Samuel Laseke

Well like I have said so MANY times already I am not that experienced. All I have said is what my experience has been. You really should read what I have said before making comments like this. :lol:

It's funny because I cited several ASC's and provided a link to a video on this very subject with ASC's and BSC's where they talked about the difference between America and British productions. I guess maybe masters of this industry and craft need to LISTEN to you and Freya too. I totally respect people who are passionate about something doing it at any cost. I would just point out that by definition if your funding your hobby it's not "industry" experience. I would also point out that you don't actually know whether or not you can learn more from your hobby vs my profession. I have done this self funded and still do in fact. I also work professionally in the industry. While nothing is definitive your statement is based completely on nothing at all. I can speak from experience on this one. Well I am positive that you don't know my background and it's a bit arrogant to assume you do. I am a high school drop out that became a self taught network architect and worked my way from the loading dock to being the lead Architect of a multinational corporations network in 12 months. I went on to become the lead architect on a 4 billion dollar network design and implementation project after 24 months. I can tell you what I thought I knew was not even enough to know what I did not know. I see things very differently than most people. Until you have been a starving artist and earned an income from your art I dont' think you can really know what your talking about. This is a business which you learn on day one working for somebody else. But what do I know. People on internet forums who have never been there and done that, read something and suddenly they are an authority on the subject. I am not authority on the subject as I have said several times and I have been on all sides of your scenario. I strongly believe your right. That doesn't make you a good director or your film any better though. I think you would find that arrogance and confidence are not the same thing. I think you will also find that people respond much better to you when your honest and not pretending to know everything on set. I don't BS my cast or my crew. If I don't know something I ask for help. That's what they are there for. Arrogance may be common amongst directors but it's not a good trait. I have provided references which clearly state what I have said. You just keep telling me to believe yours as did Freya. What evidence have you provided which refutes mine? None and neither did she. It's arrogant to believe that I should suddenly disregard everything I have ever learned, been told, experienced, or seen based on two peoples opinions. Now if you could find reputable evidence that I am wrong I would stand corrected. The entire concept you are both trying convince me is absolute is based on your opinion. It's not the least bit arrogant to be confident in ones experience and the stated experience of masters of this art and craft. Well millions of people before you have done this and a handful have been successful. Passion will make you do crazy things. I have no doubt you will gain experience from this. But it's ver different funding your own movie and having no producer over you and convincing a producer to give you money and control of their project. Everyone should follow their dreams. I know a lot of self funded directors making features and I support all of them even if they don't know how to make a movie. Most learn from the experience and it's cheaper than film school in most cases. Tarantino did this and never showed the movie to anyone. But he doesn't regret it. I did it with my production company and so far it's been successful. I truly do wish you the best in your endeavors Mathew.

Mathew I don't understand where your attitude comes from. Seriously if your vision as a director sucks that's on you. It's not my arrogance that causes a directors vision to be terrible. Your entire attitude about directing is pretty arrogant honestly. I am not terribly interested in your opinion of what makes a good DP or not since you can't trust them to work on your films for what you are willing to pay. Which makes me wonder what vast amount of experience are you drawing from to make these assumptions about what will or won't happen in my career? I mean if you were a DP or director with decades of experience I might care what you have to say. Your certainly talking like you have decades of professional experience. I don't have decades of professional experience. I am however almost always working on a production and I work as a professional director for music videos and commercials and a professional DP for two feature films currently. I don't consider myself an authority on the subject of cinematography but I do have actual real world experience that drives my views. So before you continue on your rants and complaints please share with me where your vast amount of knowledge on the subject of directing and DP work is derived from. I mean you may be somebody I should be listening to even though everything you say is contrary to everything I have seen. I don't consider self funded short filmmaking on 16mm film industry experience by itself. If you vastly more experience than me on this subject please do share. I would assume you do since you so vehemently defend your total despotic control over your movie and what constitutes a good DP.

