. It’s like people in the 1930s arguing about how adding sound or color to films is “killing cinema” because it’s breaking the practical rules of the artform’s previous status quo.
This is why Tom Cruise can be considered one of the last classical film maker.s He still designs analogue film experiences like mounting a camera to a real sky diver or on board a fighter jet. He's the modern Buster Keaton.
Because his movies are marketed like that. The BTS is better than the movies because that's when you see how they did it. If they didnt do the bts, you'd think it was obviously cgi
All of the big Tom Cruise stunt shots are augmented with modern digital effects to augment them. Yes he's really doing these things, but he wouldn't be able to sell it without modern technology. When he's hanging off a plane they are erasing a large cable that's assuring he's not going to fall off to his death (when Jackie Chan did dangerous stunts they had to make sure the wires and harnesses were invisible to the camera). When he's doing the HALO jump they're adding in digital storms and a digital city below him. When he rides a motorcycle off a cliff is digital and for many of the shots he is on a cable. In TGII, they are flying planes, but not the planes you see in the film... the cockpits, the planes itself, and a lot of the background are CGI. (check out The Movie Rabbit Holes very good series on this: ua-cam.com/video/7ttG90raCNo/v-deo.html).
Tom Cruise is an actor, NOT A FILMMAKER. He does everything for the greatest spectacle. That's not a compliment.
@@hmicky-mickey he IS a film maker. An actor is just a person who is only performs when the camera is on. Cruise is involved in the film making process from the the very beginning to pitching ideas to getting funding etc.. He gets the film made, he is a film maker.
@@hmicky-mickeyCruise is the boss. Pays for everything , hires everyone, approves the script, design and edit. Even does all the stunts. You might not like the result, but they're his movies. :)
“Cinemas dead”
Some guy in 1924
Really interesting discussion. Lucas’ whole intent behind his technological improvements is to help the filmmaker better tell his story. His experience as a filmmaker led to him making realistic shots in unreal environments. He willingly limited his CGI shots to something a camera might realistically do. He did not intend for unreal camera movements in an ostensibly real environment. I don’t think a long-ass tracking shot through a CGI train station helps anybody tell their story better. In my view the unrealism works best in a magical/supernatural situation, ala Harry Potter or The Matrix, that kind of thing.
Stretched. In _Kill Bill,_ the Bride's escape from being buried alive is exactly as plausible as how the camera got into the coffin with her, in the first place.
This is both a perfect video essay and a perfect parody of video essays
Why is this a parody of video essays to you?
@@TheFBIorange Because it gets way too philosophical about such a trivial subject, cameras going through windows and holes they couldn't reasonably fit through
@@Pocketkid2I feel like it’s more of a minor example that leads to a larger point the video is making. How the impossible once had to be made possible through clever filmmaking. And how that’s not really the case anymore.
@@Tiredofdawgz Good film-making has always been, and always will be, clever, you just have to know where to look. Techniques and approaches have evolved, but the existence of it has not. And that's why I find this video a parody, because it misses the forest for the trees.
@@Pocketkid2 I understand where you’re coming from now.
There doesn't seem to be much of a clear dividing line between cinema and post-cinema. Maybe its a mutation rather than a death.
I believe the term you're dancing around is omniscience, which has always been a potentiality baked into the very impetus of art, because within artly motivation is the promise of knowing our existence, in hitherto unknowable ways. That doesn't make it impossible, nor at all necessarily perfect, just ostensibly divine. An artist's perspective need not merely be that of a realistic subject, because the sometime goal of art is to witness our existence through a godly vantage, for "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"
The death of cinema - an ongoing event - is the death of good film writing. It has very little to do with direction and visuals. These things get killed preproduction.
This reminds me of Cronenberg responding to his critics complaining about how his movies became about "people talking in rooms". His response was just "what do you think movies were suppose to be to begin with"
So, if the shot is obviously impossible, then I know I'm looking at a cartoon.
Well, at least some cartoons are cool.
