Filmmaking at the Millennium by Todd Busch On May 8, the American Society of Cinematographers and The Hollywood Reporter presented a symposium titled "Filmmaking at the Millennium," attended by nearly 300 industry professionals at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The day-long series of panel discussions focused on the challenges, problems and opportunities posed by the advent of totally digital filmmaking. "The Changing Creative Team" panel discussed relationships between cinematographers and others in the filmmaking process. Cinematography is about to be revolutionized by digital cameras much the way nonlinear editing systems have changed post production. Keynote speaker Allan Daviau, ASC, recalled seeing an article on the front page of Variety in 1957 about the new age of video. The headline read "The Death of Film." Of course, video has been around for 40 years now, but film has yet to be killed off. Daviau observed that the movie industry, although quick to adopt new technologies, is slow to discard those that have worked well in the past. While the transition from film to digital cinematography has already begun, most of the panelists agreed that film will continue to be the benchmark by which images in all media are judged for some time to come. Daviau pointed to the strength of film as a worldwide standard that has existed for decades, and to its aesthetic image quality that neither digital nor video resolutions can yet reproduce. He also noted that film manufacturers continue to improve the product specifications for speed, grain and sharpness. "It's hard to believe that today's filmmakers will accept any less," said Evans Wetmore, vice president of advanced engineering for the News Technology Group, at a session on "The New Business of Cinematography." Speaking on a panel titled "The Problems and Possibilities of Digital Filmmaking," cinematographer Steven Poster, ASC, warned, "The digital age isn't coming, it's here." At this year's Sundance Film Festival, he noted, the word to filmmakers was, Digital cinema is possible, cheaper and will present ambitious young artists with more opportunities to make movies. "But what is important is content. Without that, all the technology in the world is irrelevant." Poster also stressed the need for high standards to be established from within the ASC membership. Visual effects and their impact on all phases of production and post was the main topic at the panel "Creative Collaboration - An Interactive Simulation," which focused on the making of 'Mighty Joe Young'. As visual effects have been dramatically redefined by digital technology over the past decade, they have demanded a closer collaboration between director, cinematographer and visual effects supervisor to assure continuity of look from production through post production. Hoyt Yeatman, co-founder of Dream Quest Images and visual effects supervisor on the film, said that it is important to have a broad knowledge of both film and digital capabilities in order to make appropriate decisions about the creation of different effects shots. As he commented, sometimes "the old fashioned way" provides the best solution. On 'Mighty Joe Young', Yeatman and director Ron Underwood used forced perspective, bluescreen and CGI to bring the title character, a giant gorilla, to life. Yeatman presented a video illustrating these three approaches. At the "Digital Filmmaking" panel, Digital Domain's Rob Legato, Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor on 'Titanic', also stated that digital is not always the answer. He explained how he and his crew brainstormed a digital approach to the capsule-splashdown shot at the end of 'Apollo 13', but, after careful consideration, decided instead to drop a three-quarter scale model of the capsule from a helicopter. "This would seem to be the cheapest and most obvious approach, but it wasn't our first," said Legato. Director of photography Theo Van de Sande, ASC, speaking at a session titled "The Changing Creative Team," said he struggled to maintain continuity between effects shots on the film 'Volcano'. By the time he started his next project, 'Blade', he was much better prepared. Although the visual effects were spread out over three effects houses for 'Blade', Van De Sande said he was armed with timed match clips and consulted with the CGI artists from each house to maintain a singular look and feel for the movie's visuals. At the same session, veteran visual effects supervisor Micheal McAlister of Cinesite Visual Effects strongly urged the use of a single facility for scanning negative if a movie is having effects done by multiple vendors. McAlister also concurred that timed prints or match clips offer visual effects artists the best guidance for timing. In addition, cut footage of the sequence and an articulate, knowledgeable visual effects supervisor are all very important. ASC president Victor Kemper suggested that the ultimate goal for cinematographers and digital practitioners should be "a marriage between cinematography and post production." He closed the day with a quote from editor Walter Murch, A.C.E.: "The movie industry is currently a digital sandwich between slices of analog bread."   Todd Busch is an assistant editor representative on the Board of Directors.   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 20, No. 3 - May/June 1999   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700