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Topic: Best Videography Oscar

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-24-2009 11:08 AM

The more I think about it, Slumdog Millionaire is the worst cinematography Oscar winner in at least the last few decades.

I cannot find a previous Oscar winner of that category less worthy of the statue. I think Conrad Hall should have won an Oscar for Tequila Sunrise at the 1988 awards instead of Peter Biziou for Mississippi Burning. But that isn't the sort of "WTF?" kind of shocker we have seen this year.

Further, all four of this year's nominees in the cinematography category, including the digital-sourced Benjamin Button, were better. Some of the AMPAS voters must have really shitty eye sight.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 02-24-2009 11:32 AM

quote: Dennis Benjamin
Bollywood is full of good movies, actors, actresses and good story lines.

Not really from what I've seen. The movies are all very childish, with every detail completely spelled out to the audience over and over. No room left for interpretation. Bollywood movies are also king of the flashback... almost all of them feature some sort of flashback.

I haven't seen Slumdog (doesn't seem interesting), but I don't think that was a true Bollywood movie. It was directed by a white guy (Dennis Hopper) and had a bunch of other white guys who worked on it. Also, it didn't have an intermission and from what I hear, lacked many musical numbers.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-24-2009 11:53 AM

A movie, such as Saawariya, is more authentic to the "Bollywood" genre, convention or whatever you want to call it.

Bollywood movies are usually shot on film, not recorded with digital video cameras -that production practice is more of an American and European thing because us "Honkeys" just love the hell out of that "digital" buzz word. We especially love it when we can slap the term "digital filmmaking" on something that is cheap and unprofessional. "Digital" makes it perfect.

Saawariya has some very good cinematography and looks impressive on Blu-ray. It's a shame Slumdog Millionaire couldn't follow the same production practices.

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Geoff Jones
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 579
From: Broomfield, CO, USA
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 02-24-2009 01:20 PM

When were the votes due?

Is it possible some voters voted "against" TDK because of Bale's big flip-out.

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Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-24-2009 01:40 PM

The votes were due about a week before the show.

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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 02-24-2009 01:48 PM

Well, remember that after films get nominated for Academy Awards, on most cathegories, only members of the AMPAS under that cathegory vote. Therefore, it was only noted cinematographers that voted for Slumdog as best cinematography of the year.

Not sure if I agree, as I would have to review all the films. But Slumdog had certainly good cinematography. Now, good cinematography doesn't mean just pretty and technically quality pictures. It can mean washed out, overblown, out-of-focus, scratched or anything that can help tell a story.

Hard, contrasty, even noisy pictures can be used to tell a story better than soft, dreamy, colorful Technicolor, or whatever. One is good for Nazi films, the other for Wizard of Oz.

Cinematographers now have a wider range of options with digital (be DI or straight digital), and they no longer have to produce 180º exposed silver grain at 24fps. They can do things that couldn't be done before, like 359º motion blur, compressed HDR backplates, denoised or noisy images, and whatever they think is good for the film.

Slumdog did NOT have bad photograhpy AT ALL. Proof is that it was the Oscar to best photography, voted by noted cinematographers, and also best picture. A movie with blatant BAD photography doesn't win those 2 awards. It may no be the photography YOU like, but it's far from bad.

More proof is that the Asociation of American Cinematographers also gave it the award to best cinematography of the year. If you think you know cinematography better than the ASC, you should be shooting movies now. Let me know and we'll keep you in the rooster for future projects.

If that's not enough, the British also agree with a BAFTA award for best cinematography.

Slumdog isn't, of course, a Bollywood movie. Just a British-Indian movie.

Bollywood is a giant industry and I'm sure we've all here have seen or projected many of their films. You may think that this is good art direction, good cinematography, good score/song/sound Bollywood's style, but others may think it's just textbook material:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIbJCAUOF_4&fmt=22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsXP7eESo1M&fmt=18
[The videos are excerpts from 2002's Bollywood's blockbuster Devdas -- lol just noted some of the subtitles are a bit off in those videos and the first one is titled "spin and spin (around)", thus so much camera movement. Plus youtube is notorious for screwing anyone's photography with compression and gamma changes [Wink]

"]

Bollywood, as Hollywood, shoots mostly film for many reasons, most of them having to do with it being cheaper for the run-and-gun style than "last year's" video. They just put their aatons or arri's over their shoulders and push the button. Hours and hours of rehersals thanks to cheap salaries do the rest. If anyone here spends any significant time in London, I'm sure they must have seen some Bollywood shoots somewhere. [Wink]

This is quickly changing, of course, and more and more Bollywood (and other indian styles) are being done digitally thanks to the newer and cheaper cameras and improved workflows.

And, BTW, I've seen plenty of Bollywood's with no flahsbacks ... never thought that was one of their industry's trademark signs as the dance/music numbers surely are.

[ 02-24-2009, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: Julio Roberto ]

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-24-2009 02:01 PM

Julio sorta beat me to it.
One has to assume all of the professionals involved with Slumdog Millionaire *chose* for it to look the way it did, and did their professional best to get that look. I didn't mind the look at all. They chose a digital palette and worked with it.