The smooth camera that goes into impossible places always elicited disgust in me. Even when I was a boy watching Fincher's Panic Room, I hated that section with a 3d camera. I was not looking at a cartoon, I was looking at a jarring attempt to simultaneously pass the image as real life and at the same time obviously give away that it's not real life by making camera go pixel smooth all around the place and through the glass. That's the part that I don't understand the appeal of. It would be like actors quickly looking into the camera after each line, just to remind you that they're actors in front of a camera. One could say that the intent was to show the misenscene of the house but I say that it's way too distracting to let you bask in it and smells more of the case where the director was eager to put a gimmick in a film before everyone else.
The folks who are not bothered by these impossible cameras, kudos to you, I don't know how you do it.
Bro looks like Darren Aronofsky
Yeah he does.
Bro is him.
First thing i thought when the video started.
Ok, so why are these shots the “death of cinema”? I only heard assertions here, no actual argument.
Aren't assertion and argument basically synonyms?
These shots mark a watershed between the 20th century cinema and 21st century "content".
@@varvarvarvarvarvar assertions and arguments are not the same, nor are they synonymous with anyone who knows the difference. “Men are better drivers than women” is an assertion, but unless you’re going to state your reasoning and present evidence of your claim/assertion, you’re not making an argument. Arguments require some kind of reasoning to justify its claim.
How are these shots marking a watershed between the 20th and 21st century? The first example given predates the use of recorded sound in cinema, how is this a watershed moment for the form? What elements define the cinema of these two centuries and how are these shots the ones doing away with one to promote another? Your last sentence is just another assertion as there is no attempt at persuasion here.
Because cinema is motion photography, and post-cinema is unbounded visuals. And while post-cinema has limitless possibilities, it sacrifices the sensation of being grounded in the set.
@@yeshuaalexander3328 then by your own definition Georges Méliès counts as post-cinema. I’m sorry, but I don’t find your argument compelling.
@@cambodianz Iv only seen his A Trip To The Moon. Though the objects were surreal, I dont remember the subject (cam) journeying through virtual space
But sure. He concedes that the movement to post-cinema started early-on
I'm compelled by his argument because I recognize that many modern films feel more like a ride than a movie, and it has much to do with the cam and where I feel it puts me
Wow, a philosophical movie channel. Subbed
You missed Hitchcock in your analysis who pretty much inspired other directors to try to deny the existence of the camera, such as Zemeckis in What Lies Beneath, or Fincher in Panic Room... Great video!!! Thanx!!!
Hey, great catch. I guess that explains why I was never a fan of Hitchcock. I LOVE Brian DePalma though. The difference is, Hitchcock's camera indeed feels unnatural often, I never liked it.
As someone who started shooting video with a clunky VHS shoulder cam, the advent of pocket digital video was a revelation. Suddenly I could place the camera in previously impossible positions to get perspectives a person would never otherwise see--the view from inside a toy truck rolling, for example, or just throwing the camera spinning into the air. It's all old hat now, but at the time it was pretty novel and wondrous. Where does that kind of impossible perspective fit in with this essay's analysis?
Great video! I'd say most mid-budget films also fall under the umbrella of genre films, which have also sadly decreased in number over the past couple decades.
I love the Urukhai at 10:20 gingerly going down the stairs. "I have to be rushing but I can barely see what I'm doing..."
god u said everything i’ve wanted to say and didn’t know i wanted to say. this fully explains why i love certain movies, old or new. it’s not a simple matter of cgi vs practical effects. what a well put together video! and i think the final push for me to despite work being insanely busy to finally make all my video essay ideas, and start making short films. expression is the key to great cinema. while u can enjoy movies for so many reasons, i realize now WHY my favorites are my favorites. thank u!
Films that position the viewer in linear space, like with the one point perspective, Actually have the effect of placing the viewer AWAY from the action as a passive observer.
You don’t have to imagine yourself as the camera to be involved in a film. You instead need to be required to take active participation in filling in the gaps.
It’s like ‘negative space’ art. Those images that fill in half the image with solid colour and the other half with empty space, and your brain does the work to fill in the gaps and create the whole image.
The isolation of the visual sense is a type of blindness. To be fully involved in something it needs to evoke MORE than just your perception of literal and linear visual space. It has to evoke all your senses.
