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This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Author
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Topic: 82nd Academy Award Nominations
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 03-08-2010 07:48 PM
I don't entirely disagree, but as Avatar is perhaps the first film which being mostly animated CGI is not 100% CGI, it's kind of open-to-discussion.
By the same measure, I guess if an animated film, say UP, was "best movie" ... can their (cartoon) protagonists be nominated as "best actors" even though they are 90% hand (or computer) drawn and 10% the "voice of a real person"? Theoretically you could CGI-draw a character to performance perfection capable of doing things (like flying, becoming wide-eyed, totally cry with perfect tears on demand, etc) that could really go beyond the limits of a human actor.
Tough call.
Same with cinematography in a film where there are (mostly) no cameras, no lenses, no "film" (or light gathering device) and no lighting rigs.
Otherwise, I agree that Avatar "cinematography" is excellent. Perhaps it is precisely in the few mostly-practical scenes where it's not that impressive, though ...
So if you want to judge the final result then yeah ... Avatar fits the bill. But it's a bit of unfair competition. That's what I meant. Just like no actor could possibly do stuff a cartoon can do with his "body"*, no cinematographer can do stuff that CGI can do with its "lights/shadows/camera/film/lens"*.
*or lack of thereof
I mean, films like Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin had excellent set designs, excellent costume designs, films like Pocahontas had good cinematography (IIRC) etc, etc. Can they be nominated to best costume or best set design when it's all hand-drawn and it costs about the same to generate on a computer 1 candlestick than 10.000.000.000? How about best make up for Disney's Cinderella or the Beast from Beauty and the Beast?
It's just not a fair competition. CGI make up is one thing. Real make up is another. Same with costume design. And, IMHO, same with set design and with cinematography.
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Jeremy Jorgenson
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1002
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted 03-08-2010 08:26 PM
My two cents. Some have been commented on previously, obviously.
I liked that they started with NPH.
For some reason I really liked the lines:
Steve: There's that damn Helen Mirren!
Alec: Steve, that's dame.
The horror movie tribute could've been done much better - hell, Bob Murawski (one of the editors of The Hurt Locker) giving a shout out to Sam Raimi during his acceptance speech was more of a tribute to the horror genre than having a Bella and Jacob scene from New Moon edited into the montage. They could've also included the clip of Sarah Jessica Parker on the red carpet ... that was scary.
Cinematography - eesh. Nothing against Mauro Fiore, the guy knows what he's doing ... Janusz Kaminski wouldn't've let him DP Lost Souls (Kaminski's directorial debut) if he didn't (and, full disclosure, both of them have the same alma mater as I do ... though I was a number of years after they were). But come on, Avatar wins cinematography? By far the weakest of the 5 nominations! If the Academy was going to throw Avatar a bone in a technical category, I could've understood editing, as the post production process was so lengthy and (apparently) complex. Not cinematography. But to be fair, that category has often been the one that I've had big issues with. I think it started back when Peter Biziou did not get nominated for The Truman Show and then intensified the following year when Bill Pope did not get nominated for The Matrix. But it was always the omissions that bugged me, this time it was the win that bugged me.
Sound ... Claude, give The Hurt Locker a fair shot by actually watching and listening to it before you say that for Avatar
quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
to lose to THE HURT LOCKER is something I just cannot understand.
I personally wasn't all that impressed with Avatar's sound. I'm not saying it was bad, it just didn't impress.
I enjoyed the fellow actors talking to the nominated actors (but was fine with the fact that they got rid of it for the supporting category). I did not enjoy the dancing to the nominated scores bit.
I also didn't like the reversion to "...and the winner is". Not because of some PC reason, I definitely refer to the act of receiving an Oscar as "winning" an Oscar. But "...and the Oscar goes to" has a nice ring to it. Many people will win something in their life, I myself won $3 from a scratch-off lottery ticket my cousin gave me, but very few people will ever have an Oscar "go to" them.
Anyway, whatever... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
*EDIT* I wrote my cinematography diatribe while Julio & Bobby were also discussing it ...
quote: Bobby Henderson
BTW, Avatar is not an all-CGI movie since a significant portion of it does feature human actors and even some practical sets.
Yeah, but the actually shot elements were placed & manipulated in a frame that was animated. The composition was not that of Mauro Fiore but more so of the special effects supervisors & the editors (which includes Cameron). I have no problem with manipulation of the image being part of the overall cinematography, but the DP usually has some say during the DI or whatever, or like Kaminski removing frames from the footage of Saving Private Ryan, he was still a major factor of the look that resulted. I didn't get the impression that Fiore was in this case (though I don't know & certainly could be wrong).
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 03-08-2010 09:13 PM
quote:
But, the nominations for Cinematography supposedly came from the cinematographers who are members of the Academy. If they think someone deserves a nomination then that's a strong-enough reason in my book ... Are you really more qualified to judge this than a cinematographer who's a member of the Academy?
Well, the American Society of Cinematographers nominated but DIDN'T choose Avatar as the winner for their ASC prize, which went to "The White Ribbon". If it helps any, I'm a member of the International Society of Optical Engineering ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
So the cinematographers thought Avatar's was good ... just not the best, while the members of the Academy decided it was better.
Again, not saying the cinematography in Avatar wasn't good, or even the best. Just saying that with $230m+, years in the making and the total freedom of CGI, it's just not fair to compare or THAT big of an acomplishment. But since it didn't win in many other departments, and perhaps was the big loser of the night, I'm ok with this well deserved bone. And the results of the "apparent" cinematography were indeed good.
