Cinematography Masterclass: Videography + Cinematography

Cinematography, the art and technology of motion-picture photography. It involves such techniques as the general composition of a scene; the lighting of the set or location; the choice of cameras, lenses, filters, and film stock; the camera angle and movements; and the integration of any special effects. All these concerns may involve a sizable crew on a feature film, headed by a person variously known as the cinematographer, first cameraman, lighting cameraman, or director of photography, whose responsibility is to achieve the photographic images and effects desired by the director.

The earliest motion pictures were filmed as if they were stage plays, using just one or a few cameras in static frontal photography. By the second and third decades of the 20th century, however, in the hands of such cameramen as Billy Bitzer (working with director D.W. Griffith) the camera was doing close-ups, shooting from moving vehicles, employing backlighting and other lighting effects, and generally being used in ways that separated the motion picture from theatrical tradition. With the coming of sound, the inventive motion was interrupted when the noisy cameras were perforce made stationary in sound-proof enclosures not easily moved, but the development of silent cameras again made cinematography flexible. The development of the camera crane (first used in 1929) also expanded the camera’s vision, as did the use of wider-angle lenses to achieve a greater depth of field (as Gregg Toland did in the impressive scenes of Citizen Kane [1941]).The two most important events in cinematography after the coming of sound were undoubtedly colour and wide-screen processes. Also important are advances in special effects, as developed in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), with cameraman Geoffrey Unsworth, and in George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977), with cinematographers Gilbert Taylor and (for special effects) John Dykstra.