Wraith of J.O.I. posted:

they're really gonna kill by far the best streaming service............. "lmao"

https://twitter.com/FilmUpdates/status/1554900258529878017

Mr Hootington posted:

https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1554863283030466560?t=_D9gxGON_VsZzDwmETUP3A&s=19

Antonymous posted:

Antonymous posted:

i say swears online posted:

oh right did that "gen z survives in the woods" show come out yet

Oglethorpe posted:

The Wilds?

Yellowjackets?

Farm Frenzy posted:

ive decided that im gonna start blaming the snyder cut for hbo being cancelled forever because itll piss everyone off. if anyone wants to joinm me feel free

Antonymous posted:

Okay. This paragraph is my background which you can skip, but just to understand where I'm coming from: When I got my masters degree in cinematography it was from the #1 rated school for film in the USA. The school was brutal, the first year was 13 hour days 6 days a week. Many of my classmates got divorced. The school is a conservatory which means you create a work, and get it critiqued, there's not really grades or papers or anything. You're just shooting stuff. When you shoot something, you sit underneath the screen as your entire class watches and then you have to sit there as they critique your work for an hour. You do it again for each departement with the teachers critiquing it. We're making shorts for classwork so it's about 15 minutes runtime. So I had to have all my peers critique my film as a whole, which I made with a classmate director, editor, etc. I did cinematography. Then I had my teachers critique my cinematography specifically in front of only the cinematography students. And they are intentionally brutal, and you are not allowed to talk, and your cinematography classmates critique you anonymously, which you receive later. The idea is that when your film goes in front of an audience, you cannot say 'oh, well that day I was feeling tired, it was raining etc'. The work that goes on screen is 100% of your relationship with the audience. I've since worked 3 years as a narrative cinematographer.

The basis of critique in my school was always centered on story. Story is not plot, plot is superficial. The story of starwars could be told as a western, or a samurai flick, you can change the genders of characters and so on. You cannot change that Luke wants to redeem his father after finding out that evil was stronger than good - that's story. The role of the film maker is to have a story intent, and an artistic execution. That's really all the choices a film maker makes, was the story they intended to tell good, coherent, etc. And was the artistry they used to execute it effective - did it work.

Film tells story through an illusion which I will call 'empathy'. We recognize the characters on screen and worry about them, want to see them achieve their goals, identify with them, fantasize 'what if we were like them', etc, through empathy. The way the empathy is communicated is by what in writing is called 'third person intimate'. We do not have a first person account, where we can hear their thoughts or see through their eyes directly, but we also do not have an objective or omniscient understanding of every character who appears on screen, we learn what the character learns, see what they see. Each moment of the story identifies with one narrative point of view, and overall the film will follow one character or one group of characters' point of view. We don't need to always have empathy with only one character, but we will prefer the main character in moments of conflict.

We build empathy through the moments specifically highlighted by the film. We cut to a character's hand clenched, we cut to their reaction to hearing good news, we cut to a close up of a gun that's held to their head or w/e. Even screenplays are written like "John looks at his feet" not "john felt embarrassed and couldn't bear to maintain eye contact" - we don't explicitly know why john makes those choices, but through empathy we immediately understand his emotional state from observation.

Film making's worth is judged solely by the audience, and it is experiential not intellectual. When a film 'resonates' with the audience, when they get some enjoyment out of it - which could manifest as crying, feeling tension, feeling afraid, not just pleasure but enjoyment, I would say the film is 'working'. Working is the fundamental objective. It's just often when it doesn't work, it's because empathy with a character who's conflict is the story, wasn't achieved, and when it's working, it was achieved. So this is the rule on which I immediately analyze things, but there are of course always amazing counter examples. I just think they are rare.

So to sum up this part, I believe story, the foundation of narrative film, is told through a character's point of view which we understand through the illusion of empathy, and a filmmaker's goal is to never break this empathy, and enhance it whenever possible.

Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ybfVT9gxA

Ed harris enters and the camera is pinned to him. We are 'with him' in this moment, the world moves by him just like the world moves by us in our subjective experience of it. He notices Baldwin just as the POV switches to Alan Arkin, we are over his shoulder and seeing what he sees. It might not be easy to tell, but in this first shot the camera also booms down from Ed Harris's eye level to a lower position better matching Alan Arkin and jack lemmon. Ed harris gives his line when the camera is 'with him' and Alan gives his line when we are 'with him'. Both gives us a cue - who is this baldwin guy? this question only makes sense if we don't identify with Baldwin but we do with the other people in the room. We aren't asking -who are all these people? we are focused on wondering about Baldwin.

Next 3 or 4 shots baldwin controls the point of view. We get a dynamic boom down from above his head, and then a tracking shot matching what he see's. He's trying to set a dynamic shift of energy in the room and establish control of these people, who are sitting below his eye level. When we see Jack Lemmon pouring the coffee, the camera is far away - again Baldwins position. Jack Lemmon's performance makes him look a little inadequate, and caught unaware - how Baldwin sees these guys. Lemmon's shot is static - again he's caught unaware, in the spotlight, pinned, a true POV shot from Baldwin's character.

Then we have the first exchange. The camera is across the room, and dollys to meet Baldwin as he says "you think I'm loving with you". This is how Lemmon sees him. The shot ends with Baldwin looking almost directly into camera and the others in the room, out of focus behind him, looking on to see who will win the conflict. Pressure is on Lemmon now. He's fired.

Baldwin moves back to the front of the room, camera moves with him. He moves - camera moves. He's in control. low angle shot for "Oh, have I got your attention now?" - power, he's above them, they're starting to get it. at 1min 46 seconds another true POV - Ed harris sits down to hear what he's got to say. Ed harris is the character with the strongest arrogance.

2:09 - Camera is at Ed harris's eye level as he questions if Baldwin is serious. The film maker is asking the audience to identify with him now, we viewers should also be questioning - isn't this absurd? Are we really in trouble? Tension. No longer the power fantasy of being baldwin, now the worry for the security of our other characters. They glance at eachother. When we cut back to baldwin we are further away and lower - the POV of someone sitting in those desks. The POV of Ed Harris, Jack Lemmon and Alan Arkin.

At 3:30 - push on on the final Always Be Closing - this is important. Still below Baldwin's eye level.

At 4:00 - Confrontation between Baldwin and Lemmon - On both shot and reverse shot camera is at Lemmon's eye level. This moment is not a question of who is right. This is about what Lemmon is feeling and what he's going to do about it. Baldwin's not part of the audience's empathy right now. Just lemmon. Baldwin already won.

At 4:22 - Baldwin sits down with Ed Harris. Now it is a question about who will win, they are eye to eye. We feel the conflict is between the two characters, not inside of one character.

For the rest of the scene, whenever we see the men in their desks or look at Baldwin from the front, the camera is lower - at desk eye level. Even taking out the brass balls. Unless he's talking to Spacey - then we are at Spacey's eye level.

I also think the choice of rain and cars passing are genius. The world is harsh, but they were safe in this little room until now, another force of nature has entered. The cars passing to me makes it feel more like the world doesn't care what happens to you - everyone outside is going about their own business, unaware, you alone have to figure it out. Setting it at night is genius - shows they value their job above all else and work late. Shows the stakes. The dim lighting shows its a tense place to be, not friendly and not matter of fact. Each desk is lit by its own lamp - each person works form themselves. These choices involve time of day which the screenwriter decides, set dressing which the production designer decides, and blocking, which director and actors decide, but they are very much part of camera and lighting and so cinematography and I will always be giving notes like this when I work with people. "can we give each desk its own lamp so I can light each actor in an island of light, making them feel less like a team and more on their own" a big part of this story.

