How different are the principles of photography and filming?

Well film requires continuity.

With a photograph you have to be skillful enough to compress your entire narrative into a single frame - whereas with film you have to be skillful enough to tell a comprehensible story over many thousands of frames.

I would say that becoming a successful film maker is much harder than becoming a successful photographer. A photograph is much more open to interpretation, and requires very little investment of time as a viewer, whereas a film has a very specific narrative, an intention, and is a lengthy experience. If you do it wrong you're going to really piss off the viewer.

If you become good at finding a way to tell a long story - make films.
If you're better at saying everything in an image - make photographs/Paintings.

Either one will require a lot of concentration to get it right - but film making requires that little bit extra just to keep the viewer interested.

>>2977995
> How different are the principles of photography and filming?
Moment in time vs sequence of time.

> Does one take more skill than the other?
Certainly takes more engineering to make a film camera.

To get good sequences of images (rather than one good image in a sequence) you might also have to shoot more and from more angles.

And you can't use the "easy mode" blast of light flash devices to help the technology capture a clean proper image either. Powerful continuous light also has its issues.

It all gets tiring and expensive rather quickly. So I mainly do photography.

>>2978014
>>2978015
I remember seeing this video explaining a scene from the movie Drive. This guy was going into detail and explaining how the director positions the camera and uses the angles, actors, and lighting to tell a story on top of what's being shown at face value. It was pretty interesting stuff.

Now, that's something I would have never even realized no matter how many times I'd watch the movie.

Does that make one form more complex than the other? The fact that with film making the details can (or have to be) subtle, whereas with photography it doesn't.

>>2978014 You say that a photograph is much more open to interpretation, which I agree with. I feel like a film is similar to a novel, where the author has a clear message he is trying to send and while there is some room for varying interpretations, it's still focused on narrative.

Cool thread Op

Firstly I think it would depend on what exactly we're comparing. Photography and filming are both many different things depending on context: Traditional narrative cinema vs fine art photography, the process of taking a picture vs recording a video, photojournalism vs experimental art films?

Cinematography is in many ways an extension of photography. You're concerned with many of the same visual and technical problems, albeit from a different perspective and with different needs: Exposure, composition, framing, color, lighting, subject etc. If we're talking about creating a narrative film, I'd say the two main differences is the level of creative restriction/freedom. In conventional filmmaking you are restricted by the preceding and following shot - both in form and content - but also the narrative. You're trying to achieve visual continuity, a consistent space relationship, an aesthetically pleasing image, tell a story, connect to character psychology and many other things at the same time. In that sense cinematography is more like a language system with more specific rules. Most of the time you're 'serving the story' (and you'll hear cinematographers repeat that phrase endlessly), and so everything you do with the images have to be in accordance with story. These are of course conventions developed in the early years of cinema, more or less established in the 1910s and gradually developed from there, but they're nonetheless so hegemonic you'll have to deal with them in anyways. Photography is more open, but I guess the creative options are fewer as well. It's kinda similar to the difference between a novel and a poem: a poem has fewer words, you can use them more freely, and each word has more meaning in itself.

In addition filmmaking is just more complex. It involves more people, money, planning, time, equipment. It' more like a factory with clear division of labour, whereas a photographer is more of a one man band thing.

>>2977995

proper exposure and white balance is way more difficult. i think that's the thing that hits people hardest coming to motion from stills.

Film making will tear your life and soul apart. Photography will help you cope with the anxiety.

filming shots rely far less on composition and interesting subjects than it does for photographs. In fact too many greatly constructed shots can be negative for a film and come off as artificial and overbearing.

Some Robert Bresson quotes:

>An image must be transformed by contact with other images as is a color with other colors. A blue is not the same blue beside a green, a yellow, a red. No art without transformation

>Cinematographer's film where the images, like the words in a dictionary, have no power and value except for their position and relation.

>The Power of your (flattened) images have of being other than they are. The same image brought in by ten different routes will be a different image ten times.

>>2977995
test

>>2978022
>This guy was going into detail and explaining how the director positions the camera and uses the angles, actors, and lighting to tell a story on top of what's being shown at face value.
I work in film for a living and this is absolutely the case with pretty much everything I shoot other than mundane corporate stuff (which still features it to an extent). No matter how trivial, every single shot has to have extensive thought and justification behind it - not only the framing, colour, light, movement and action, but also the sequencing and progression of shots all contribute to layers of meaning beyond what we consciously perceive on the screen.

The thing which everyone who hasn't worked in the industry forgets about is sound - in film, sound is often just as important (if not more important) in achieving the final effect as the visuals, and requires similar amounts of careful stylistic planning. This alone puts film in a completely different ball park to photography.

>>2978506
That's really interesting.

Do you find yourself spending this much time perfecting scenes in films that may not really require it, such as comedies, romance, etc.?

>>2978681
Not him, but it depends on the film and the creative minds behind it. It's hard to make generalizations... in my experience, everything is sort of "hard", but you hopefully either have things planned out ahead of time, or you have a large, skilled crew to deal with whatever comes up.

One interesting thing to note is that filmmaking is a much bigger, more complex undertaking. That doesn't mean every director is a genius maestro. The complexity of the task is delegated out to many experts.

The cinematographer would probably not do a very good job of recording sound, or helping the actors find the emotions of the scene. The sound guy would not do very well if he had to decide where the 18k spotlight went. That's sort of the beauty of it all.

There are also minimalist filmmakers like Shane Carruth who seem to wizard amazing stories out of the most simple pieces.

>>2978022
>I remember seeing this video explaining a scene from the movie Drive.
this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsI8UES59TM

>>2977995
No artistic pursuit requires more skill than any other, because there is no ceiling, "difficulty" can be seen as how much work you need to put in to be recognised amongst your peers.

