"Bayhem" a creative crutch?

Mainecoonmaniac · Jul 15, 2014

I'm just as guilty as everybody else. I use visual cliches and I'm a derivative of other photographers.

http://petapixel.com/2014/07/15/visually-sophisticated-visually-illiterate/

ROL · Jul 15, 2014

So much of the article's author's experiences and contentions so don't apply to me that I hardly know where to start so I won't. If you want to see interesting cinema camera work, have another look at Citizen Kane (Gregg Toland), if you can get past enthralling acting and story.

jp498 · Jul 15, 2014

It's impossible not to. If you think you aren't, it means you probably don't realize it.

snapguy · Jul 15, 2014

real not reel

Movie directors used to be real people, not film school grads who know nothing about anything they haven't seen on the screen. Olde time movie writers and directors and actors were hobos, working stiffs, delivery drivers, bread line waiters and the like. They swiped ideas from real life and real people and didn't need to steal from each other. Ditto with film cameramen -- most of them do Shot 12 or Sequence 92 or whatever is stored in their limited brain capacity. And the "films" look like crap.
Suggestion -- don't see anything filmed or directed by anyone who went to film school. That includes cornball Speigelbeagle and DoofusLukas who is getting richer churning out the same old, same old for a lifetime.

ntenny · Jul 15, 2014

Well, I thought that was a more interesting article than the usual wringing of hands about networks and photographs and Kids These Days. I'm not sure I'm qualified to draw a line between "good" and "drivel", but the basic category of "flashy stuff with a superficial sophistication" seems like it's real and much encouraged by the dynamics of social networking, for what it's worth.

Everything is derivative, of course, and I think it's a red herring to focus too much on that aspect of any cultural trend. It's easy to find examples in any art form of people who have taken a set of derivative genre conventions and subverted them to create something that breaks the genre mold---somewhere out there, I suppose there's some young-Turk filmmaker who's about to do that with the "Bayhem" style of overload, but I'm probably not their intended audience.

IMHO, the worthwhile distinction isn't between "derivative" and "original", but between "crutch" and "influence".

-NT

Mainecoonmaniac · Jul 15, 2014

Do any of you think that cinematics is used to prop up a week story line? I prefer a good story over eye candy any day.

Rick A · Jul 15, 2014

I mourn the loss of creativity and originality in Hollywierd. Everything today is remakes and ripoffs just to be able to use the most modern and up-to-date CG effects without thought to plot. I have been sorely disappointed in "The Hobbit" because it emphasizes visuals instead of story. I seriously dislike anything out for viewing these days.

jp498 · Jul 15, 2014

As much a I appreciate a good story in the film, I also like films that are heavier on the artistic side. Something like Metropolis or "Man with a movie camera" can tell a decent story with heavy duty imagery. Same goes for something like the Steve Mcqueen "Le Mans" movie, which very little plot and story but an intoxicating visual and sound experience. That was one-up'd with "Speed Tribe". Run Lola Run has a dead simple story, weak acting, but the music and confluence of events make it memorable. "Triumph of the will" must be respected NOT for it's story but for the quality of compositions and how it works as a whole.

David Brown · Jul 15, 2014

Everything today is crap. It was so much better when I was younger.

Who said that?

Us.

Our parents,

Our grandparents ...

cliveh · Jul 15, 2014

Watch any film by Andrei Tarkovsky and you will have faith restored.

Toffle · Jul 15, 2014

snapguy said:
Suggestion -- don't see anything filmed or directed by anyone who went to film school. That includes cornball Speigelbeagle and DoofusLukas who is getting richer churning out the same old, same old for a lifetime.

Name-calling is hardly necessary. It lowers the debate.

darkosaric · Jul 16, 2014

cliveh said:
Watch any film by Andrei Tarkovsky and you will have faith restored.

+1000

Recently I watched again The Mirror and Andrei Rublev for n-th time (I watched everything from Tarkovsky many many times).
Every time I watch something from Tarkovsky I start to think about definition of art, humanity, beauty, mystery... all in one. Every movie he made is a master peace.

cliveh · Jul 16, 2014

darkosaric said:
+1000

Recently I watched again The Mirror and Andrei Rublev for n-th time (I watched everything from Tarkovsky many many times).
Every time I watch something from Tarkovsky I start to think about definition of art, humanity, beauty, mystery... all in one. Every movie he made is a master peace.

Have you read his book "Sculpting in time"? Well worth a read.

removed account4 · Jul 16, 2014

snapguy said:
Movie directors used to be real people, not film school grads who know nothing about anything they haven't seen on the screen. Olde time movie writers and directors and actors were hobos, working stiffs, delivery drivers, bread line waiters and the like. They swiped ideas from real life and real people and didn't need to steal from each other. Ditto with film cameramen -- most of them do Shot 12 or Sequence 92 or whatever is stored in their limited brain capacity. And the "films" look like crap.
Suggestion -- don't see anything filmed or directed by anyone who went to film school. That includes cornball Speigelbeagle and DoofusLukas who is getting richer churning out the same old, same old for a lifetime.

this is why i am a fan of QT ..
he slaved in a video store
and then he broke his chains and has made great films.
i can'tsay anything bad about DL either

ntenny · Jul 16, 2014

As someone else said, the "kids these days" dimension isn't new. There have been self-indulgent films that used technical devices and audience manipulation as a creative crutch for a long time, probably as long as there have been films; those of us of a Certain Age may remember the shamelessly lowbrow disaster films of Irwin Allen, for instance, clearly as great a sinner against filmic intellectual purity as Bay is.

But!---don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Back in my longhair metalhead days in the 1980s, I remember having my mind blown by an article about rap by bassist Billy Sheehan, in which he basically said "listen to that synth bass, which the genre uses because it's mechanically tight and can do that resonant deep boom in your gut---now quit complaining about it and go find a way to make YOUR bass that tight and deep!"

Mutatis mutandis, there's a reason people use devices as creative crutches; it's because those devices have a certain predictable effect, and it should ALWAYS be possible to discard the "crutch" aspect but retain the technique. As a filmmaker, don't say "confusing fast shots are stupid"; note what happens when confusing fast shots are used heavily, and set that knowledge aside for the next time you need it (say, if the camera is taking the viewpoint of a drunk in a bar fight).

By the way, those who really don't like the flash-and-effects gestalt should take a look at the work of the "Dogme 95" filmmakers. Lars von Trier is the best known, and he's a jerk whom I think it's reasonable to write off for reasons either outside or inside his work, but the others have done some interesting stuff. I particularly liked Kristian Levring's _The King Is Alive_.

ObAPUG: I think the Dogme manifesto might require shooting on film. Does that make me on-topic?

-NT

darkosaric · Jul 16, 2014

cliveh said:
Have you read his book "Sculpting in time"? Well worth a read.

No. Putting on the list, thanks for info .

Kawaiithulhu · Jul 19, 2014

Any high risk, high payout environment will develop tools to gauge and mitigate that risk. Welcome to Hollywood. It's not evil, it's not soul sucking; Hollywood is just doing what any creature does to survive in a hostile environment, when something works, keep doing it.

"Bayhem" a creative crutch?

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