I am surprised the Academy voters (cinematographers or otherwise) went with it, because they usually seem to prefer invisible cinematography, just as they prefer invisible editing. The cinematography in Slumdog calls attention to itself and breaks the wall of separation. That's usually a sin in Hollywood movies, but maybe the Academy is looking for a little sin these days.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-24-2009 02:11 PM

Hmm, I guess we have to be careful to separate out how the movie looked in theaters, vs. how it looks on, say Blu-ray. Dark Knight didn't "pop" in 35mm like it does on Blu-ray. So if everyone judged it based on its 35mm look, you could pretty much exclude from consideration the fact that parts of it were shot in genuine IMAX. IMAX sequences looked the same as the rest of the movie to me, in 35mm. Sorry Wally, no award for you just because you went to the extra effort of shooting in IMAX!

On BD though, DK's image quality really draws attention to itself.

I'm just saying.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-24-2009 02:15 PM

Julio said, "Well, remember that after films get nominated for Academy Awards, on most cathegories, only members of the AMPAS under that cathegory vote. Therefore, it was only noted cinematographers that voted for Slumdog as best cinematography of the year."

No, this is wrong. Please see my post from page 1, with links to the official rules. Everyone votes for everything, except documentary and live action shorts and features, and foreign films. Nominations are from the branches, but voting is not. Everyone votes for Best Cinematography.

Please be a little more careful before making these claims.

--jhawk

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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 02-24-2009 02:23 PM

http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/rule09.html

Am I interpreting wrong where it says:

quote:

Rule Nine: Special Rules for the Cinematography Award [For the 81st annual awards]
...
A Reminder List of all eligible motion pictures shall be sent with a nominations ballot to all members of the Academy Cinematographers Branch who shall vote in the order of their preference for not more than five motion pictures.

???

Is this only for nominations and not the awards? Always thought it was the reverse [Confused]

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-24-2009 02:26 PM

You are indeed. It goes on to say:

quote: Rule 9

2. The five productions receiving the highest number of votes shall become the nominations for final voting for the Cinematography award.

...

4. Final voting for the Cinematography award shall be restricted to active and life Academy members.

That is the nominations process. Not the final voting process.

--jhawk

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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 02-24-2009 02:30 PM

quote: John Hawkinson
That is the nominations process. Not the final voting process.

That's some seriously retarded process, I guess.

Still, it would mean that, to AMPAS cinematographer's (and cinematographer's only), it was one of the top 5. So no POS, I guess. And I guess some of them also voted them as best for the actual final award.

Plus it won the ASC, so that's pretty much the equivalent to the best cinematographers (and cinematographer's only) in the USA.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-24-2009 02:47 PM

quote: Julio Roberto
That's some seriously retarded process, I guess.

Why? The cinematographers pick the "five best" and everyone votes on which of those five is the "best" best. That way the five nominees are chosen by experts in their field. The general voters then have knowledge that ALL of the nominees are among the best of the best.

If you had it the other way around, then some movie that had a lot of pretty scenery but totally unimaginative camera work might get nominated, where something that's a bit of a trendsetter (which apparently Slumdog is, but I haven't seen it to confirm for myself) might get left out in the cold.

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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008

posted 02-24-2009 03:04 PM

Don't know what to say. I guess you are right. At least, that way, it's one of the top 5 best cinematography's (as chosen by professionals) that's going to win.

Slumdog is just a reasonably good film, tells a story in a compelling way, visually and artistically. It has some technical deficiencies and it's not a masterpiece of cinema, but it's one of the year's best pictures, which is not much to say about the industry in general.

I found the Dark Night, one of the few movies I watched in a theater last year (35mm on a 4Kw prevost on Dolby SRD on JBL 3-ways sound system) overrated. It was good, entertaining and compelling. It was technically correct (with that budget, it better be) and Heath was the deserved best supporting actor. It was one of the best in many cathegories and received nominations for those. It just wasn't the most innovative or remarkable, as it seldom is with "summer blockbusters" which job is to offer the best "tried and true" experience rather than risk innovations or too mush "artsy" stuff. Remarkable, but not overwelming, I found. So deserved the many nominations it got and the few awards.

Slumdog was the opposite, probably. I haven't seen all the films nominated on some of the cathegories, so I can't say for sure, but it's odd it was the best in so many to even opt for nominations, much less wins. So I feel (but I don't know) that indeed Slumdog might just have been over valued to more than the good breath of fresh air it was and good example of story telling with low budget.

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Geoff Jones
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 579
From: Broomfield, CO, USA
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 02-24-2009 10:34 PM

quote: Julio Roberto
Remarkable, but not overwelming

You didn't see a large format presentation.

I will agree with you that it was overrated, though. Ledger's performance, incredible sound design, and jaw-droppingly immersive cinematography all worked together to distract the viewer from a very bland love triangle and a lot of very contrived plot details.

I just wish Pfister had been rewarded for raising the bar for visual presentation when so many (so-called) "film" makers are shooting low resolution video. I felt like Pfister transported me to Gotham City. A video doesn't transport me to another world, it makes me think something is wrong with the picture.

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