Mathew no disrespect but I would not Dp any movie you were directing or producing. I would be cool working with you on things but it's clear your directing style is not collaborative. There's nothing wrong with that if you can make it work. I have never seen it work out well on any production I have worked. I know there are many great movies that have made it work. I think you are over reacting over a power struggle that doesn't exist. I give the producer an image they have requested. I give the director his vision in the image technically and artistically correct to the best of my ability. If the directors vision is bad and he is rigid that's on him. If he wants to use a shot where an actor missed their mark and are 2 stops over exposed then it's my reputation if he decides that's the shot to use. I have actually had directors try to use bad takes on a complex dolly crane shot where they bumped the crane trying to see the image. If the producer wants to put out a failed take or ruin the image that's my reputation their destroying. I have never had any conflicts with any producer or directors over an image once I tell them why it needs to be fixed. It's their job to define the creative requirements. It's my job to give them what they want technically and artistically. Sure they can fire me but it's never happened. Why would they hire a DP if they could do the job themselves. This doesn't even only apply to DP's. Editors, Actors, and Producers all try to negotiate in their contract quality controls and roles and responsibilities. Their not doing the directors job. Rather the director is not doing something he doesn't understand by doing their job. As a director I provide more input on the camera and lighting than any director I have ever worked with. My DP loves it. He comes back to me with his ideas and usually they are an improvement to achieve better storytelling. My art director is almost always smarter than me about how to put together the world the actors live in. That is not a threat to my authority. I tell them what I want and they give me options and my DP approves those options with me. I have not lost any creative control. I have only gained a higher quality product. If you think working with me would be outrageous you should check into what the still photographers get away with. Not only do they have final say on the image but they own them. You paid for them to shoot the pictures. Then you paid for them to edit the pictures. Then you pay for each print and you never own the copyright unless they have an option for you to pay a lot more for it. This is of course all in their contracts because if you hire them legally you own the copyright all all work performed under your employ. I have not found any that will work a job without their contract protecting their intellectual property.

If somebody tries hard enough they will always find a way to contradict your experience with anecdotal evidence of somebody else's experience. If you don't get it in your contract that you are in charge of the final image then your results will vary. If you choose to work with a director that wants to do your job your results may vary. There is as much business savvy necessary to do this job as there is technical and artistic skill. To make things even more interesting commercials, television, reality tv, music videos, and documentaries all have different rules. The British industry has different rules than the American industry. What is true for Britain is probably not what is true for America. Each of them have a standard way of doing business. That is ever changing but that's why you need to be a professional and understand the nature of the business so you can negotiate in your contract to protect your reputation. On indie movies I have a strict rule in my contract that I control the final image and approve the final edit. On professional jobs I don't get that kind of control and I honestly don't need it. But it's standard in my contract to always approve the final image. That will likely change as the industry changes and I move up the ladder.

If your working on a professional set the DP is in charge of the production unit. So DIT should not be undermining the DP. That's been my experience. Things are wildly different between low budget indie movies and professional productions as well. The less experience a director has the more likely they are to not want anything to do with photography or they micro manage them. I have worked for both extremes and they both end in the same result. A very disjointed and poorly made movie. Which is odd since a cinematographers job is not story telling I know. :) It's less of a problem with more experienced directors that can actually provide good direction instead of telling me what equipment I should be using for every shot. With those directors we collaborate on how things will look and I figure out how to bring their vision to life. That's why they hire you. I actually like directing with no DP on my short films and commercials. I know what I want and so I do it myself a lot of the time. It's hard to find a good cinematographer much else one willing to work on a small project for a low budget. It's actually how I went from directing to being a DP. I much prefer being a DP but I end up directing far more often. I love that job too so it works out.

I am not upset at all Freya. I just know there is a point when no matter how much evidence you provide someone they are never going to acknowledge it. You seem to believe that all forms of visual recording are cinema and cinematography. That is why this debate is pointless. You have your own definition and I have provided several references to what cinematography actually is. It's clear without evidence proving your point I am never going to deny all evidence to the contrary and take up your position. Out of curiosity are you by chance a director or a documentary filmmaker?