I couldn't agree more on the state of modern cinema. I too love the old practical way of shooting films. I guess for me its all about immersion; when I watch a film I want to BE there. I want to live in the movie's world. Especially with movies shot on film, and if it's shot and edited well, every little detail of the frame draws me in; from the way the camera moves to any imperfections that are present. Now, as you say, anything is possible. I too hope that cinema will regain some of it's past prestige and wonder. Keep dreaming, lads.
u would be rite that george lucas did that runway shot for aesthetic reasons. but also a criteria he has when he makes star wars. that its a lived in world, that the audience must feel as they are in the movie. thats why there are no impossible shots
Ironically by allowing the audience fuller “immersion” into film it also takes away from our actual immersion into the world. What a silly paradox no? The joy of film is that we’re looking into a world that it isn’t. Even at its most realistic it is hightened reality.but when the hightened reality *becomes* the accepted reality,is it really serving its purpose?
Well, this video reinforced the belief I had before starting it that the whole concept of "Cinema" is just pretentious twaddle.
real take and post visualization , the trickery of editing left me in a state of catastrophy.
Well said. I just loved it.
thank u
i experienced this as a bad trip on lsd, 'the horror of denying perspective', or rather denying individuality
Enter The Void (2009)
Nonsense. Poor writing and poor execution creates lousy projects, and exemplary work yields awesome ones. But the ratio of jank to gems has always been pretty similar: it's 90% junk and 10% gemstones. And what wouldja expect?! THE OPPOSITE? 🤔 Nah, brah. We'd all exist in a different world if the majority of everyone and everything were competent, intelligent, and artistic.
Nonsense appeal to the "it's always been that way" assertion.
Another thing that I've seen a video about that I agreed with because I've noticed it beforehand is that most modern movies look too clean. It was refreshing for me to watch The Holdovers because of this.
I'm not sure I quite understand why there needs to be a distinction between real and "unreal" shots. It feels like by that logic, animation isn't cinema because it isn't bound by physical space much like those unreal camera shots. Who says physical reality is the determining factor for what is and isn't cinema?
You’ve hit the nail right on the head. The cameras main goal is to tell the story visually. And if that means doing a crazy, impossible looking, shot… then so be it. It’s very reductionist to say otherwise.
@@superanimenerd13 Then why does pixar model camera shots first then add motion blur to their animation to simulate a cinematic experience? The director of Toy Story 3 commented on tricks like these, and the goal of it looking cinematic
Are movies like dreams or are they supposed to represent reality perfectly?
The kind of shots you're talking about are part of the dreamlike quality of movies.
I shared this twice before I got to the end of the essay. Excellent work. Liked and subscribed as of today.
Roland Barthes calls that which appears in a photograph but does not claim to have intent or meaning the “punctum.” Those are the parts of photography which we cannot plan, yet they seem to be the most emotionally authentic.
Reminds me of the 180 degree rule. When a bad filmmaker breaks this rule so blatantly, it can make it extremely difficult to understand the connection between the subject of the film and the space that they exist in. A good filmmaker can use this to tell a story, for example they can use it to create a dreamlike consistency to whatever their filming but for the most part it's not something that you want to break unless you really know what you're doing.
I apologize for this coming completely out of left field and being painfully neurological, but I just found your channel and this concept you are describing is fascinating to me from a MEDICAL perspective.
tl;dr I had a concussive accident in my late 20s that affected my visual system in the brain, but left my eyes unaffected. Ever since then, I have been unable to watch most modern movies where there is too much CGI/green screen/the perspective shifts you describe where the viewer is no longer "the subject viewing the action.".
I am unable to watch it for 2 reasons: The first being my visual system cannot make the necessary adjustment internally to put the pieces together, so it actually appears as multiple layers trying to form one image, as if you laid cardboard cutouts over each other.
The second is because of this perspective shift you describe perfectly as "the horror of the subject being outside of you, your body denying its own perspective.". The visual system is also used to calibrate spatial awareness of the body, so when watching these scenes, my ACTUAL body loses track of where it is IN REALITY. It feels very physically unnatural, disconcerting, and breaks immersion in the film.
