Cinematic
So lately I became a bit of a snob, a very scary thing to happen because it often goes hand in hand with conservatism
(i have nothing against republicans btw, though their obsession and fixating on the 2nd amendment is a bit cliché).

Here are my two cents about Cinematic footage and I love to be corrected and spark a conversation, so I have to be a bit controversial.

I think cinematic often doesn’t refer to cinema (kinematograph). Cinema has quite a legacy and doesn’t necessarily refer to it’s theatre and you can watch some films on YouTube (even films by Tarkovsky can be watched for a small price). Cinema is the theatre, the place its being displayed, but unlike theatre where you actually need the space to perform, you can display cinema also on a phone.
I love Big and proper projections which are standardized, and also the feel to witness a film with a group of fellow humans, but covid with the sudden lock downs has proofed that we can’t rely on cinemas to keep cinema alive. Kinema means “ writing in movement” or “recording movement ”. But anyhow, that cinema has a big and well curated history, and since the rise of the Canon 5d etc it became a less curated art. Also with the rise of affordable cameras and edit computers we saw the rise of video advertisements which often doesn’t have the same aim as cinema.

Cinema to me is a combined art form, combining poetry, painting, theatre, performance art etc and has a unique quality that it can ‘ sculpt in time ’ (tarkovsky)
The rise of all sort of smaller scale projects for smaller budgets strangely didn’t gave rise to indi film, something I would have expected to happen. And let me get this straight, you don’ t have to make a full feature in order to make cinema, cinema is much more subtle, and since its still a very young art forum everything is possible. Cinema to me is about intentions.

I love every cameraman equally so this article isnt about bashing those who use their cameras solely to make money, but I find it weird that parallel to the rise of ‘ indi advertisement videography’ we didnt see a rise of indi cinema. Yes they are some good indi filmmakers but they have always exist but more as an exception.

' Hide the ideas, but so that people find them. The most important will be the most hidden. The future of cinematography belongs to a new race of young solitaries who will shoot films by putting their last penny into it and not let themselves be taken in by the material routines of the trade. (R. Bresson)

Most people who use the word “cinematic” often refer not to let’s say “a short story about killing” by Kiewslowski and its inherent stylised look, but more to Philips Bloom dof 5d videos.

It often seems that most people using the word “cinematic” are ignorant to cinema, hence the frustration of a lot of filmmakers. The truth is that 99% of camera users are using these cameras for advertisement, or registering weddings and events. Cinema isn’t about one look! It’s a deep study of how you transform the qualities of life in otherworldly forms so we can observe ourselves better and communicate, cinema has a lot of different looks, from the silverish black and white looks with hard arc lighting from the pre-sound age, to film noir, to the impressionist style of Agnes Godard , to the collage montage style of Robert Bresson, etc etc.

Cinema is a deep study to composition, meaning, self consciousness, etc. You can still use these qualities by starting your own journey as an artists and you can still use these qualities when filming a wedding. But simply dismissing cinema and simplifying it’s history to one dslr dof look and call its cinematic is insulting to a institution that brought so much to life and is still fighting for an autonomous place in the arts .

To end this essay here’s a small kinematograph i recently made