What I take from your comment is that a DP is nothing more than a worker with no input into the movie and the director tells them how to light, how to move, and how to compose? They just take all those instructions and execute them? I have to say that's not the experience I have had as a Director, DP, Gaffer, or Production Coordinator. That has been my experience with editing actually but rarely. Let's use your analogy. If you play a song you are nothing more than a musician. If you are the person recording the song, editing the song, or mastering the song you are an artist responsible for that songs production. That's why you get royalties forever and why you can win a Grammy. Sadly the guy writing the song probably got less than anyone and they were the actual brains behind the music. As a director of a movie you are the vision behind the movie. You are not the only person involved and you can't make the movie on your own. This is not an assembly line. Each of the people involved in making the movie is applying not only their craft but their artistic impression on that movie. Unless of course you are actually going around and controlling every decision and movement of the movie. There are some directors that actually control their actors micro expressions. As a director which I am more often than a DP I would never degrade my department heads so far as to tell them they are simply craftsmen performing a job. They are artists not mere craftsmen doing a job from a detailed spec sheet. If that were true than anyone could do their job. I can tell you from experience this is not how I have been treated by good directors and it's not how I direct. If you actually look at the duties of a DP provided by an ASC cinematographer which appears to be a paraphrased version of the camera unions defined roles and duties you will find that a DP's role is far more than merely performing a craft. In my experience as a director I was not the all powerful brains of the operation either. Because there is always a producer over you. There is always finance and studios above them. So who is really the brains? I have had plenty of my productions hijacked by producers. Those producers don't know how to do my job. So should I just let them rail road me and create a terrible movie because their my boss? As a director I am really just a craftsmen in your example and the real brains are the producer because they hired me and told me how I was going to make their movie in a lot of cases. Many times they have somebody telling them how they want the movie to be made as well. Which brings us back to the modern interpretation of movie making where it's a collaboration between many artists and not merely one individuals work. I do believe that is why many movies get Academy Awards for different categories and not just directing. The best picture Academy Award goes to the producer not the director. Everyone has a role to play and a movie is only as strong as it's leadership and the artists and craftsmen putting it together. Same holds true for your Beethoven analogy in modern times by the way.

Please re-read my posts because I said exactly the same thing you are saying. As a Producer, Director, DP, Editor, and VFX artist I can tell you and have multiple times stated the director is the chief story teller. It's their vision and their in charge. They do however hire department heads for a reason. There have been two directors both of them first time directors that have told me how to do my job instead of asking me how I can give them what they want to see. One of those two directors project turned out way better than I thought it would. That director actually grabbed my camera and forced me to move where he wanted effectively make me a steady cam rig. That was a bit over the top but I can work with anything. He also admitted he should have listened to me because we would have gotten all the shots he wanted faster and with less expense. The second director's movie was not so fortunate. He told me what he wanted and that's what I gave him. It was not my place to question him after all. He told me during editing that my lighting was terrible, my movement went against the story and my composition was perfect but next time he needed a monitor to see what I was doing. The lighting and movement were all defined in detail by the director down to the gel we were using. I learned very quickly that letting the director go unchallenged and not standing up for what you know is technically and artistically correct is a disservice to the director. That is why they hire you. As a director I expect my DP to catch what I don't and add to the creative process just as the vast majority of directors have expected of me. Ultimately it's their movie and they will get exactly what they want. I have also developed my view of cinematography from directors early on telling me the camera is a member of the cast and it's point of view tells the story. I happen to be in charge of that camera. So you take form their comments and that reality what you like. But I would say the vast majority of cinematographers in the world don't find the relationship with the director to be as rigid and controlling as you make it out to be. Certainly in my experience with 90 or so directors it's not been that way more than twice.

If you are contributing to the telling of a story you are telling the story. It's an immutable truth that they are one and the same. You can't play an instrument with a band and say your not making music your just contributing. This is a ridiculous statement base on nothing at all. Sorry to be so blunt but you are just completely wrong on so many levels.

How about you deal with the subject on a whole and not try to win this debate on semantics. This is about cinematography which is not limited to music videos. Cinematography is cinematography regardless of what specific argument you want to make. It is what it is no matter what format you would like to choose. I will not chase you down a rabbit hole. I have no interest in a futile argument that just goes in circles. I have laid out a strong case and you have not. So give me a stronger case that proves the authorities on the matter are wrong and we can move to the finer points.

As much as I love these semantic traps you set out for me it's really quite simple. Cinematography is the art of telling a story with light, composition, and movement. If you don't have lighting, composition, and movement motivated artistically by a story then you don't have cinematography. You can have a camera operator point a camera at something and shoot it and that won't be cinematography either. It's a composite of things. I have said all this before. You can't disprove what I am saying because it's a core fundamental of the art of cinematography. You may disagree but you won't find any cite's to back up your claims or refute the many that I have provided. Please see the above posts and cites from the most highly skilled professionals of our time on what is and is not cinematography. Seriously watch the Zacuto video I posted you will learn really fast what cinematography is all about because they break down your notions and why your wrong. You don't have to agree with them but they are masters of cinematography.

