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April Commentary from George Spiro Dibie One Set of Eyes for Every Film Every film begins with a cinematographer interpreting the intentions of the story and designing an appropriate look or visual style. We collaborate with the director, production designer, and others. We shoot tests, look at dailies, and frequently discover the look while we are shooting. Sometimes we pre-flash the negative or choose to use bleach by-pass or another proprietary lab process, because imperceptible nuances in colors, contrast, and other variables in images can change the meaning of a shot and flow of a story. It all comes together, when we time the answer print for continuity. Digital film mastering is the latest buzzword. Once a film is scanned into digital format anything can be altered. You can put a "window" around a face and change skin tones. You can add or erase a twinkle in someone's eyes. A dark sky can become brightly sun-lit, and emotional responses can be affected by manipulating contrast and colors. This flexibility in designing and executing a visual style is why it is essential for one set of eyes, the cinematographer's, to be responsible for the look of every film. That's essential because the possibilities for human error are extreme. For example, they showed two versions of the same scene from The Electric Horseman at a recent seminar about the role of the cinematographer in film preservation. Characters played by Jane Fonda and Robert Redford were wandering through the desert with a horse they were determined to protect from a corporate predator. In the first version, the entire scene takes place in daylight. This was also how the audience saw a restored print version of The Electric Horseman at a screening honoring director Sydney Pollack. It was an awful mistake. In the original movie, this scene stretched from afternoon through dusk. That story point amplified the drama. When Owen Roizman, ASC photographed The Electric Horseman some 25 years ago, he exposed the dusk footage day for night. Unfortunately, he wasn't present during the timing of the restored footage and it was printed as a day scene. When the mistake was discovered, the studio asked Owen to re-time the classic film again, this time for posterity. The mistake was no surprise to Owen. In a 1995 article published by ICG Magazine, he related an unfortunate experience during the making of French Kiss. An important romantic sequence was staged on a train late in the day to motivate moody lighting. Owen lit the moody interior sequences on a train set. His second unit filmed appropriate background plates in the French countryside. Owen wasn't present during the digital compositing of the background plates into the windows of the train. A "digital artist" at the visual effects facility demonstrated how he could brighten up the cinematographer's "dark" footage as though he were correcting a mistake. The producer liked that look not realizing he was changing the dramatic flow of the story. Owen sounded the alarm in that 1995 ICG Magazine article, warning how important it is for cinematographers to have total visual oversight from beginning to end. The making of a film is like the birth of an infant. Nobody sees the baby grow into a child and then an adult the way the cinematographer does. Nobody other than the cinematographer can be the guardian of the look and visual integrity of a film. That is why it is so important for us to do whatever it takes to ensure that the look of a film is considered an extension of cinematography - whether it happens on a set or in postproduction. As always, I look forward to your comments and suggestions. Please e-mail them to me. George Spiro Dibie, ASC |