Putting the Cinematic in "Cinematic Photography"
elizabeth gets on her soap box about "cinematic" not being an editing style, and how photographers can pursue real depth
Aesthetic trends come and go, and right now it’s popular to be “cinematic” in either photography or brand design. The amount of presets, apps, and filters out there that can make your photography look like kodak 400 film or the grainy sepia & green tones that your parents photos have in their scrapbooks are all the rage. It’s been a steady trend, now for several years, where the digital is mimicking the disposable with it’s #lookslikefilm hashtags and the vsco girlies are forever in. And yet, recently, it’s been striking how in marketing and brand design we are entering a new era of cinematics. In visual branding for businesses, we are sufficiently passed the crystal clear bright-and-airy-say-cheese billboard vibes of the early 2000s and forever ditching the JC Penny catalog campaigns. In fact, we’ve been several levels removed from that era already, but something new is afoot.
I had an enlightening conversation with a high school friend who recently moved back to the area and is looking to launch his brand design business. “What are the designers doing? Where is the creative community?” He wants answers! I don’t have them, but I sent him a strong list of all the brand designers I’ve worked with or come across in the area, and while I was compiling the list of designers and looking at their websites I noticed that they’re all relatively cinematic in appearance. Blur and motion, deeper-tones, candids, process-gifs, some amount of color-grading and the copywriting push for authenticity is alive and well. What else? The scripty-scripty font, similar web design templates, the same messaging around how their brand is different or their brand tells meaningful stories, and they all feel like recovering boho-era babes (wide-brim hats and pampas grass sufficiently archived). I know that part of this is a simple trend, propelled by ShowIt template creators and everyone’s obsession with a neutral palette, but there isn’t that much diversity in design or thought.
The design and photography community keeps reusing terms like “documentary-style” or “photo-journalistic” or “dark and moody” vs. “bright and airy” but the way these words are used feels problematic; so I’ve been digging into what I think “cinematic” actually means in photography and how tried and tested ambitions of making story-telling photos can last.
The first thing to understand about the new cinematic era of design & photography is what cinematic is not. Cinematic is not choosing a neutral or dark & moody color scheme and calling it a day. Cinematic is not a filter. It’s not a preset. It’s not a color-grade. Those are visual alterations you place on top of what is either a cinematic shot, or not.
You might be thinking that we need a working definition of cinematic, so here’s one from Webster: "relating to, suggestive of, or suitable for motion pictures or the filming of motion pictures." Sure, we could say a preset or editing style is a special effect relating to motion pictures, but if we’re talking about cinematic principles and keeping films as our guide then it’s primarily about the image alone and how it is shot, not about the editing style. Can a photo even be qualified as cinematic if it’s not a video? I think the answer to this only changes how we describe an image — “this photo has cinematic style or qualities” vs. “this is a cinematic photo”. I’m going with the latter, simply because motion pictures are made up of individual pictures, so on a cellular level it’s the same1.
Here’s my ever-growing list of what I think makes an image cinematic (inherently, or simply in quality). I’m thinking about this in regards to brand photography, but it holds for all kinds of photography:
Cinematic photos need to hold more than one emotion. In branding, your photos need to show a range of emotions. The photos must tell a story and part of storytelling is showcasing setting, character intros, character development, conflict, plot, conclusion, resolution (or not!). Brands often show just the solution to the market problem the company is trying to solve. But to be cinematic, we need to see more struggle and more process. If you look closely at all of the “cinematic” brand images these days, it’s often telling the same part of the story over and over (resolution), but this time it has a trendy film-like preset slapped on it and that’s supposed to give it “depth” or something. No.
Cinematic requires a perspective. The point of view needs to stand on its own as a voice. Photographers need to find their voice and show it, or find the brand’s voice and show it (this is often what I need to channel when shooting brand images). What is the angle and the angle? What is the narrative?