Yaron, I don't think it was a bad decision at all. You got some amazing lenses and a strong performing camera. This video proves the camera is better than most of us can do with it.

Freya please define for me your understanding of cinematography. I don't think this word means what you think it means. To be honest I don't think you can actually prove there are any books, cinematographers, directors, schools, or any reputable sources to show that cinematography is not story telling. That's a fundamental of cinematography theory it's astonishing. I have to ask what do you think cinematography is? Roger Deakins, Shane Hurlbut, Wally Pfister, Stephen Goldblatt, Nancy Schreiber, Bruce Logan, Haskel Wexler and even documentarian Phillip Bloom have all stated cinematography is story telling. It's not just my view of things it's the entire body of consumate professionals and the lowly people like me that see it this way. The ASC definition does actually define it as story telling since the term Authorship means to write or develop a story. Then there is this. You can't tell me the Cinematographer is not a part of the story telling since he is responsible for approving the majority of the movie and researching the script, period, and characters. Why would that at all be important if it was not story telling?

Mathew and Freya this is a great video on this very subject. http://www.zacuto.com/filmfellas-cast-8 choose webisode 35 "Let there be Light"

Mathew you are correct it's suppose to be the same. That's the whole point of ISO. Take this for what it's worth because I am operating on second hand knowledge passed down to me by others with more experience. The ISO on a video camera is just a preset for gain control. It's not like film where it's a measurement of a films light response. In Digital it's a setting we choose. ISO 100 for example can on some cameras be ISO 100 with exposure compensation +/- 1/4 stop. This will actually change your exposure away from ISO 100. There are many values that make up exposure in a digital camera. Most digital camera's don't even use ISO. They use infinite adjustment gain control so you can dial your exact gain value instead of being forced to use presets. I would say for this reason you can't really rate a camera's ISO since it's really not a set in stone rating as much as a measurement of gain. You can actually go to DXO Mark's website and see how ISO changes from camera to camera. I believe they measure it and benchmark it against the actual ISO value. Really the ISO value in an HDSLR is just there because film had it and that's what people understood. I hacked my HDSLR and got more values out of it. Then you have LUT profiles which are really just Gama Curves to worry about as well. Contrast, saturation, Sharpness, white balance, black balance on some cameras all effects the final image. There is a lot going on and most people just turn on auto exposure and hope for the best. This is how really ugly digital comes about. Highlights are clipped and blacks are crushed horribly. Sharpness is that of really bad lens no matter what. Aliasing, Moire, and Rolling shutter all have to be dealt with properly. There is a lot to getting good digital. It's not all sunshine and lollypop's. You have to have the same standard skill set of a cinematographer and a whole other skill set to make the camera put out good images. It's really gotten easier over the years though. There are a lot of things which are preset like ISO that make it easier for those who don't know. You can still change them on good cameras like before but it's getting easier to become a DP which I will admit worked out for me but also made it harder to get a job in this field. I try to separate myself from the masses of HDSLR owners turning out crap by actually knowing what I am doing and how my equipment works. I am not a master yet so some of what I have said until I can research it to know for sure should not be taken as fact but more as one students understanding of the inner workings of his camera. I do know that it's accurate in theory but the exact details I have never thought about researching until right now.

