From his forthcoming book Cinematography Beyond Technique, MZed educator Tal Lazar shows how a story-first approach keeps filmmakers in charge when working with AI filmmaking. We also have Tal as our guest on this week’s podcast – our holiday episode – to talk about his book. So make sure not to miss it, it was a very though-provoking discussion on the future of cinematography – Nino I used to open my cinematography course with a warning. Becoming a professional cinematographer, I said, demands the same discipline as becoming a concert pianist: if you don’t master the technique, you won’t be able to express yourself through music. For filmmakers, using cameras, lenses, and lamps should feel like second nature too since it will free them to focus on the story instead of the tools. 15 years and hundreds of students later, the way I teach cinematography has fundamentally changed. Whether I’m teaching undergraduate students at the City College of New York or experienced filmmakers on Sundance Institute’s Collab, I now open my first class with Berthe Morisot’s The Reading. Berthe Morisot’s The Reading. When I show the painting, I ask one question: if you had to choose a single main character, who would it be? The young woman in white or her mother in black? The answer reveals that our role as visual storytellers is not just to tell stories with images, but to make sure the entire audience understands it the same way. Year after year, we prove that it’s...
Published By: CineD - Today