All of this to say, perhaps extrapolating out from the rawest physical elements of our biology (demonstrated by what happens to me as an extreme example) all the way out to the philosophical, there must be something fundamentally "off" that our brains are perceiving but our minds/consciousness are not fully aware of about the new perspective.
It would also align with another fundamental piece of information I learned from my disorder: when the brain is having trouble visually processing, it tends to view things in smaller, atomized units. Think about how we critique and criticize and even have begun to classify movies now. There is a trend towards perceptual atomization, identification and labelling of trope-ification. It's the engine of how social media works as opposed to television or radio. I wonder if we're "seeing" in smaller packets of information, even neurologically, without knowing it, and film until this point has been longer visual, subject-oriented form.
I'm really enjoying your channel! I just found it and I love the video essays. They give me a lot more to think about than the typical critiques you find out there! Thanks!
Wow thanks for sharing this!
I don't really agree with your definition of "the death of cinema". Seems like a weird aspect of film making to pin it on. Sure, when done badly it can be immersion breaking. But these kinds of vfx are part of cinema. Not "the death" of it. It's like saying synthesisers are the death of music. It's not. It's just another way of creating it.
I wholeheartedly agree
Let's be honest, capitalism killed film. Profit killed film and the only reason digital vfx film making is cveaper is because they are fucking over vfx artists. Now if the US had art grants for films like in France, you would not see cinema die at the pace it does.
That being said.. The work around is easy. Don't do something digitally that you can't do on camera. Don't go through the glass. George Miller and David fincher don't let you forget that you are still watching cinema
I think that we have to acknowledge (the industry of movies as well) that we have unfortunately been watching one medium (digital filmmaking) slowly integrate with and overtake another (traditional filmmaking or cinema). I think it's important and useful to start thinking about most contemporary films as mixed media expressions rather than purely identified as one art-form. Animation, CGI, cinematography, etc. are all their own unique forms and we have done a very bad job, especially in film education, of helping people to see that these are completely different mediums with completely different skill sets. I remember when I was in film school and I wanted to use a dolly shot and was convinced that I should just use a gimbal, as it would be easier, how I wanted to shoot in 1:1 but convinced to shoot in 16:9 so it would fit on screens, and how I wanted to shoot in B&W but was convinced to shoot in color, because why wouldn't I take advantage of every tool available to me. Filmmaking is so overwhelming in its current state because of the way the industry maximilizes everything and the big filmmakers insist that if they don't use everything everywhere all at once (happy to use that, haha), then they've somehow failed their potential as artists. It's something that shouldn't actually be hard to fix though, as long as we claim distinction within the mediums to truly follow our own paths and not allow universities, unions, or corporate interests to dictate to us how our art must look.
Until camera drones became widely used, I always thought shots like the one in "Apollo 13" where the camera goes down the length of the Saturn V rocket in an impossible move, totally broke my suspension of disbelief. That, along with the launch itself a few moments later, just ruined it for me. The rest Ron Howard's space epic is great but those shots just blew it in my opinion. At that time, they were impossible to attain without CG and it turned that part of the movie into a video game for me- just as you say at the outset of this great video. Well done.
I wouldn't call it "imperfect" cinema. Unpredictability is what makes life exciting, on film or otherwise. I think practical shooting fosters creativity, because the filmmakers must find ways around the restrictions imposed by the world itself.
Thanks Josh from Xbox Live, I learnt a lot.
The shot that really gets me is when the camera looks up at the running shower in Psycho. I don't understand why the camera doesn't get wet.
Because on set it wasn’t water coming out of the prop shower head. It was some kind of flimsy material that was being shaken to make it look like water. For me the reason they likely didn’t want it to get wet is more of a form thing. These days most audiences won’t mind having water droplets on the camera but back then they might have found it distracting. Or at least that was the assumption that film makers were working under. But I wouldn’t say that having the camera do impossible things is the death of cinema but rather just a different aesthetic of cinema.
Peter Jackson. He took a combination of cinema and crowd pleasing film to its apex and there is nowhere to go but down from there.
I think one of the main problems is that Hollywood seems to be reluctant to hire more new directors and producers. Sure many teenage and young adult actors have reached fame during the 2000s and 2010s but not that many aspiring directors dreaming of becoming the next George Lucas or Steven Spielberg are supposedly being ignored by Hollywood.