A cinematic image reveals itself in the details. The image may require crop-cuts that don’t reveal the whole picture. Think of a film cut where it slowly reveals a scene instead of showing it all at once. Think of a film cut when it does show everything at once! Think about the Timing of that. We can’t give away the answers for the audience so easily. There needs to be space for the viewers to look and imagine and wonder. One of my photographer friends sent me an image of a decapitated Roman statue and she said that it reminded her of my photography because of the amount of times I crop heads out of portraits. Best compliment of my art career. It tells a story, and when you’re in a story you’re only in the part that you’re in. You’re not ahead or behind, you’re just in it. It’s mysterious and often confusing, but an image taken with this consideration will end up feeling more lived-in vs. distant.
A cinematic image should make you feel something. If it’s disgust, alright. If it’s joy? Alright. If it’s confusion, also okay. I’ve had plenty of photoshoots where it’s not supposed to be about emotion, but technicality. It’s about accuracy, it’s not about telling a larger story or having a point of view. It’s about capturing simply what is for the purpose of accuracy and these images are not memorable, neither do they have perspective. These are not cinematic images. They’re just Amazon placeholder images. They show you what you’re buying. In that setting, it’s not going to be cinematic and that’s more or less completely fine.
It’s all about light. Knowing light, observing light, and playing with the light to either hide or highlight the greater story inside the image. George Eastman famously said: “Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” Cinematic photography is very good at understanding the nature of light and thrives in the visual shadowlands. I like deep contrasts in photography because it makes the light more potent.
Cinematic photography stays on mission. Perhaps this is the influence of brand photography prioritizing sticking to the message, but just because something is pretty or ethereal does not mean it’s cinematic or relevant to the story we’re telling. We get our stories in images mixed up fairly easily. I know that I gravitate toward what I think the pretty is and often miss key parts of the story I’m trying to tell by getting distracted by shiny, irrelevant things. The constraints of the vision or story do not impede the ability to creative emotionally deep, cinematic work. If anything it only heightens one’s ability to go deeper in a limited space.
The best thing about cinematic photography is how freeing the process it. An image doesn’t need to have every element present for it to be thoroughly cinematic. The grace is overwhelming in good photography. It can contain snippets of cinema that evoke emotion and depth while remaining genre-bending and setting up the story in it’s own lane. This is different from creating an image that only holds one emotion (point number 1 go back and read it).
About three years ago, I discovered a video by Jamie Windsor that started these thoughts on cinematic brand photography as he expertly outlined why Nan Goldin was his favorite photographer and how bad photos are actually better. I remember feeling so seen and excited when I watched this video and even more excited/justified when some photographer friends vehemently disagreed with Jamie Windsor and insisted that technical perfection was the rubric for what makes a good photo. Windsor argues that “A clear view of a literal interpretation of a scene loses emotional resonance and a sense of spontaneity. Unblemished technical flawlessness distances the viewer… it is imperfection that adds value and emotional connection.” And Nan Goldin says in an interview in the video “The camera is connected to my hand… it would be a sin if I moved a beer bottle from the scene”. Windsor gets into Wabi-Sabi (ancient Japanese philosophy about accepting the Transience) and encourages us to not be limited by the technical which can often distance us from what’s real, what’s true, what’s authentic.
So, here’s my last point on the Cinematic.2 Cinematic photography needs to master the technical elements of the camera without losing emotional resonance. There needs to be intention with angles, composition, lighting, story, scene-building and overall an understanding of what the capability of a camera is (a camera that exceeds the human eye in a way) and thoughtfully wield it. Cinematic photography is not obsessed with technical perfection in any way, it makes an image come alive and have the quality of the motion pictures by getting out of it's own way.3
yes, I also feel weird about using a science-y term like “cellular” here but it’s the only one I can think of at the moment
while this list of seven will continue to develop as I grow up more in life and in photography, it does serve as a baby benchmark outlining the type of images I strive to bring into the world
let me be less confusing: Just watch the Jamie Windsor video