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Who Would You Like To Emulate?


Greg Gross

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If you could have the knowledge of filmmaking that certain industry professionals

have today and yesterday, who would you choose?

 

1. I'd like to shoot and light like- David Mullen ASC,model light like Darius Khondji,

Get the bright whites like Michael Blauhaus ASC,

Conrad Hall ASC(god bless him),John Cassavetes

the father of independent film.

2. I'd like to direct like- Sydney Pollock,Michael Mann,David Lynch,Clint Eastwood,

John Cassavetes,Alfred Hitchcock(god bless him).

3. Act Like- Clint Eastwood,Morgan Freeman,Sean Penn,John Cassavetes(god bless

him),Kevin Bacon,Brad Pitt,Robert Deniro.

 

As you can see I'm not asking for much!! On the lighter side I thought it would be

interesting to find out who we would like to emulate. I'm going to start shooting a

romantic comedy in October(my own production). I have a scene where my two

lovers are kissing in front of a flower shop(critical event). I'd like to be able to move

the camera around them while they are kissing,like Mr. Hitchcock did with Cary Grant

and Eva Marie Saint. Please forgive any mis-spelling of names as I typed this post

rather fast(and sloppy) without any resources in front of me. I have some real time

restraints on me today. If you wish to share your thoughts on this subject please

post.

 

Greg Gross

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Guest shane grace

emulate....emulate....

 

I dont know about emulate - but I would love to have been inside the mind of a few people:

 

inside Stanley Kubricks mind while he was directing 2001: a space odyssey. - i have not seen any other film since as mesmerising as that. I wouldnt like to emulate his crew though - poor things - i imaged he would yell alot :)

 

inside Jean Luc Goddards mind while he was shooting Alphaville. or even just being there... the maverick film crew turning paris black and white with ilford still-film stock.

 

hmm.. now i know! -

 

I would like to emulate anything by DP Slavomir Idziak - his work to me is perfect and then some. Especially 'Three colors Blue'.

 

 

Shane

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I've been on a Bruce Surtees binge lately. Can't beat that impressionistically grainy, raw shallow DOF portrait lit by a minimal, single source. It's the power of suggestion, showing only what it is absolutely neccessary! When he was doing his dark thing, Surtees was the closest a cinematographer ever got to Whistler, in my opinion.

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"Pale Rider" is probably my favorite-looking Bruce Surtees movie, although just as a movie, I enjoy "Escape from Alcatraz" more.

 

I LOVE Surtees work with Don Siegel especially, because (unlike say something like the slick looking Corrina Corrina) those films aren't conventionally good looking. In fact, they often look extremely ugly, grainy, muddy, murky, raw, unbalanced, unfinished and even out of control. The fact Surtees can fabricate a look that can achieve such an extreme feeling makes me a considerable fan of his work. There's stuff like The Shootist that I am not all that hot on, which looks terribly dated, even for the lesser stuff of 1976 (probably due the photography having to match footage used in the opening from older Wayne pics Hondo, Rio Bravo and El Dorado). Even still though, in that movie there are moments where characters wander through virtually unlit corridors in extremely unrefined, blotchy shadow. There's not even a pretense to manufacture an artistic tableau or carefully contrived, balanced silouhette, it's just pushing the limit on what needs to be seen before it all just disappears into sludgy murk. I hope Surtees discovers HD - I cannot imagine how exciting something like Collateral would be shot by Surtees!

 

I think Dirty Harry and Escape from Alcatraz are flat out the most beautiful completely ugly looking movies to come out of Hollywood. If they had looked traditionally pretty or even slick, I wouldn't be mentioning them now. It's always priority to serve the directors vision of the story!

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A little dirt never hurt. I think todays hollywood is too clean, too slick. Thats why a movie like Million Dollar Baby stands out, it falls apart, cinematically, but in just the right way so that it works.

 

For me, I would emulate Orson Welles or Stanley Kubrick, visionaries with specific goals in their pieces. From The Stranger to Clockwork Orange, I've seen such visions, stimuli and granditute in the ugliest of images that they themselves are beautiful.

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A little dirt never hurt.  I think todays hollywood is too clean, too slick.  Thats why a movie like Million Dollar Baby stands out, it falls apart, cinematically, but in just the right way so that it works.

 

Incidentally, photographed by Surtees longtime Eastwood gaffer! :D

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Guest filmmakermilan

As mentioned by several others, Conrad Hall. I think Phillipe Rousellot is a great cinematographer.

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David Watkin, John Alcott, John Toll, Nestor Almendros, Geoffrey Unsworth, Caleb Deschanel, Derek Vanlint, Robert Richardson, Vittorio Storaro, Freddie Young, Stephen Goldblatt, Conrad Hall, Vilmos Zsigmond, Robert Surtees, Gordon Willis, Owen Roizman...

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David Watkin, John Alcott, John Toll, Nestor Almendros, Geoffrey Unsworth, Caleb Deschanel, Derek Vanlint, Robert Richardson, Vittorio Storaro, Freddie Young, Stephen Goldblatt, Conrad Hall, Vilmos Zsigmond, Robert Surtees, Gordon Willis, Owen Roizman...

 

Yes, I'm with Ignacio. Especially Caleb Deschanel (Anna and the King, Passion of the Christ), John Toll (The Last Samurai, Braveheart), Conrad Hall (Road to Perdition), and Vittorio Storaro (The Last Emperor).

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Guest Cameron Speaks

Well...... how about Conrad Hall, Harris Savides, Haskell Wexler, Darius Khondji, Nick Roeg, Bob Richardson, Freddie Young, and Rodrigo Prieto. Great eyes all around.

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