cinematography

Art

2022

We explain what cinematography is and what this artistic technique implies. Also, the history and characteristics of cinematography.

technique and the art to capture, store and broadcast moving images, often fitted with a hearing aid. East process It is normally carried out with a video camera (or some similar support, such as smart phones) and is closely related to the Photography, both technically and creatively.

Cinematography and its derivatives (such as TV) play a fundamental role in the contemporary world and the idea of communication that we handle, according to which everything is filmed and reproduced by others leagues away or even years later. The latter responds to a very central idea in the imaginary of the humanity, which is to beat the passage of weather: Thanks to cinematography, it is now possible to see deceased people or events on the other side of the world on video.

The cinematographic technique consists of the capture, in a very similar way to the photographic one, of an image projected in beams of light on a photosensitive surface that acts as a receptor.

There the images are fixed and in the video camera they are collected at the rate of many per minute, generating when they are reproduced in rapid sequence an appearance of movement. In fact, if we slow down a movie projection, we would see that the reproduction of the images resembles a slide carousel.

Of course, the film industry takes this process to very high margins of effectiveness and adds sound, special effects product of the computerized or digital intervention of the image, and a series of additions that result in a film or film, as we understand it today. This process involves a large number of professionals, technicians and artists.

History of cinematography

innovation in terms of plans, films of color and the subsequent incorporation of recorded sound (previously the dialogue was shown in writing in intermediate vignettes), forever revolutionized the conception of human cinema.

During the 19th century there were great precursors of cinema that deserve to be named: the Lumière brothers, Alice Guy and Georges Méliès. The latter would be important because it would film the first fiction short films of the history, using actors and scenographic material.

In 1919 Hollywood would appear, turned into the mecca of North American independent cinema and in its competition with other national and international distributors and producers, the importance that cinematography would have for humanity, in terms of information, entertainment and even preservation of precious moments, would be confirmed. .

Characteristics of cinematography

Cinematography arises from the idea of ​​being able to record and transmit reality, since unlike photography it can reproduce movement (and even sound). However, the cinematography is not necessarily faithful to the reality, not even when you aspire to make a documentary or a reportage journalistic, which requires objectivity.

Every cinematographic recording is a mounting: an arbitrary ordering of the recorded sequences that, viewed at once, acquire logic, meaning and verisimilitude. So much so, that the first screenings of the Lumière brothers in France, in which a train was shown coming in front of the spectator, caused the audience to instinctive fear that made them leave the room terrified, even though they were not in danger real.

In fact, the films that we usually see in the cinema are not shown to us in the exact order of their recording, but in the convenient order for their montage, that is, the order of the narrated story.

Examples of cinematography

advertising of detergent broadcast on television, are examples of the editing and filming tasks that cinematography consists of.

Cinematography career

The professional cinematography career is complex, since a multidisciplinary team intervenes in the making of a film that faces the different technical, creative and logistical challenges that this implies.

This means that a film student should prepare for a number of trades ranging from director (who coordinates the team and makes driving decisions), producer (who is in charge of obtaining the resources to make the film, including actors and locations), screenwriter (who writes the story or sequence of shots to be made), cameraman, etc.

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