Because of this, i would say videography is significantly easier, why? Because far fewer people take an interest in making video, so you have less competition.

Think of it like this, if you wanted to be an olympic gold medalist would you rather your chances practising for the 100m sprint or some obscure sailing discipline. Yes sailing is MUCH harder than running, but the skill cap is set much lower due to far fewer people giving it a go.

>>2978681
I've never done romance (and wouldn't go near it any time soon) but having done some comic stuff I'd say it's just as if not more important to get every aspect of your framing, colouring, sound etc. perfect in comedy as it is in other genres. You may not realise it, but good comedy is exceptionally difficult, and only about 10% of the effect is actually derived from the action.

The exact same sequence could be shot twice and come out completely different each time. For a really basic example, think of a scene where a man is desperately running from something through a wooded area, and as he turns briefly to look behind him, he trips over a branch and falls into a river. In a drama, you'd be following the man tightly and shakily from behind and/or in front with the sound of his running and breathing taking precedence; when he falls, we follow him into the water. In a comedy, you'd be watching him from a wide, static position, adjacently to his path, running in from frame left and falling into the water frame right; all we'd hear is the distant footsteps and a splash, over the top of a wild track (birds singing, trees rustling etc.).

Obviously this does not apply as much to the modern 'dude weed lmao' Hollywood comedy flicks, but look at any classic (Keaton, Chaplain, Marx, Kubrick, Python, Anderson) and the techniques are undeniably there.

>>2979005
I think that's a question of semantics - it's not competition we're talking about, but creating a product of a certain level of artistic merit. Obviously they're very difficult to compare, but if you think about it like comparing a gallery-worthy photo series and a festival-worthy short film, you're generally looking at many times more work (both artistic and practical) going into the latter.

>>2979017
>one requires more work than the other

That wasn't the question, it was what requires more skill.

>>2978952
Yep, that's the one.

>>2979017
Thanks for answering.

You just reminded me of comedy movies like the Cornetto trilogy, where Wright uses interesting techniques to achieve a comedic effect.

>>2979020
>That wasn't the question, it was what requires more skill.
True, but skill's infinitely harder to quantify than work. How about this - after five hour-long classes, a group of photography students with pro-grade kit will be able to create something of a more recognisably professional standard than a respective group of film students.

>>2979022
Being British I love Wright, he's been one of my favourite directors since Hot Fuzz. His films are deceptively intricate and it's easy to glaze over the work that goes into each little comic moment.

>>2979025
>bend the question, come up with hypothetical reasons.

I also disagree with your analysis, having done a degree in audio + visual studies with modules in both 101 photography and video, the video results were a LOT better. It's much easier to mask artistic integrity with an interesting subject in video, and the restrictions of the format usually push your hand creatively.

I think the hardest thing about photography is how "easy" it is, there's easily more famous, household name directors than there are photographers, despite far fewer people going down the video route.

>>2979052
>bend the question, come up with hypothetical reasons
I wasn't doing either.

>the video results were a LOT better
I guess our experiences are very different, I've seen countless amateur productions crewed by very experienced people come out looking exactly that - amateur. In contrast to the number of publication-worthy images I've seen amateur photographers come out with.

>It's much easier to mask artistic integrity with an interesting subject in video
I disagree that this doesn't apply to the same extent in photography. Especially when considering the massive difference between journalistic and narrative videography.

>>2978167
so true!!

it all depends on the artistic vision and capacity to bring that vision to life

>>2979005
>far fewer people take an interest in making video
Unbelievably wrong. Maybe you're right by gross numbers (because the cost of entry for photography is quite low) but the film industry is extremely competitive. There's countless wannabes for every living wage position available--even including stuff like lighting technicians and truck drivers.

At least wrt to professional/cinema production. "videography" usually refers to broadcast media, news gathering, recording events like graduations or weddings, and so on.

>>2979059
>thinking an interesting subject can make for an interesting photo.

Lol, no.

>change the question from skill to work, denies bending the question

Lol, no.

>>2979362
>fewer people pursue video
>you're wrong, unless you're talking about numbers of people

The fuck anon

>it's competitive
So is being a bass player, doesn't make it half as competitive as being a guitar player.
Everything is competitive, i went to a job interview for 20 positions in a supermarket and over 300 people had also turned up, it's one of the least competitive careers, still fucking competitive, but it won't get any easier than that.

And I've worked in the film industry as a gaffers assistant, it's not so much competitive as it is nepotistic.

>>2979573
>Lol, no.
I made an actual argument, if you're just going to twist my words and meme then don't bother posting.

>>2979587
Yeh, but you denied bending the question, when you changed its words and meaning.

And everyone that's done this for more than a week knows subject is just about the least important aspect of photography, but most important in video.

You are right, you tried to make an argument, it just wasn't relevant or on topic or correct.

>>2979573
>gaffer's "assistant"
>not electrician
Where do I sign up for an assistant?

>nepotistic
You're right about that. But part of that is due to the competition. Outside of AAA features, crews are shrinking.

My point was that there's more slots in photography to go around, and it's relatively easy to buy a camera and put out a shingle for senior photos and weddings. It's the difference between joining a trade and starting a home business you can do on weekends and off hours.

If you want to be a lighting technician in film, you have to find someone willing to train you and risk bringing you on a job so you can learn how to lamp an 18k without blowing yourself up.

>>2977995
Film making requires wayyy more skill... the thing is it is not a one man operation. A film has a director, a producer, a cinematographer, cameramen, lighting specialists etc etc etc... so the two things are very difficult to compare. Mastering any art is difficult but mastering cinema ( making a film) is certainly more difficult than mastering photography.