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To Be Convincing, it Must Be Realistic
Here, in a nutshell, is the key to successful and convincing photography of motion pictures for theatres and television.
BY FREDERICK FOSTER
TJecall for a moment any outK standing job of cinematog¬ raphy and you will invariably re¬ member that it was the authentic lighting and a camera treatment with the bold stamp of meticulous pre-production planning that con¬
tributed most to its success — made it stick in your memory.
Before any cinematographer can express through photography a situation or subject convincingly, he must first be convinced of it himself; he must understand it;
he must have had in his own past experience a knowledge and fa¬ miliarity of the subject or situa¬ tion in a measure comparable to that which he now wishes to ex¬ press photographically. In every artistic endeavor this fact is recog¬ nized. Elsewhere in the motion pic¬ ture industry, writers, directors and actors agree that the most con¬ vincing results follow where the thinking and efforts are based to a great extent upon the personal ex¬ perience of the individual.
It will probably be argued that the cinematographer’s task is more mechanical than artistic — de¬ manding merely a photographic record of what others place be¬ fore his lens. To a certain extent, of course, this is sometimes true; but if we will consider this fact — that, given the same scene to light and photograph, different cinema¬ tographers each would do it dif¬ ferently — it must be agreed that, despite all commercial considera¬ tions and any collectivized nature of film-production, individual ex¬ pression does play a vital part in motion picture photography. This opinion is strongly supported by most veteran cinematographers of the sound stages.
“I firmly believe that our work can be entirely convincing only when we base it on substantial per¬ sonal knowledge or experience, or memories of things comparable with those we seek to fuit on the screen,” said one Hollywood cam¬ eraman recently. “In the case of my most recent picture, extensive research and study of the subject gave me an insight that ap¬ proached substantially what I might have gained had it been pos¬ sible to have experienced life in the mythical world portrayed in the picture.”
It is quite improbable, of course, that every cinematographer will have experienced situations and emotions absolutely identical with those of every scene he is called on to ph'otograph. But his general experience and knowledge should be such that the majority of scenes
Continued on Page 178
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER, MARCH, 1963
GIVEN THE SAME scene to light and photograph, different cinematographers each would do it a little differently, depending upon their knowledge or concept of the situation to be portrayed. Here, Robert Tobey, ASC, brings the boom-mounted Mitchell camera into place to photograph a scene for a Hawaiian Eye'1 TV film on a Warner Brothers' sound stage.
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