Now look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X3p42GaM5I

the camera tracks affleck, at his eye level, in almost all of his shots, so in this scene it's affleck all the way through? but we have a random cut to Ribisi at eye level, and he looks like he's at odds with affleck. But by the eyeline, I don't feel he's even looking at affleck. On the cut affleck is moving left, but Rabisi's eyes aren't tracking anything. He just blinks a few times. Cut back to affleck at affleck's eye level. There's some inserts of extras watching affleck move - why? who's point of view - the extra's? what does that have to do with the story, neither affleck nor rabisi see them looking so it adds nothing to our empathy, it's just a 'thing that happened'.

at 0:40 we are over affleck's shoulders, he's obscuring the room. where is rabisi? cut to - rabisi is under him. Shows rabisi wants to stand up but affleck is too imposing, kinda works but again they share lighting, the camera splits the height of their eyelines - not based on empathy for either character. trying to have it both ways - make us empathize with opposing viewpoints simultaneously - it will never work. better if they were across the room from eachother or the camera was low to show rabisi grow impatient. make affleck's hand darting around feel really anoying like a fly by your ear. I can identify with that and feel what Rabisi must be feeling.

at 1:20 we start the final confrontation, affleck starts to win over the extras, but we film the extras way off their eyeline, almost at 90 degrees. The camera is in no one's point of view. its just a throwaway shot. We are far from the extras, above their eyes slightly, and off axis. We could see from Rabisi's point of view one extra turn to another and smile, or from affleck's see that he's winning them over, or from the extra's the excitement they're having between themselves. but we get none of those hints from where the camera is.

also starting around 1:20 affleck is lit from below, I kinda like this, he looks not well intentioned. Rabisi is lit more evenly, he seems more calm and collected.

This scene also has a lot of tight shots without context. Cinematoraphy has to show you how the room looks to the character. If Rabisi or Affleck were claustrophobic in this space I could see shooting it this way, but they are both comfortable in this room. I don't know if it's day or night. Screenplay loglines only give 3 pieces of information - interior or exterior, location, and time of day. cinematoraphy should never gently caress up communicating basic information like where we are, when we are there, and how the characters are arranged in the room. This scene starts by failing at two of those. it also doesn't tell me how it feels to be there cause the lighting is unexpressive but also not drab and matter of fact - its just kinda ugly. It doesn't put me in the seats of the people sitting there.

Farm Frenzy posted:

ive decided that im gonna start blaming the snyder cut for hbo being cancelled forever because itll piss everyone off. if anyone wants to joinm me feel free

Antonymous posted:

...

Antonymous posted:

Farm Frenzy posted:

ive decided that im gonna start blaming the snyder cut for hbo being cancelled forever because itll piss everyone off. if anyone wants to joinm me feel free

Farm Frenzy posted:

ive decided that im gonna start blaming the snyder cut for hbo being cancelled forever because itll piss everyone off. if anyone wants to joinm me feel free

Dysthymia posted:

Finished Not Okay. Not good, not bad, just okay. Certainly not problematic the way social media has decided it is.

The terminally-online “we stan a kween” pieces of dialogue are insufferable though. I’ve never seen a movie tastefully incorporate Internet lingo. It’s like modern Buffyspeak.

Dysthymia posted:

Not Okay

Dysthymia posted:

just okay.

C-Euro posted:

Pretty confused here TBH

Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:

apparently the guy running WB discovery now is the reason discovery channel shitcanned their location in silver springs MD and fired hundreds of people in the process(He resented having to go to Maryland instead of getting to stay in the Hollywood/NYC suck-n-gently caress bubble) so, lmao

Mameluke posted:

Maybe people should shut up about not being able to watch Real Sex or whatever if absolutely none of them are willing to track down and assault the man responsible

Pepe Silvia Browne posted:

this is a good take and I will also be participating

also Ezra Miller being the tazmanian devil of sex pests

Pepe Silvia Browne posted:

how bout you leave the complaining to me and i'll leave the tracking down and assaulting to you

Mameluke posted:

i dont give a poo poo what streaming services do because i pirate everything like an adult

Filthy Hans posted:

Snyder cast Ezra Miller AND Amber Heard