Visions of Light

[gwyn]

Last night I watched a documentary that I'd only seen part of before, and it was a wonderful study of cinematography that relates to a lot of what I was talking about last week in my post about how The Fast and the Furious might be a crummy summer popcorn flick, but the director and DP had an incredible eye toward using lighting, setting, and photography to tell us about characters who are otherwise fairly sketchy. Visions of Light is a tribute to cinematography throughout the ages, and it gives a wonderful shout-out to most of my favorite DPs, modern and past: Conrad Hall, Lazlo Kovacks, Nestor Almendros, Haskell Wexler, Vilmos Zsigmond, Gordon Willis, Michael Ballhaus, and my sentimental favorite, Caleb Deschanel, among many. (sisabet, if you like documentaries, this one is for you.)

I wish I could make everyone in fanish vidding watch this documentary. I think it helps define the way movies look and why, and gives people who haven't had a chance to study this stuff an idea of how movie people make use of the specific things DPs do to create a mood or tone for a film. It's also a primer on what everything means -- the lingo, the terminology, the reasoning and historical development. Listening to someone tell us about the reasons they chose X frames per second when they made certain scenes in Raging Bull, for instance, while showing us those scenes is a great way to make vidders understand what they're watching, and open their eyes to the potential within the visuals they're using as source. There's also a fantastic discussion, much of it by Nestor Almendros, who is a brilliant cinematographer, of how lighting affects character, and there's a fascinating look at black and white films and the way lighting was done for individual actors -- and why Garbo always worked with one specific DP. It also showcases something that was talked about in feochadn's master class at Vividcon last year -- about how each technological leap in film resulted in the camera being locked down, while photographers worked to find ways to open things back up; rinse, repeat.

And it's not just educational, it's fun -- all the clips, along with insight into understanding why some movies are considered such works of genius (for instance, I know many people who are baffled today by why Citizen Kane is often considered the greatest film ever made; in here, by focusing on one aspect of the film, we get a chance to understand just why that movie has earned such respect), coupled with insider information that makes for humorous anecdotes about the film industry and its characters. It reminded me a lot of my favorite documentary, George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey, in that it's impossible to come away without both a greater understanding of the film world, and feeling more in love with movies than we might have thought possible.

Stick it on your Netflix queue if you're a vidder -- if you've never thought much about film theory or understood how lighting, blocking, and so on can define the characters you're working with, you won't regret the couple hours with this movie. It's fantastic.

Which leads me into my new thing: After my whinage of a couple weeks ago, wherein I lamented my unanchored fannishness and the lack of anything interesting on TV that made me want to do reviews and meta, someone pointed out to me how much she'd enjoyed my three "movies you've never seen" reviews a couple months ago when that meme was going around. And then another person pointed out that maybe I should write once in a while about movies most people have never seen because she loved the three I pimped; even though they'd be short pieces, at least it would make me feel like I was wearing my fannish pimp hat again. So I thought, after watching Visions of Light, that maybe that's not such a bad idea. So once in a while I'll write up a little mini-review about something you probably haven't seen that might be worth watching. It's not a review like Buffy/Angel/Firefly, but hey, it's something besides grammar!

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

This is the type of thing I wanted to get from watching movies and vids with you. I'd love to see that documentary. Do you own it or was it a Netflix find?

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the documentary rec, I'm searching for it to add to my Netflix list. I actually have two editing books on order that I hope come soon as I'm eager to read them. They're both more about the 'art' of editing rather than the technical aspects. Having never been in any sort of film class it's the sort of information I missed that I'm trying to gather now.

[cranberryink.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for the rec. I've added it to my netflix queue. I don't understand nearly as much as I'd like about how movie visuals come together.

And I'm totally one of those people who wonder why Citizen Kane is considered the greatest film of all time. Maybe this will help.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

Visions of Light is a tribute to cinematography throughout the ages

I'm going to try to lay hands on this. One of my current gigs is storyboarding, and I'm looking for any and all related books/documentaries/info. This sounds like it isn't about direction per se, but I'm also responsible for making lighting choices (because the show is CGI, and the animators need that information). Actually, it all sounds really helpful, especially the primer.

Thanks for the rec!

[varina8.livejournal.com]

This sounds fascinating. I may have to join Netflix after all (the local libraries all have it in VHS only).

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

buried in here is a vid rec of one of your vids.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/bethbethbeth/8558.html

[keiko-kirin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pimping this. I've never heard of this documentary but it sounds fascinating. And whee! My library has it.