Motion pictures are often described as a combination of mise-en-scene and montage (not accounting for sound, narrative, and context). I’d further personally divide the major concepts of cinematography somewhat similarly into exposure across the frame, composition, and composition in sequence and motion. This will also influence the order of this course, as it is perhaps easier to achieve strong composition when one has control of levels and contrast in an image. A key aspect to always return to consideration in our studies and practice is that cinematography is communication through directing the human visual experience. All technical and aesthetic aspects return to this and its connection to narrative.

Cinematography is communication through directing the human visual experience.

We’ll begin with a warm-up consisting of visual examples that help explain cinematography and the history of cinema. They’re mostly correct and have all been chosen for including useful and rare visual examples of the history. We will discuss, and some test questions may be taken from content. More importantly, start building your own personal catalog of film and visual references to help your own work.

  1. Cinematography 101: What is Cinematography? – I would counter that they’re not rules but inferred ideas about how we notice, perceive, think, and emote in the real world through our human experience.
  2. The history of photography in 5 minutes. – Still photography is crucial. Motion pictures are photography at 24 frames per second.
  3. Oskar Barnack - A portrait about the inventor of Leica and 35mm still format. – This one is a sometimes forgotten but useful perspective on still photography and predominant formats.
  4. History of the Motion Picture Camera & Early Lumiere Brothers’ Movies This one is from an early documentary so has some of the most accurate and inclusive period images, particularly on early devices. Note the similarity of the original short films to today’s YouTube videos. Too much credit is given to Edison in this one – he hired most of his talent after his initial successes. W.K.L. Dickson being the one who should be mentioned more for the device development. Notice his name in other videos.
  5. The History of Cinema- Silent Era – Silent cinema forged the early concepts and developed rapidly. Sound actually caused a step backward in the short-term for cinematography.
  6. Motion Picture Cameras: Movie Camera History, Mitchell Camera 5, Mitchell Motion Picture Studio Camera NC #73, Mitchell BNCR Paramount Studios,Arri Camera History.
  7. Color: Technicolor, Evolution of Color in Film.
  8. A Brief History of Film – a succinct historic overview of cinema.
  9. The Man with the Movie Camera (1929), Dziga Vertov, Mikhail Kaufman, Yelizaveta Svilova – produced by the Al-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration and demonstrates the range of cinematic techniques nearly a century ago, also presenting an historic view of Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa. Visit the Wikipedia page for more information.