This is such an excellent point John. The framework for an entire cultural studies piece exists within this one thought of yours. Thank you so much for your all endeavors to provide the written illumination of that which can be difficult to put a finger on in this rapidly changing experience of filmmaking. I am wondering if this might not also have played a role in the need for Brent’s Rule. In my recollection, everybody attempted to begin winding down and finish the martini by 11 & 1/2 BECAUSE of dailies.

When I read how so many have had the privilege of having mentors and being able to learn, I feel robbed. I never had the opportunity.

The digital platform has changed everything. I now at least have the right tool in my hands, finally depth of field is not on the wish list. I’m glad that the African story can finally be told though film…be it digital.

What is sad about the film industry is that when I travel to America everything looks fimiliar. My eyes have seen and grown accustomed to American landscapes, court rooms, people groups etc. It’s like reminiscing… But if I travel to upper Africa it’s all fresh and new, and it’s my own continent. So “industry” is a good term for film in America, it seems that cinematographer is having to redefine his role in that industry.

But here, I would like to think that film is still new enough to still be “art”. I see the potential of the art of film being brought forward with fresh eyes, minds etc. And digital is a great tool…so hopefully in thirty years there will be mentors, artists and story tellers keeping the great oral tradition of Africa alive in film.

So my conclusion on the interruption of the “Digital tool” in an “Film stock” world would be:
May it be a Renaissance to the Industry,
a Revolution to the Art of film,
and a Revelation that story is most important.

@Pete Kuttner. There is always a need to invest money into greater causes, but money doesn’t change things…people do. If poeple invested their talents and skills into a hungry culture, both would benefit.

This an extract from the Dogme 95 manifesto, made by Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier.

As a cinema student I must say that when I first read it, fours years ago, this utopic vision of democratization made me trembled with excitement. But as my professor made clear, along the history of cinema, for countless times as such claim been expressed with the same certainty. The Dogme 95 is a prove of that same conclusion, as the movement waves of revolution rapidly vanished by the dust of time.

Nowdays, with the so called Vídeo DSLR revolution, such claim is set again and in this global village, the waves have become themselves global, and I find hard to deny that it seem´s that this extract from the Dogme 95 manifest is more actual, more current then ever.

The truth is that along my four years of faculty (I´m currently one year away from concluding it) one of the most repeated and demotivating ideas that I and my close friends find ourselfs complaining about is that cinema, and it´s circuit, is one of the most elitist forms of art. It´s expensive. It´s certainly not the same as buying a pen, pencil or a paint brush and a canvas, to start expressing yourself.

Now I see this demotivation as, in a way, what made/makes cinema so special. It was/is expensive. Making a movie was/is expensive. 35mm are expensive. And, therefore, required/requires respect, discipline, concentration. The “body” of the movie was expensive and rare.

Cinema was once magic in it´s process, and specially in it´s visualization. Nowadays I find it hard to watch a movie in the theater. Everyone seems to think they are movie “critics”. Except, of course, for the classic movies, made before they were born and could see it for themselves in the movie theaters. Thankfully those are still looked upon as something worth watching. Those are the movies that still carry a “soul” inside there bodies”

These are for sure exciting times, for the people, who, like me, still have the dream of making cinema. It has never been cheaper. But one thing is for certain, there is no respect for cinema anymore.
It´s a soul problem, not a physical one, and it´s something that cannot be undone.
Unfortunatly it seems that the “soul” will only be regained if the “body”, itself, starts getting the same respect. The image as to evolve, and keep itself in a high pedestal. It has to become more elitist then ever. Something that will certainly not happen, and that will proclaim, for once the death of cinema. It will be/is the start of a new age of cinema.

Thanks for another great article.
Cheers.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the difference between chronos time (clock / chronological time) and kairos time (destined / significant / opportune time) and it seems to me that, at its best, our experience of art is kairos experience, when time, in a way, slows and something of meaning and depth is transmitted between the painting and the viewer. But that means slowing down and allowing time for the painting to work on us. If instead we see a visit to the museum as chronos experience we try to fit in “seeing” as many paintings as we can, but without allowing the time for the paintings to connect with us and to work on us, and because of this we emerge unchanged by the experience.