The big problem with cinema is that it no longer depends on the audience's willing suspension of disbelief. As a result it no longer depends on the audience.
last scene of Antonioni's The Passenger (1975)
This is an incredible video essay. Holy crap dude. Well done
Great video man also you look a little bit like Darren Arronofsky.
If movies speak to us in the language of symbols and can be viewed as a shared dream. Could one say that the camera is the dreamer
But even dreams have rules. Rules when broken, begin to destabilize the dreamscape. Scattering verisimilitude, at least unconsciously
Very astute. I think we can apply much of this to the state of music as well. There is still plenty of 'real' music being made, but as a whole, the field is 'bifurcated' into two camps, with disparate aims. One, that functions as simply content - pop culture fodder - that uses technology to create 'perfect,' flawless music that is pre-ordained to act on people's subconscious to derive an expected reaction (and to drive sales and profit.) The other, that relies on showcasing the humanity of the process of its own creation. The 'flaws' are where we find everything we're looking for, whether that's an answer, or just a question. Like freckles or a malformed ear lobe on a lover. The things we remember because they ONLY exist on the object of our affection. No matter how AI and other technologies impacts creativity, human knows human, and we're social animals that need each other to survive. That will never change.
The most important elements in a film are the story, characters, acting and the direction. Not CGI or any other technical enhancement or manipulation of imagery on the screen. Your essay might have more appropriately been titled the death of cinematography
As Orson Welles said: "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."
It may be a physical impossibility but it actually helps put us into the world we are viewing by placing us into the scene as direct observers not as camera operators.. Even in print we can have the point of view of the omnipotent narrator. We accept our point of view going through the glass in Harry Potter or Citizen Kane because we have been prepared for it in stories. We are the Ghost of Christmas Present passing through and viewing the characters and action without the limits of a physical body and so we feel we are really there.
I don't know how you do it, but you're the only 'serious' film essay channel I've encountered that manages to present pretentious film content whilst simultaneously not coming across as toe-curlingly, skin-crawlingly pretentious yourself. It's earnest and intellectual, but doesn't come across as masturbatory. It's a unique skill. I think it's the subtle self-awareness. As somebody else has already commented, "This is both a perfect video essay and a perfect parody of video essays". Put it this way, I'd have a pint with you and I couldn't say that for any of the others that come across my feed. The lack of MUBI shilling is a nice touch too. Keep it up mate.
Thank you for articulating something that has bugged me about many films from the past 25 years (and increasingly more films), what I had thought if as "videogame-ification," (not just the CGI per se, but the absence of actual perspectivism itself) which the physical body is erased altogether. The unreality of it too often ruins it for me.
Merci pour cette vidéo :)
I think the modern method of creating digital environments with a cameras position in mind before the environment is created is what can make new shots feel lifeless. I am an environment artist for games and No matter how much detail I cram into my environments, it will never rival the real world and its because I created the world i am trying to capture. There is no exploration or discovery of a scene space. But I do think it might become possible in the future when I have lost my job and digital worlds become endless accurate real world depictions of what our world looks like or other worlds could look like. We can find that desire to capture imagery again instead of creating it.
I think the idea of "the digital" itself is often overstated in theory, maybe because it overwhelms old timey researchers but idk exactly. Ideas such as digital capture, projection, CG, digital broadcasting etc are often conflated for no reason. I don't see creation of computer graphics as inherently different than any other type of visual creation, we as humans have been doing impossible perspectives since cave painting. And any type of visual expression can be a part of cinema, not just purely photographic expression and animation in many different forms has been a part of cinema since the beginning, or we might even say predates cinema as in the medium of the motion picture. At the same time I will agree that the economics and popularity of digital effects has lead many filmmakers into terrible practices.
Interesting take. I always wondered why Fellowship is one of my favourite films ever yet I despise the two other films in the trilogy because they jump the shark stylistically. Don’t get me started on the Hobbit trilogy. But I get why the shots got more ridiculous- it’s easier to film in a studio than on location
I think the opening scene of The Birdcage does the shot passing through glass thing.