Lighting has two functions. We use it for proper exposure and to paint out scenes with accents and shadows. The image of a digital camera in low light is often times better than film with the same ISO. Film ISO and Digital ISO is likely very different since ISO from model to model seems to change within the same manufactures line. Digital has more variables to deal with than just ISO. You can change the image a lot in camera before it's recorded. You can control contrast, white balance, saturation, sharpness, color cast, gama, etc. This creates a perceived variance in exposure. The is really just gain in the digital world where as if I remember correctly film has a fixed ISO and white balance. It been 20 years since I have used film so I could be wrong. But the point is I can use say ISO 100 in a room with practical lights and get a decent over all exposure. Then I can expose the faces of the my actors if I want with smaller lights. I can shoot 25,600 ISO on a 5DMK3. I have bounced a flash light off a reflector and used it as the key light in a car trunk and their faces had modeling, their eyes had highlights, and there was not a lot of noise in the image. Another shot where an HDSLR would fit and a Film camera would not. Also where low light capability was needed. Would the shot have been better if we could cut a hole through the trunk, rigged a film camera and used tungesten lights? I don't know it looked pretty good. The shot was not important enough to justify the expense of doing all that. Given the proper budget it would have likely been done on an HDSLR just the same because of schedule. It took us 5 minutes to set this up and get a good clean shot. I would have likely shot 30% of that movie on an HDSLR and the other 70% on Super 16mm if I had the budget. I would have likely not used Zeiss CP.2's either. They were way to sharp of a feeling for that movie. It would have been better with vintage lenses. The story could have benefited greatly from the look of celluloid to provide a more gritty and low budget feel. Instead it looked very clean and will have to be fixed in post. This is why I think cinematography can't have one format and why the choice of format is part of telling the story.

Freya I realize that you don't think it's story telling. That doesn't change the fact that there are countless books, film schools, directors, cinematographers that don't agree with you. And yes those two lines can go together if you have ever worked on reality tv or a documentary. I have worked both. In Reality TV there is a person that actually makes up stories. Shocking I know it's not reality. In documentaries you are telling a story. If you are documenting the events happening without a narrative your simply capturing what is happening. That is not cinematography. That is photography. You don't have to agree. I know dozens of Directors and Cinematographers that are not actually directors or Cinematographers and they all think pointing a camera at something makes them directors and cinematographers. I have directed and been cinematographer on a lot of music videos. I can tell you without a doubt and so will the bands that I have worked with music videos are telling a story just as their songs are telling a story. They are scripted making them narrative. If they are events they are not narrative and there is no cinematography involved. Just because you shoot something that does not mean it's cinematography. There are a lot of music videos with no cinematography. There are a lot of music videos with cinematography. I am sure there are feature films that have no cinematography in them as well. It's not defined by being a motion picture. A perfect example of this is broadcast technician school. Broadcast schools generally don't teach cinematography. They teach broadcast television. Film school doesn't generally teach broadcast television. Both jobs have over lapping skills and technology. They are worlds apart in practice. A broadcast television camera operator does not need to know anything about cinematography.

I would argue the same thing. My fault for assuming we were only discussing the cinematographer and not all the department heads. Had you said all of cinema is not about story telling I would have been more specific. Next time I will try not to be so absolute in my communication. That just about sums it up. The audience only sees what the camera sees. What the camera sees is everyone else's job. Again obviously the director approves all of this and the other departments collaborate on this.

Well I think the majority of cinematographers worth anything would strongly disagree with your statement. If there is no narrative your documenting events which is not cinematography it's motion photography. Cinematography is so far beyond pointing a camera at something and getting proper exposure. Photographers are always talking about the story their picture tells as well so I think your basically wrong all together. But don't take my lowly word for it. You can read what ASC members have to say about it. Roger Deakins answering questions about what is most important in cinematography. http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2114 Jeff Cronenweth ASC on Story Telling “If filmmakers shooting digitally choose to use depth-of-field as a storytelling tool, then it’s imperative to control the exposure to control focus,” Jeff Cronenweth ASC http://www.createasphere.com/En/insider-view/2753-jeff-cronenweth-asc-a-lifelong-love-of-storytelling.html Shane Hurlbut Story telling through composition. http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2012/08/storytelling-through-composition/ As for the director nobody said they were not telling the story as well. They are the chief story teller in charge. However they are not the only person telling the story. I mean really think about that. If cinematography was not story telling then how exactly is the story conveyed to the audience? How does the director tell the story? Cinematography is most definitely about telling a story or else your only other option is capturing an event as it's happens. I have never seen a Cinematographer credited on any recorded event, Cspan, or any other non narrative works. Even documentaries and reality TV are narrative. The fact that your lighting, composition, and movement is all in support of a script means that your story telling. I am sorry but I have to say this is one of those times where people use the term cinematographer too loosely. Like Camera Op's calling themselves cinematographers because they operate a camera. Just because a cinematographer also operates a camera it does not make a camera op a cinematographer.