But with reservations
I disagree even more with the art direction/set design one for the same reasons (mostly-CGI) ...
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-08-2010 09:20 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Color timing is practically a thing of the past thanks to digital intermediate.
Say what?!?
Color timing via digital platforms, be they DaVinci, Quantel, NuCoda, Apple Color or whatever, is probably the largest single reason for digital intermediate in the first place. Of all the films I saw last year, I don't thing I saw one that didn't have (what to me at least) an obvious DI color look. Films are extensively color timed in the DI stage. Look at movies that have a period look baked into them, like Sherlock Holmes, A Single Man or The Young Victoria . You don't get that kind of look using optical filters, density wedges or messing with developing.
Or take the movie that really got robbed in the cinematography category: The ASC award winning The White Ribbon. Here was a movie that was photographed in color at the behest of one of its backers, but was seen in theaters in black and white. The color was desaturated in the DI stage looking at a CMS driven image that was fed a black and white LUT. The result was beautiful, because they were digitally able to diddle curves during the DI, a look that would have not been attainable by simply printing a color negative onto panchromatic print stock.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-08-2010 09:41 PM
quote: Mark Ogden
Color timing via digital platforms, be they DaVinci, Quantel, NuCoda, Apple Color or whatever, is probably the largest single reason for digital intermediate in the first place.
The reasons why DI exists is besides the point. Photo-chemical, film-based color timing is indeed practically a thing of the past. It's a rare thing for any movie to be color timed using the old school chemical methods anymore.
Digital intermediate is digital intermediate. It's not color timing. It's a totally different technique. There's no need to confuse terms, just like no one has any business calling a video camera a film camera either. Different medium.
The element of DI, as well layers of effects compositing and digital back lot techniques, does much to blur the lines between a completely artificial all-CGI movie and movies characterized as live action. We know an all-CGI movie is going to be tweaked as much toward perfection as time and budget will allow. The reality is the same thing is taking place with many live action movies too.
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Jeremy Jorgenson
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1002
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted 03-09-2010 12:14 AM
quote: Greg Anderson
But, the nominations for Cinematography supposedly came from the cinematographers who are members of the Academy. If they think someone deserves a nomination then that's a strong-enough reason in my book. If they think the DP deserves credit more than some pixel-jockey in a cubicle using Photoshop then I trust them. Would they really want to be complicit in dismissing the real craft in their business if they thought that was happening? No offense to the members of this forum but, come on. Are you really more qualified to judge this than a cinematographer who's a member of the Academy?
As this came after my post, I assume you were responding to me? Um, we're just talking about our opinions of the show we watched last night, and the movies that made that show possible. I never once complained or questioned Fiore's nomination, I said it was the weakest of the five nominations. I'll add here: this is simply my opinion (I figured that was obvious). Another opinion I have: no association or academy or society or other grouping of people is 100% infallible, so I certainly won't blindly trust what they say as "automatically right" because I'm not a member, and hence can't have an opinion. Frankly that's a scary thought.
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Jonathan Smith
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 201
From: Youngstown, OH
Registered: Jan 2010
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posted 03-09-2010 10:49 AM
"Lensing" is slang for photographing a movie, setting the T-stop, filtration, lights, camera angle, focal length.
If you're insulted by it, sorry, but HUH?
It's like being insulted by "cool." Anyway, "Avatar" wasn't photographed, if you don't like slang, it was rendered. It was video-villaged, farmed in New Zealand.
I'm not knocking animation. It's a skill that is, frankly, totally beyond my own abilities.
But cinematography is a craft, artform that was rooted in actual on-camera elements. It was "real," if you know what I mean.
CG imaging is like the ultimate payback from painters who got laid off when photography displaced their usefulness in the 1850s. . .
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 03-09-2010 11:04 AM
Few people say Avatar was a bad movie and most of us consider it from ok to very good.
BUT it raises questions when it comes to awards. Can a film that employed hundreds of people pushing buttons on thousands of computers during many years at a cost of hundreds of millions to ANIMATE well over 50% of the movie be considered in the same competition as others?
I mean, if we judge by the end result, the "makeup" in Avatar was the best of the year hands down.
I mean, those blue alien actors looked like real blue four-fingered elfs creatures in war paints with pointed ears and tails.
The "costume design" wasn't that bad, perhaps worth it of a nomination. We were all waiting for a wardrobe malfunction on the blue alien girls but they were so good not even once we got any nipplelage, in spite of her jumping around all the time on top of dinasours and whatnot.
And the "cinematography" was great, with those aerial shots from "helicopters" and "flying cameras".
And that incredible set of a whole fluorescent rain forest with floating mountains!!!!!! What a set design!!!!
Except that there was no (significant) makeup on any actors, no significant costumes worn by actors on "blue-elf" makeup at all, no aerial camera shots from helicopters and no rain forest built. It was just a large number of technicians pushing buttons and hundreds of millions spent on computers crunching numbers.
So if makeup, costume and even acting in Avatar didn't deserve much recognition because it was "good" but it wasn't "real" ... then why were art design/set decoration and cinematography considered?
Personally, I think both of those catergories indeed deserved recognition in Avatar (in my opinion, the two only things that "impressed" me from that film), and perhaps even win.
But it's just not a fair-game competition. That's all I'm saying.
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