Jesse Suarez

In the second case, the look is easy (not the same as saying those photos are good only because of the look). Desaturate, lower contrast, make the shadows purple and the highlights yellow, add grain, camera flicker/scratches, etc. Easily doable in any editor. http://moosatov.livejournal.com/171127.html

This is a film (cinema) theory debate. Cameron and the like-minded want to move (their) cinema towards realism and immersion- 3D, higher frame rates, surround sound, etc. More expressionistic-minded folk would say that it's the things that makes cinema different from life that make it cinema (the early expressionists were not fans of color or sound).

Don't know where else to put this since I'm sure it cuts across everything from production design to grading, but how did Anthony Dod Mantle get the monochromatic/desaturated warm red-brownish look in Festen? The Dogme guys claim they just point cameras and shoot whats in front of them, but it's partly the controlled color that makes it look like a work of photography, aka a "movie", right (my home videos don't look like that)? What am I missing here?