For me it's simple. To be immersed in a movie the camera is the stand-in for my eyes and my body in a physical space. If the movie shows shots that a normal camera cannot achieve, then I'm taken out of the immersion. There's a reason there's a finite set of possibilities of how you can frame a shot, since the camera obeys the same rules of physics that I do.
Examples are the final fight in Black Panther where they fall. Or going through physical barriers without a physical cut. Like so many times you go through windows. That's why animated movies are so hard to do. The more estranged the camera movement, the more you are taken out of the immersion. In animated movies/TV-shows the best are those who follow the physical constraint of a real camera to the letter. For example 'Arcane'. Watch the camera movements. Look how much they mimic a real physical camera. Because this immerse you in the show and makes you forget that you're watching animation.
Brilliantly put.
Love your channel bro keep making more videos ❤
Digi composed shots is like a magician retorting to holograms on stage.
Cinema evolves and changes with the times.
You had me at the first half.
"There is no way out, or around, or through." Not 100% positive, but I believe Gurdjief said this. I have been reading nothing but Modernist novels for the last 24 years, so I'll let you guess which camp I will reside in.
Cinema has always been a product to be consumed and entertained by. But in the capable hands it can be art. The same with all of this technology that has been used over time. While most of it will be used to make entertainment, artists will find their way on how to use it. Technology advances cinema. Use it wisely
Impossible camera moves in normal stories are distracting from the identification with the movie. In AVIATOR was that camera move through the front windows of a plane and the movie turned into an animated movie.
Very interesting essay. It gives something to think about. I think the audience is unaware of the camera though, whether it's there as a object realistically or is breaking physics. They're usually focused on the characters. It is people with a more academic mindset who are thinking about camera placement, edits and moviemaking in general. So I don't know if it makes a difference
This is fantastic. I’d love to hear an assessment of Fincher through this lens, I think he uses the tools of impossible/perfect cinema with the mindset of the old guard…but maybe I’m crazy haha
Don’t know about Fincher of late, but Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is an interesting case. Dominik directed multiple Mindhunter episodes, which some featurettes I’ve seen show that its production is very green screen heavy, like the digital library set shown in this video. I think there’s lots of digital shortcuts or augmentations in Blonde, but it’s cinematic art, even as it’s impossible to decide whether to love or hate what it is.
Great analysis, I knew it was Peter Jackson when I looked at the thumbnail. I think modern pop culture cinema looks like a video game, its why I think all plates should be shot as traditionally as possible before VFX are added, likewise I think even the most grandiose action shots should have a fixed camera. I actually love that shot in LOTR FOTR where you know its an extremely complicated zipline camera rig, it's my favorite shot in the trilogy.
Just found you. Fantastic work.
Thank you for the thought-provoking upload! I would love to see you respond to some of the criticisms expressed in the comments here. Like many other people, and as someone who has dabbled in visual effects, I don't see an inherent problem with what you call "perfect" visuals, surrealist imagery, etc. Why is it important to limit the techniques used to make movies and define the audience's "relationship to the diegetic space"? What is wrong with images that look real, but because they are made of multiple elements, are "fragmented in time and space"? Do you truly think that every film with an unrealistic grasp of space is not cinema?
While I agree that modern franchise films are often lacking in artistic value, I don't think that that is because of the shot types they are composed of. As someone said, "there is no such thing as bad effects, only bad filmmaking"
Thanks for watching, and thanks your comment! I must say, I am a little confused by these criticisms because I didn't mean to say post-cinema was a problem to be resisted. I might have my own tastes, and have a personal attachment to old school cinema, but I believe my conclusion was quite optimistic and open-minded ;)
People in film theory have been saying "Cinema is evolving into something new," since the 90s, and in this video I'm just exploring the specific use of the medium that finally convinced me they're right! The perceptual and aesthetic logic(s) underpinning the medium are changing.
Death is always a rebirth. Some things are lost but new things are gained.
Is it good or bad? I deliberately danced around that question. Seems I didn't dance quite enough! :)
I'm as huge fan of many of the "post-cinematic" films I show in this video, especially Peter Jackson's work. I ended with a clip from Hugo because I think it's an absolutely brilliant film grappling with these very questions. I look forward to seeing the post-cinema of tomorrow.
