On
March 7th 2010 filmmakers all over the world began scratching their heads,
bewildered. Mauro Fiore won the Oscar for greatest achievement in
cinematography for the film Avatar,
beating out Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Inglourious
Basterds, The Hurt Locker, and
The White Ribbon. “How can they call it
‘best cinematography’ when 80% of the film was CGI (Computer Generated Image)?
Basically, I think the academy confused a beautiful looking animation with
real-world cinematography,” cinematographer Ian Kerr said.
To
make the controversy plain for the average filmgoer, look at the traditional
role of the cinematographer. Also known as the director of photography (DP), a
cinematographer is the person who paints with light, so that the audience is
transfixed by the images on the screen whether it is an endless desert in The
English Patient or the world through the
eyes of the Dutch painter Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring. He uses lights, lenses, and filters in conjunction
with various types of film stock and specific cameras to create images that
captivate or repel an audience, according to the film director’s vision.
Since
the beginning of film, the cinematographer has overseen visual effects, from a
spaceship landing in the moon’s eye in A Trip to the Moon (1902) to flying bicycles in E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial (1982). But, over the
last few decades the role of visual effects has grown so much and technology
advanced to such a degree that the world seems destined to forget the magic
touch a cinematographer and his camera bring to the screen.
The
shift was evident in Lord of the Rings
when new motion-capture technology created the creature Gollum, using a real
actor to model physical movement rather than animation alone. Motion-capture, a
process using a computer to track and record a real person’s movements by
sensing colored dots attached to their body, had not been used so effectively
for capturing facial expressions before. Finally, an animated character could
have near-human emotions and movements. A less obvious example of the shift in
technology, in the same film, is a scene when Aragorn speaks to Boromir in the
woods, and his eyes are clearly illuminated. Does the average moviegoer notice
that Aragorn’s eyes have been lit using a computer program because the original
close-up was too dark? When Howard Hughes crashes an airplane in Aviator, do viewers know where the computer animation ends
and Leonardo DiCaprio begins? The integration of computer animation and other
technologies are making what the audience sees less camera magic and more
computer programming.
According
to James Cowan, a manager at Technicolor Creative Services in Vancouver B.C.,
post-production processes have become so advanced that many cinematographers no
longer try to light a scene artfully, concentrating, instead, on proper film
exposure and moving fast to stay on schedule. If their personal schedule allows,
they may sit in on the color-timing session to oversee their vision at that
point. That’s at least a 30-hour block of time in post-production (time they
are not paid for). During the session, a technician known as a color-timer sits
in a theatre-like room and works at a computer control board to alter
everything from the color of a scene and the shadows cast in a scene to what
areas of the image are in focus, or even enhance costumes and make-up. Before
digital, color-timers were mainly limited to changing colors and brightness of
the overall image, not individual parts. Cowan points out that the technology
works best on an image that has not been manipulated during production. In
other words it’s better not to use high-contrast lighting for dramatic effect
or gels to create special light colors. It seems as if technology is reducing
the on-set creativity behind the camera itself. As production manager Bridget
Hill puts it, “it’s no longer, ‘fix it in post’ but make it in post!”
In
an April 2004 issue of millimeter, John
Seale, Oscar-winning cinematographer of The English Patient (1996) and A Prince of Persia (2010), was not upset by the prospect of losing
creativity during the filming process. Seale uses what he calls, “a reality
driven style.” In other words, he uses just enough light to properly expose the
film and the actions taking place. He claims this saves the production money by
reducing the number of times you set-up lights: saving hours in labour costs.
This also allows for multiple cameras. “You get three shots for the price of
one,” he says. Regarding the digital process, Seale explained, “I can save
money in gels and filters and things on-set this way, we can do more with
windows, and so on. That’s why I’ve become a convert to the DI (digital intermediate)
process.” In the DI process, images are loaded into a computer system - whether
they start as digital media or as a film negative that is scanned into the
system - in order to run them through the color-timing session and add any
other visual effects. By windows, Seale means the various layers and shapes
that can be put onto an image during the color-session, using software. The
software allows the color-timer to select a specific area of the screen and
illuminate it by itself (like Aragorn’s eyes in Lord of the Rings) eliminating the need to re-light during filming,
which would involve at least one crew member, or even re-shooting at a later
date.
Ellen
Kuras, the cinematographer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, also makes time to attend the color-timing session.
According to an April 2004 article in American Cinematographer, she works with the color-timer to get as much of
her vision into the images as possible. She also still uses traditional
techniques like lighting and choosing film stocks. For Eternal
Sunshine she chose stock that was slightly
cyan (blue) in dark areas of the image, to give a little bit of depth to the
shadows.
There
are still things a computer cannot replace, like the jittery, hyper-real
opening in Saving Private Ryan, and a
million other techniques and choices that determine the images that arrive on
screen. Cinematographers, now, need to know how to use more tools than ever.
Kerr puts it this way, “Post allows more control to the directors which is sort
of good, but the best directors will always recognize that a partnership with a
DP is to their advantage.”
However,
long before the color-session, films today engage a number of other computer
tools to create the images seen on screen. Frequently, films are generated by
computers, rather than only enhanced. Chief among the processes now performed
by computers is animation. The Oscars and the Golden Globes have recognized the
accompanying surge of feature-length animated films by designating a special
category for them. Avatar appears to
qualify for that classification, in accordance with rule 7 of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts & Sciences [AMPAS], so why wasn’t it considered for
that award? Perhaps the use of live-action and motion-capture blended with
animation have put the film into its own category, but awards shows, lagging
behind technology, have not defined that new division. Therefore the presence
of living actors within the process allowed Avatar to be considered for things like best picture and
best cinematography.
