What really is cinematography and how do you differentiate between better and worse cinematography? i.e. Academy Award for Best Cinematography
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It’s the shooting of the film. All the camerawork.
A cinematographer typically operates the camera most of the time. They collaborate closely with the director to make the film look a certain way. From how tight or wide a shit should be, to how the camera and point of focus moves throughout a scene, etc.
Simple cinematography is when they “lock off” a shot by putting a camera on a tripod and letting the scene happen in front of it.
Good cinematography is usually dynamic and interesting, it uses light and shadow in interesting ways, and it tells a story without any of audio.
If you ever watched a movie and felt amazed by what you were looking at, that’s because of good cinematography.
Camera position, camera angle, camera movement. We see the story through the camera, so it has a large impact on how the story is told.
Imagine a scene where a mafia boss is threatening someone. But the camera is 20 ft away and the mafia boss is tiny on the screen. He wouldn’t seem super intimidating.
Now instead, we have a low angle shot (i.e. the camera is down low and looking upwards). Lower angles makes everything on screen look bigger and more intimidating. Now, the mafia boss can look larger than life, fill up the screen, and more intimidating for the audience.
Without changing anything else, a difference in camera position and angle can change the feel of the scene and can make the story better or worse.
I want to correct a few things in this thread. Actually, cinematographers rarely operate the camera themselves, and almost never do on large or big-budget shoots. That job is usually left to the camera operator. Assistant camera people take care of many of the smaller technical jobs like handling and replacing lenses, and if the shoot is big enough, there will even be a dedicated person whose sole job is to adjust focus.
The actual job of setting up and arranging lights is coordinated by the gaffer and their team of electricians. The gaffer is a bit more of a technician whose job it is to fulfill the cinematographer’s broader artistic goals, and they often have an encyclopedic knowledge of lighting techniques and equipment.
So the cinematographer doesn’t really touch the camera and doesn’t move the lights. So what the heck do they actually do? They collaborate very closely with the director to determine the best way of visually interpreting the story the director conveying by directing actors and staging scenes.
The director has final say on every shot, and their style will inevitably influence the look of the movie, but ultimately it’s the cinematographer’s artistic sensibilities that determine the film’s photography (in coordination with the director’s big-picture vision). To say the director is the cinematographer’s “boss” is technically correct but misleading in practice, as many cinematographers will vocally disagree with the director on certain decisions and may argue for their own interpretation of certain moments if they feel it is more correct for the story. It’s a very collaborative relationship.
If this all sounds vague, it’s because it is. Filmmaking is an art form and there are a million ways to make a movie, none of them inherently correct. Some directors famously have very little to do with the cinematography, like David Mamet. (In his book “On Directing Film”, he wrote that his answer to the question, “Where should we put the camera?” is to vaguely say “Over there.”)
Steven Soderbergh, on the other hand, actually serves as the director AND cinematographer for many of his movies. That tells you just how intimately connected those two jobs are.
And then you have people like Akira Kurosawa, who was a painter and very visually talented, but knew nothing about operating cameras.
Stanley Kubrick, for his part, was a master photographer, but still chose to have someone else serve as the cinematographer on most
of his films. He still couldn’t resist micromanaging the photography at times, and very frequently liked to sit behind the camera himself.
To give you a famous example: Watch an early Tarantino movie like “Pulp Fiction”. Then watch a later one, let’s say “Django Unchained”. Those movies look very different, but also feel very similar. There’s a stylistic continuity because of the director, but visually there is a huge leap due to the sensibilities of the different cinematographers at work.
There’s a reason the cinematographer is also called the “director of photography”. It’s because they themselves are a big creative force on the movie.
Source: Filmmaking professional, cinematographer, many years of film school.
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