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January Commentary from George Spiro Dibie Choosing the Path to the Future During an Internet chat on our website last year, Daniel Pearl reminisced about shooting his first music video in 1982. There were 65 setups planned on a very short schedule, but the director told him not to worry, because they could “fix” anything in telecine. It was a new concept for Daniel, but he quickly discovered that the telecine could be an extension of his role as a cinematographer. He experimented with new concepts for manipulating images in a telecine suite to choreograph the images with the music. The early telecines were analog based on CRT technology and had inherent limitations. The advent of digital telecine technology coupled with color correction software changed all of the rules. By the mid-to-late 1980s, virtually all-narrative film content produced for television was being converted to digital video format for timing and fine-tuning in postproduction. The results have been both a blessing and a curse for our members. In general, on narrative projects, they have used the technology to our advantage and have retained creative control by working out ways to communicate with “colorists” who are timing their projects. On the other hand, our members are rarely invited to participate in digital timing sessions for commercials. Ad agency “creatives,” have staked out that territory as their own. In 1998, Pleasantville became the first feature film to embrace digital intermediate technology. Most of the story takes place within the confines of a vintage black-and-white television program with occasional splashes of color. After some testing, writer-director Gary Ross decided to shoot the film in color. The negative was scanned and converted to digital format. The images were desaturated with just touches of color and then recorded out to a film master. The cinematographer, John Lindley, ASC, commented that digital intermediate technology could be a fabulous creative tool, but cautioned that there were serious potential pitfalls. It was a prescient observation. During the past five years, some 40 feature films shot by our members have been filtered through digital intermediate processes, including some with impressively artful results. However, there are still many unanswered questions and problems to resolve. The biggest hurdle is that with some notable exceptions, most studios have resisted budgeting to pay cinematographers for supervising digital timing. Their rational is that they haven’t typically paid cinematographers for optical timing at labs. The difference is that the digital intermediate process can stretch over many days and weeks. What happens to your film if you aren’t there and the “colorist” is making decisions on their own or with third or fourth parties? What happens when a cinematographer is committed to another project and isn’t able to participate in timing sessions in a digital suite? How about human factors? The reality is that it is pretty easy, and maybe even tempting, for a “colorist” to say to a director or studio executive, “Do you want to see how much better that looks if I make it a little brighter?” There are no easy answers to any of these questions, but it would be a big mistake for us to wait and see what happens. Following a recent screening of the HBO film Angels in America, the cinematographer, Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC, and visual effects supervisor, Richard Edlund, ASC told the audience that unless these issues are quickly and favorably resolved, chances are that the creative influence of cinematographers will be sorely diminished. Your Guild is committed to taking a proactive stance. We have begun by asking cinematographers with practical experience to participate on an advisory committee where we will identify key issues, establish recommended practices and aggressively pursue them by educating our members and everyone else who cares about the future of our art form. As always, I look forward to your comments and suggestions. Please e-mail them to me. George Spiro Dibie, ASC |