I don't think there is anything wrong with loving to shoot on film. I love to shoot on a Red over an HDSLR. I can't always justify it and it's some times not possible to give me the shot I need to get. If film was not being phased out which truly is tragic in my opinion I would eventually shoot on it if the story called for it. I think you mistake high ISO with poor lighting. The intensity of your lighting does not by itself make your image good. Proper exposure and good lighting is relative to your format. I have done a lot of great scenes with cars driving down the road and using just the light from the road to dimly light the actors faces. The first time was purely out of necessity and I fought the director every step of the way convinced it would be a travesty of my artistic ability and also just look like garbage. Being left with no choice I decided I would just have to find a way to do it and make it look good. So I chose a street with a lot of street lights and shops. I used an F1.4 lens and an APS-C camera to control the depth of field. I put a bounce in their laps and the results were great. They were properly exposed with little noise in darkness. They had specular highlights and the city behind them blurred to a beautiful Bokeh. I have since done many shots like this. Point is the shot could be done much better. But because the story forced me to go beyond the limitations of my equipment and push it further a new technique was learned and ultimately the shot that every non filmmaker loves most out of everything I have done. I think we strive for the same thing ultimately. Where as you say your doing it because film forces you to be honest. I do it because the art of cinematography demands it. Oddly I have these same debates with people about full frame vs. APS-C sensors and Black Magic vs. Red vs. D800 vs. GH2 vs. FS100 vs. Alexa. The same debate rages on over HDSLR vs. Video camera and Kino Flo vs. Lite Panels vs. Molle Richardson vs. Arri. I have my favorites and they change from time to time. In the HDSLR world I have loved working with Canon's until the D800 came out and it's Dynamic Range and Image Quality is far superior. It's low light is not as good. So I will now have to use both. When I get a Red I will still have both because they all have their uses when executed properly. I suspect if film stopped being made today you would find the principles that drive your exacting standards of how things should be done would ensure everything you ever make will be done right. But with different tools comes different work flows and technology. I can light a set exactly the same way you can with film and use a fraction of the light even with low ISO's. I can technically get good exposure with no extra lights in most cases but that is not cinematography now is it. :D I think there are far too many photographers due to a fundamental lack of knowledge about art and what cinematography is. This is not limited to digital. It's a common problem with film only shooters as well. There are just higher numbers of digital noobs because so many people want to make movies. I was one of them but I always had my eye on becoming a good cinematographer from the start so I never had the mindset. If it's worth doing it's worth doing right. Just because you can't make a blockbuster doesn't mean you shouldn't start making movies on what ever you can in the mean time. That's what I did and I learned fast by making a lot of mistakes. It also gave me the ability to push my limits without fear that it was going to cost me a lot of money. A bad quality movie is a bad quality movie whether you had to shell out money or not and vice versa.

