Cameras are cheaper and easier than ever, but what got lost? Dean Goldberg compares old and new ways of learning the craft of cinematography and directing.
Filmmaking has come long a way from the days when aspiring young directors of photography would pour over their dog eared copies of The American Cinematographer’s Manual to check out the characteristic curve of the black and white Plus-X negative that their director had insisted on using even though it was brutally slow at a 64 ASA. But in New York City, at least, the trek to Kodak was the first step in that mysterious adventure of making a movie, and no self-respecting filmmaker was going to step up to the counter and act like they just fell off the turnip truck. Who knew who might be there? Maybe you’d catch a glimpse of Connie Hall checking out the latest fast film, or a PA working on a feature that was shooting right now, just a few blocks away.
The next step in the journey would be to make sure you had a loyal team to lug around the equipment, which usually included a weighty tripod, a bulky camera, and a not-so lightweight Nagra tape recorder. Soon the weeks of practice loading the Eclair NPR magazine in a black bag would come to the ultimate test. Heaven forbid there was a light leak, or some fog on the film. On the set, you’d put your trust in the crystal sync motor in the NPR and the Nagra’s precision. That reel to reel recorder was then, and to some degree remains (now digital), the workhorse of the industry. Take a few hours for lighting and blocking, and you were ready for the first take and the first slate. Back then, a slate was not simply for time-code reference and scene and shot information, but for sync itself. And even if the day went like clockwork, everyone still held their breaths until the dailies came back from the lab.
These days, novice filmmakers get instant visual and audio gratification, as seen and heard through an on-camera, 2×2-inch screen and a pair of headphones. But it’s a double-edged sword. It’s a boon for the director and actors for sure. But for many novice filmmakers, it can also be a bust. It’s just too easy to grab a camera, use the on-camera mic, and not worry about the quality of the picture and sound. Besides, with every NLE program offering some kind of color correction, why worry about chroma?
It’s the same old versus new story with today’s edit “environments.” In the not-that-distant past, as moviemaking goes, if you were lucky enough to edit on a flatbed Steenbeck, rather than an upright Moviola, you still had to take the time to screen, make the cut, splice back, and review. And before you even got to do that, you had to sync your dailies – a skill in itself – and then, send them out for edge numbering. By the time you were actually ready to assemble your first cut, you’d screen your project at least two or three times.
Today, many of the skills needed to get a project from a storyboard to the screening room have gone the way of the spinning wheel. And good riddance, too! I, for one, don’t miss the hours and hours of syncing dailies for a grumpy editor who would invariably stop her flatbed to announce to the room that I had messed up and thrown the whole reel one or two frames out of sync – a sin that was not quickly forgiven.
But what is missing, in my opinion, and what has been lost inside all our fantastic new tools, is the careful consideration of the time honored production process. Too many communication programs are satisfied with podcast-quality video, so proper preparation like tech scouts for electric and sound are out of the question. Some novice filmmakers are so eager to jump into their Final Cut or Avid programs with their newly “acquired” footage that they capture without any organization or real review. Somehow the art and LEARN TECHNIQUES THAT WILL IMPROVE THE “LOOK” OF YOUR WORK
craft of editing got lost in the mass of 0s and 1s.
Am I talking like an old timer who should be put out to pasture? Should I, “Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news?” I don’t think so. I have been teaching film and video production in one form or another since 1989, and I’ve spent the bulk of my career as a working director and writer. I sincerely feel that the quality of storytelling, image and sound has deteriorated in the last twenty years, rather than gotten better. Sure I miss the sound of 24 frames silently slipping through a camera. I unashamedly admit I’d rather work with film than tape. But I am thrilled by the amazing possibilities – and quality, that digital technology has brought us. I could make a feature film tomorrow with the equipment we have in our own video department at the college where I teach. I could edit on my laptop and author in High Def. The opportunities for novice filmmakers today are a hundred times better than they were when I was a film student at Hunter College in the late seventies. But it seems to me that many of the projects coming out the communication programs around the country look careless and rushed, or just plain uninteresting.
I attended a writer’s symposium a few years ago where the “host” opined that with the advent of hand-held HD cameras and consumer-priced editing systems, the industry was in danger of being overrun with product. That the competition would put a lot of the old guard out of work. One writer reminded him that the year the electric typewriter was invented, there were just as few great novels written than before the new technology made it easier to type. In other words, it’s still all about the work, and still all about the process. Dean Goldberg worked as a film editor and producer for more than 50 political campaigns, including those of Sens. Ted Kennedy and John Glenn, before moving on to writing and directing for television and advertising. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Communication Arts at Mount Saint Mary College in New York.
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