Definitely earned yourself a new subscriber…. 👌
Every shot in a film is fake in that we know these are actors pretending to be other people, the situation was written by a writer, no one is killed or hurt for reaL, ETC. So the new tech that allows impossible or perfect shots doesn't bother me. yes, love old films and the knowledge that they did amazing stuff without easy tech. But cinema isn't dead as a result.. You want to call this a new era of cinema, fine. But it is still cinema. Scorsese couldn't recreate a 1920s Paris train station without CG unless he spent huge money on sets and props which would have freaked out the studio execs.
You hit the nail on the head. Film makers were always trying to make the camera do impossible things. They just didn’t have the tech to do it as convincingly.
So it’s Gnosticism VS Materialism, again? Can’t escape that fight, it seems.
I'll have to consider this. How is this different than a book? Why is attempting to mimic the minds eye as it may work in a book a death knell to a visual medium? I think it simply differentiates movies from theater and books in that it bridges the two, making it both similar yet unique.
Beautifully said and presented
Dude, I loved The Fountain!
Holy fuck I can’t believe I can watch this type of stuff for free.
Maybe digital filmographers should put artificial limitations on their camera movements, in the same way they may choose not to use a specific colour when filming.
So that even a camera movement that could easily be done in real life might be off limits would breed creativity born of constraint.
There is no creativity without constraint
I do not think anybody has killed cinema. The future of cinema seems to be that there is going to be a large scale increase in the presence of movie theatres. You might see movie theatres in new places you have never seen them before. New blockbuster rental stores will show up but this time you can probably rent playlists people made from their own videos. This will be a nightmare for people like the Kardashians who used to prey on the fears of others. Now others will finally have their chance to turn parts of their lives into profitable film reels.
love those videos! what music you used?
This music is from Zelda Tears of the Kingdom - Water Temple. Thanks for watching!
@@josh_from_xboxlive and no copyright problem? nice!
5:50 lol why not call it the "impossible burger" shot? 🍔
(seems to match the theme of the subject matter better.)
Peter Jackson is responsible for films being 3 hours long
Marty Scorsese once said that Marvel movies aren't real cinema, they remind him of theme parks and he's right, think of Joker Folie á Deux, which is an insult for what they liked the first movie like me, and also I think they ruined the movie on purpose. Moreover, I'm a fan of Sci-fi films unlike Tarantino, who can't stand movies with CGI
While I can understand this line of thinking and believe that in the turning of time there is always context and texture lost this also highlights a frustrating aspect of this conversation I feel is missing. Which is that the craft and journey of vfx to solve problems and even try to create verisimilitude within movies is undervalued or if not even overlooked in favor of drawing a conservative conclusion that these films are too stale and lack passion. While new technologies and hundreds of people dedicate themselves to pixel fucking every frame they are overshadowed by a negative perception of an ever growing medium of talented and dedicated artists.
While certainly the proliferation of this medium is partly due to the market cycle it also seems kinda silly how quickly people play reductionist to an art that take hours upon hours to create. We can apparently marvel at the use and timing of cameras being physically drawn through a window but cannot appreciate the craft of even animating the musclegroups and fur of a lion in the lion king. By dedicating oneself to seeing only on context we might fail to see the new context being created.
Well said!
I first noticed this shot in the movie 'Contact' and didn't like it. It took me out of the scene because the "camera" was doing something cameras can't do.
The mirror scene? In theory it's possible but you would have to move the mirror and camera in front of the girl up the stairs and down the hallway in a very smooth manner, but I get your point.
yooo just wanted to say this kind of shot happens at the beginning of Edward Scissorhands in 1990 - at the beginning where the grandmother tells the child the story
Gosh, how you right you are.
Michael Bay? CGI overkill? Endless Marvel Action Blockbusters?
I'm definitely bringing my human imperfections to my art... Ooops.
Wow, so much food for thought; I'm stuffed.
Honestly, big studios are killing cinema. Big studios don’t care about the lore or the fans - they just care about money. This leads to low quality sludge designed to get as much money as possible.