Art is in the eye of the beholder. I find some digital movies are better than film. I will admit it's rare. I find that many movies shot on digital I don't notice at all. I find that some are so completely obvious it's truly a diservice to the cast and crew. I have also found the difference in modern times is usually the cinematography and not the format. Compared side by side I think you will always find a difference but it's not always going to be that film is better or that there is enough of a difference that I can honestly care. There was a time when film was without a doubt always the superior format for large productions. Those days are long gone and quality video can compete with film all but side by side. As it turns out most people don't go to the theater to see film comparisons side by side. If they did I think films future would be safe for another 5-10 years easily. There is a very very small group of people who actually care so much about every pixel on the screen that they can tell. It's not even all DP's that care anymore. Several of them have accepted Digital for it's benefits and said good bye to film all together. Why would anyone give up film? I honestly wouldn't if I had a big enough budget to always shoot on film. I would not give up digital either. But as I said before movies are not all about image quality or a particular aesthetic. Here is a very real world example. I worked on a movie over the summer that's entire budget was far less than the cost of film stock. They shot on a Red with mostly available light. In side they used practical lights and Kino Flo Diva's. The movie is not going to be a block buster but it looks amazing. It does not look at all like it was shot with a skeleton crew with borrowed locations. The director got everything he wanted to get and he has a professional product with a standard baseline of quality that can be shown on big screens. Is it the greatest quality movie I have ever seen? Absolutely not! But it is a good movie that was shot well and honestly it did not need all the crew to make it great because they chose the appropriate camera. It did not have VFX. It was not a block buster. It was a 20 something love tragedy. Not my thing but it was good for what it was. That movie could never have been made with film. The budget would have been too high and the crew would have needed to be bigger or the movie would have looked worse than it does. Which brings me to the point on lighting. As a general rule I light everything unless it's not practical. I am of the opinion that audiences expect good lighting and their perception of image quality is almost entirely based on production design, lighting, and composition. I have done very unscientific tests and people have always chosen the video with the nice location, proper wardrobe, and softer image, lighting that fits the scene and mood, and composition. The technically better video of an average location with an amazing camera is never chosen. Film in these tests is always last place. This is because there has never been super 35mm in these tests. It's always been 8 and 16mm which is on par with HD in our tests. 8MM interestingly always has lower dynamic range in color than an HDSLR. 16mm seems to have less but I have seen it have more. So this leads me to believe once again it's the person behind the camera. But film is usually not chosen over high end video due to it's lack luster sharpness. Which again is more operator than format in my opinion. Super 35mm would in my experience completely blow video out of the water in regards to resolution and dynamic range. But we know from the non existent outrage from movie goers that they can't tell or just don't care. Honestly I never cared until I became a film maker. In my view and most people I have asked there are two differences in motion pictures. Television and Film. They really don't get that most movies are not shot on film because those little differences to them don't register enough difference in their reticular activating system to say there was something different. You and I can tell and we may differ on which is better all the time. But the general audience does not care. Movies are not about film. They are about so much more. Now lighting is not always possible, practical, or cost effective. This is just how physics work. If you want to light a street with a moving care on a low budget or even a moderate feature budget good luck with that. The only reason why we are told we must do this is because film set the standard that everything must have a lot of light. Everything should have controlled light when possible. That does not mean it's necessary just because film requires it. If I can use a reflector and an HDSLR for B-roll or because I just don't have the money that's not technically wrong. I can still get 56 IRE on a grey card and shape the light. I just need less of it. I have seen far better low light footage from digital than film in this regard.

Cinematography is story telling. Videography is capturing events as they happen. I think the line between photography and cinematography has been blurred by broadcast schools and the masses of uneducated filmmakers. The choice of lens, lighting, camera, aspect ratio, movement, etc is all a part of telling the story. It does not exist in a vacuum un-affected by the story. Cinematography is how we tell the story. Unlike stage the actors don't tell the story. The actors are a part of the story. The camera is our portal to their world. The camera controls what the audience sees and how they see it. What the audience sees from a scene and how they see it is completely controlled by the cinematographers choices. If those choices are not based on story then you will have a very disjointed and poor quality movie. If more people would become cinematographers instead of just motion photographers there would be a lot more great movies in my opinion.

No I don't care which one is technically better. To be honest I have seen crap shot on both. I have seen great things shot on HDSLR. Their just tools. All things being equal get the best image quality your budget can afford definitely. But otherwise there are other factors of great importance which is often over looked. Like should I shoot this motorcycle chase scene with Imax or a Red? Shoot I shoot this close up shot of a man on a toilet in a hotel bathroom with Imax or an HDSLR? How important is the shot? Can I get this shot with available light from the window or will I need to light a tight space. Is it even possible to get the proper composition or movement required by the story? Will it affect the budget or schedule adversely? These things matter to me more than it was shot on Red or Film. Honestly when I watch a good movie I don't notice what it was shot on the first time. Because I am more interested in the story not whether it was shot on Red or film.

Also Mathew I have done this comparison before. That's why I am not aligned with one format over another. They are completely different to me. I think far too much time and effort is spent worrying about shooting on platform X and not enough time is spent on finding good locations, lighting, stories, and actors. Audiences don't care what you shoot on as long as it meets the baseline technical quality they have come to expect from conventions. That baseline is being raised constantly and is largely what drives format popularity in the industry i.e. 8mm film, Black and White, and Mini Dv with 4:3 aspect ratio is not acceptable to most audiences unless it's driven by the story. The artist comes to mind as one such movie where the story clearly chose the format and the audiences accepted it even though it was not the current convention. Most people I know just won't watch it because it's Black and White and Silent. I can't really fault them for that any more than I can fault people for living in modern houses instead of caves which are superior in a lot of ways.