Films I admire for cinematography.

Being the director I needed to get an idea for the cinematography of the film.
I thought it might be good to look at a few of my favourite movie shots and decide why I like them so much.

Although we are now used to widescreen, the more square format of 4:3 was used until about 1953 where Cinemascope began to take over. A Streetcar Named Desire came just before the transition, it used strong close-ups and low contrast film but is still very sharp.

I find Blade Runner pretty much fascinating on every single level. The cinematography is high contrast with lots of blacks. The grain is high so I would guess a high level ISO film was used.  I found out the camera used on this film was a Panavision Panaflex Gold which was a popular camera throughout the 70s. Film used was EASTMAN Color Negative Film 5247. That doesn't mean much to me at the moment. I don't really understand how film cameras are able to film in such low-light and still have the clarity they do. Jordan Chronenweth was the cinematographer here, but considering this is such an iconic film, he didn't really work on anything else noticeable. This may be because Ridley Scott had such a vision for the film. Colours are lots of blue hues and vibrant neon.

I don't know that many people would call 'Jurassic Park' a piece of cinematic art. But I would argue that it is. It wasn't until I looked up the cinematographer for it that I found out Dean Cundey has been the DOP on many of the films I enjoy the most. Back To the Future, Escape From New York, The Thing, 

Another most recent film I love is 'There Will Be Blood.'  The cinematography there uses a lot of wide angles and the colour is a subdued palette of earthy tones. This was again filmed using a more modern version of the Panavision Gold camera. I'll include what film was used, Kodak Vision2 50D 5201, Vision2 200T 5217, but again i have no idea what any of that means in regards to the finished image. 

I like the use of wide-angle lenses in alot of these films and I think framing is very important. I want every frame in my film to stand by itself as something interesting to look at.