Moving Images, Understanding Media

140 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

that can register with quality photography. Cinematographers can use deep

blacks and bright highlights to create contrast in images, or they can strive

for low contrast to employ the full range of grays and bring out the nuances

of light on subjects. Th e key parameters are in the sensitivity of the recording

medium (such as fi lm stock or digital sensor) and the quality of the exposure,

which is typically a result of the talent and work of cinematographers and

camera and lighting crews.

Next, focus is a key concern. Th e application of focus has been employed

in many ways. Some cinematographers have shot for highly selective sharpness

on key subjects with other elements registering in soft focus (either slightly

or very blurry), while other fi lmmakers have worked to create shots that

have an extremely deep range of focus, primarily through lighting for a high

depth of fi eld.

Painting with Light

When we look at certain paintings, we notice that what might look like a

blotch when observed up close looks like an easily recognizable fl ower at a

comfortable distance. Painters from Rembrandt to the French Impressionists

to contemporary cartoonists have demonstrated that the properly applied

suggestion of an image, if rendered appropriately, can provide enough detail

to register the subject, and the overall eff ect can be perceived in pleasing and

aesthetically satisfying ways. Th e same can be true of the use of out-of-focus

planes in a shot, which have been seen in cinematography from its inception

to today. For example, in a number of silent and sound fi lms by director

Figure 4-22 Janet Gaynor

and Charles Farrell in Frank

Borzage’s Seventh Heaven.

(Courtesy Fox/Photofest)

Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).