The Oscars and Cinematography

The Oscars are this Sunday or a better title "How many Oscars will La La Land win?"

I was thinking about writing a blog about how La La Land has a great chance to win a majority of their nominations and has a possibility of setting a record for most wins. All they need is twelve. But instead of talking about how La La Land will win most of them or the dark horse movies that could surprise everyone with a win like everyone else is talking about, I want to talk about something else that I hope will help you enjoy movies more.

Cinematography.

The cinematographer in the movie department is the person in charge of the scene. They will help the director decided every single shot of the movie and then make that happen as they direct the camera and light crews. When you're watching a movie and notice how pretty or cool it looks, a lot of that is because of the cinematographer. Now, you can have the best sets and best customs, but if you have an awful shot of what is happening or poor lighting, it's all worthless because the bad cinematography will draw you out of the movie.

Good cinematography has the opposite effect as it only helps you draw into the film, into the story. 

Great films have great cinematographers and they sadly don't get the recognition they deserve. That is why I want to highlight one of the greats.

Roger Deakins.

He has been nominated for Best Cinematography thirteen times. Five of those have been during the past six years and twice in 2008. He did the cinematography for great films like Unbroken, True Grit(2012), O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Shawshank Redemption, and a host of other great films. He is, in my opinion, the greatest cinematographer of our time and one of the greats of all time! And he has yet to win a single Oscar. (Dumb)

It was actually a film he did the cinematography for, Skyfall, that was the first time I started to really notice the beauty of the scenes he was crafting and the importance of the cinematographer. Many blockbuster films have shaky cameras close in on their actors during action scenes or just boring shots Deakins is setting up paintings. Now, he isn't perfect as I am sure he has done over the shoulder shots for conversations and shaky cams, but I don't remember those. I remember the scenes where he crafted a painting. The wide scenes where you could pause it and set it up as a picture in your home. Though you may not want to do that when it's the silhouettes of a sniper against a blue sign with a jellyfish(Skyfall), but it's still gorgeous. 

This year the nominations for Best Cinematography has a great line up that I think Linus Sandgren for La La Land will win but Rodrigo Prieto will give La La Land a run for their money for his work on Silence. Though we are missing Deakins this year I believe we will see him nominated again next year for Blade Runner 2049 (I'm calling it now.) And let's hope the 14th time is the charm!

​Thanks for reading, I hope this helps you enjoy movies a little more, maybe help you to notice good cinematography, or just makes you curious in seeing some of Rodger Deakins films, which I highly encourage! 

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!!

Image courtesy of indiewire.com  All  rights reserved.