The
process for selecting the winner of the best cinematography Oscar is fairly
straight forward, although it may be flawed for today’s swiftly changing
technical fields. Cinematographers who are members of the AMPAS must approve
films before they are eligible to be nominated. After they have approved
candidates (films), AMPAS cinematographers then vote to decide who is
nominated, and, finally, all members of the AMPAS vote on who wins. The
‘cinematographer’ must be recognized as such by the American Society of
Cinematographers (ASC). Nothing in the rules posted on the AMPAS or the ASC
websites defines what the job of the cinematographer must include, nor do the
rules explicitly or implicitly forbid shared credits.
In
the writing world, unless more than 51% of the material has been modified, the
original creator is considered the author of a work. In a January 2010 article
in American Cinematographer, by his own
estimate Fiore only shot 30% of Avatar. He wasn’t even hired until most of the film had already been shot.
The rest was created by computer animators, and the motion capture process. In
fact, most of what appears on the screen cannot be attributed to Fiore.
According to cinematographer Ian Kerr, “Most DPs on the boards point out that
JC [James Cameron] ‘shot’ most of the film, that [Vince] Pace was as much a DP
as Fiore.” Pace, who created the stereoscopic 3-D camera that is essential to
the film, is listed as Director of Photography for the L.A. unit of the film,
but was not a co-recipient of the Oscar. That’s not where the award
discrepancies end.
James
Cameron used a “virtual camera” to shoot a lot of the computer generated shots.
The instrument made it possible for Cameron to navigate the animated world
where Avatar exists as if he were using
a real camera in a 3-D world rather than a keyboard and a 2-D computer screen.
It also allowed Cameron to see actors as their characters and in their virtual
environment rather than as people in funny body suits on a sound stage.
Supplying him with that tool fell to people like Rob Legato and Glenn Derry.
Richard Baneham developed a method for capturing the flight scenes that, for
some moviegoers, is the finest part of the film. His method included flying
wire dummy airplanes whose patterns were motion-captured, then the backgrounds
were animated to fit that pattern, and, finally, the actors followed the flight
on a screen so that their actions matched the visuals that had been animated.
Eric Saindon headed a team of computer animators who reportedly created 1500
different plants to appear on the planet Pandora, where the film takes place,
while Wayne Stables made them into 3-D images. The lighting in the virtual
world was created and fine-tuned by teams supervised by Guy Williams and Joe
Letteri. Apparently, Fiore wasn’t involved or even present for any of this.
What
Fiore did exceptionally well was light numerous green screen sets, using
techniques definitely worthy of the old-fashioned title ‘cinematographer.’ He
shot using 3-D cameras only just invented by Pace and Cameron. He’s one member
of a team of extraordinary innovators that have produced something beyond the
realm of human possibility. They have paved the way for truly astonishing
things to happen on screen. Letteri, Rosenbaum, Baneham, and Jones were
recognized with the Oscar for best visual effects achievement. However, Pace
was not awarded a technical achievement Oscar for creating the stereoscopic 3-D
camera and support apparatus; nor were the Legato and Derry teams recognized
for the virtual cameras they invented. But does the final product of all these
separate teams justify giving Fiore the best cinematography award? Current
voting members of the AMPAS either mistakenly believe that Fiore did more than
30%, or they believe that computer animation and motion-capture belong in a
cinematographer’s department even if most of the creation and direction are not
done by that cinematographer.
The
question isn’t whether Fiore deserves recognition, nor whether Avatar is spectacular. The question is whether someone who
only creates 30% of a film can even be listed as its prime generator, and
whether a virtual world can be considered to be photographed especially when
the people in it are captured through a mainframe rather than a lens. These
questions don’t have easy answers, but they aren’t going away. What is clear is
that the film world is being changed so rapidly by technology that even awards
shows need to work hard at keeping up. Film student David MacDonald sums it up
this way, “It's just a different kind of cinematography...Whether this…is
comparable to the traditional kind is debatable, though. They might have to
make two separate categories soon, like digital and film...kinda like how they
used to have an award for color and one for black and white.” Hopefully, the
Oscars will hurry and catch up, so that everyone who deserves an award gets one
for the work they actually performed.
*****************
January 2014
In 2014 there is still no dividing line between
cinematography and computer generated images when it comes to awards. Hugo (2012) and The Life of Pi (2013) each received Oscars [AMPAS] for best
cinematography, while utilizing techniques well beyond the camera. Blended photographic
techniques have been embraced by audiences and filmmakers alike, but they are
still not being acknowledged openly by the awards circuit.
The
question of what constitutes photography seems to have been tabled. Is the
American Society of Cinematographers afraid of making a fuss for some reason or
are they just busy playing with all their new toys? Awarding a special category
for special filming techniques is not unheard of: in 1956 the Hollywood Foreign
Press awarded Wichita a Golden Globe for
Best “Outdoor Drama.” If a new award category were created for computer capture
films and digital manipulation, what would it be named? What degree of computer
generated material would qualify a film for such a category?
Pi’s success highlights the continued importance of
collaboration. More than ever, the director and the director of photography on
a given film must know exactly what they are aiming for visually because they’ll
be managing several teams in pursuit of that single vision. And they need to
know more about cutting edge technology too. Claudio Miranda, the Oscar winning
director of photography on Pi
managed at least three different visual effects subcontractors to produce 690
computer generated visual effects shots for the film (about 75% of the film).
Perhaps the award title would be Best Director of Visual Collaboration, or, for
lovers of fantasy, Best Master of Chaos.
When
the Oscar nominations are announced on January 16th what type of
film will rise to the top of the heap in cinematography and how much of that
film was actually captured through a camera lens?
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