There is also, I feel, something somewhat passive about chronos experience of art. Kairos requires a willingness to look deeply, for us to bring ourselves to the experience, and also an openness to what the picture has to communicate to us at that particular moment of our lives. This is an active, not a passive, way of seeing and it is a way of seeing that may be being eroded by the consumerist nature of western society. But an active way of looking is something that is worth cultivating, both in ourselves and in the society around us. These thoughtful and fascinating essays make a contribution to that, so once again, John, thank you for them.

A response to “Cinematographer vs. Producer”

From “John’s Balliwick”, August 9, 2010
“The studio marketing geniuses that now routinely decide which movies get made, seem to believe that audiences want nothing more than ever more outlandish stunts, explosions and car crashes (a minimum of dialogue preferred), topped off by a requisite amount of evisceration and decapitation.”

It’s amazing that John Bailey is able to describe my summer work experience without having visited my workplace. Yes, I’m working on a summer blockbuster. It’s the third in a successful series produced perhaps because, as Joe Queenan’s article suggests, “Hollywood likes to play it safe” or as my experience on the set suggests, it’s more like the punchline of a number of dirty jokes I’ve heard: “they do it because they can.”

Part I’s budget was estimated at $151 million, Part II at $200 million and Part III, the current production, rumored to be as high as $300 million or more. [Hey. Parts I & II grossed $1.5 billion worldwide so far, I'm just saying, as they say] But $300 million? $300 million! I thought of asking the producer if there might be any other way to spend that kind money? Of course when she asked me what Bailey calls “the expressionless bottom line question that often comes bouncing back at you, the one that is the most heartless barb of all- ” “So do you want the job or not?” I didn’t ask the the Three Hundred Million Dollar Question at all. I think my query was more along the lines of “When can I start?”,

Here, though, in the privacy of an online blog – soon, if not already, viral – I will ask: “$300,000,000? WTF?

Of course I understand that many of the dollars from the budgeted hundreds of millions are paying me, other craftspeople, technicians, workers and vendors who have been hurting badly in the current jobless economy and that some of those dollars will trickle down and up and out to our creditors and others in our communities. But why should it cost twice as much to give us essentially the same cinema experience as PartI? Perhaps a future issue of “American Cinematographer” or “ICG” or “Forbes” will answer that question. I’m going to use this space to talk about some 300 mil might buy other than a blockbuster Hollywood movie.

Let’s look locally then globally. My summer blockbuster started shooting in Hollywood, rare enough for a Hollywood movie these days. A few months before they began principal photography CA Governor Schwartzenegger proposed cutting the yearly K-12 education budget by $1.9 billion. $300 million would buy back funding for childcare and development programs. The production soon moved on to a distant location, a state offering tax incentives to motion pictures. The state credits the producer 30% of payroll tax on local hires and gives similar breaks on state sales tax for local vendors. Meanwhile, this state can’t make its budget, has laid off thousands of people including public school maintenance workers, teachers and administrators. Programs in Art, Music and Special Needs have been dropped. Just two weeks before my summer blockbuster’s LA crew arrived, the state school board announced the $300 million budget cut that necessitated the layoffs.

In other news:
“The U.S. Energy Department will award nearly $300 million to a clean cities program to help communities buy alternative-fuel vehicles.”

“Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, a joint U.S.-Vietnamese panel endorsed a 10-year, 300-million-dollar “plan of action” to deal with the deadly health and environmental legacy of the U.S. military’s widespread use of “Agent Orange” during the conflict.”

“Mexico earthquake damage estimated at over $300 million”

“South American nations pledge $300 million aid to Haiti”

“The U.N. reports $99.5 million has been pledged, and donors have committed or contributed $47.8 million to the U.N. emergency response in Pakistan, but $300 million more is needed.”

And finally, a personal favorite:
“Africa owes $227 billion to western creditors. Every day Sub-Saharan Africa spends $30 million dollars repaying debts to the world’s rich countries and international institutions. Often they spend so much on debt payments that they have very little left over for health or education.”

So even my summer blockbuster’s massive budget would pay off only one day of debt for only 10 of the 45 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Am I arguing we shouldn’t make movies? Absolutely not. A-I like my work. And B-I like to watch movies.

But for $300,000,000?
Like the YouTube cartoon cinematographer says to the YouTube cartoon producer: “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Thanks John, for the opportunity to discuss “production values.”

-Pete Kuttner