Matthew Fiorentino

I've always like this piece of wisdom from Ermanno Olmi: "The first generation filmmakers looked at life, and made films. Second generation of filmmakers watched the films of the first generation, looked at life, and made films. The third generation just watched the films of 1st and 2nd generations, and made films. The fourth generation, which is us, looks neitheir at life, nor watches the films, we merely go trough the (product) catalogues, and base our movies on technical capabilities."

I know this is nearly a retread of the dreaded film vs. digital topic, so let me try to put a different spin on it: As I look to get back into film making after having dropped out of film school, I've been doing a lot of research on shooting formats, costs, etc. and how to best establish myself. It's obvious to me now that shooting digital is unavoidable (though not necessarily undesirable) for the newcomer. The smartest thing to do seems to be to experiment with digital while making a name (and ideally a bit of pocket money) through festival entries before moving onto film. I've watched a lot of projects shot on digital, both professional and amateur and time and time again I'm bothered by the way they look. Now, I realize that it's impossible for digital video to look like it was shot on Kodak 5254, but it got me thinking - what is it about all these projects that look the same and why? Sharpness/clarity of image is an obvious one, and it seems to me that many personal projects end up looking like car commercials. Would it be unfair to say that there's a lack of originality and increasing worship of sterility/uniformity of the image on screen? Even films shot on 35mm tend to have the same look nowadays - as much as I enjoyed the cinematography on 'No Country For Old Men' for example, I can't help but feel I would've liked it more if it could've been shot on a 70s stock. I hate to sound like someone blinded by nostalgia, but I feel that there is a creeping sameness to the look of films nowadays regardless of medium and in spite of the best efforts of cinematographers, however innovative they may be. It seems that the best way to overcome the uniformity of the 'digital' look would be to bring some originality to the framing, set/location design and color palette, which I don't see enough of. Does anyone have any good examples of strikingly original works being done on digital? I've often thought about shooting something more tailored to the medium - i.e. abandon realist dramas and do something involving more montage, attention to framing (like adapting this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJb150JRqpQ). Sorry to ramble on, and I don't mean to sound like a philistine, but does anyone else see similar issues?