American Cinematographer - September 2000 - 178

there

on

the

screen.

Pardon

me

for being

certain of my own experience and taste,
but a background in electronics or an Ivy

League marketing degree does not a
photography make - nor
does the ability to spout self-important
and baseless claims that something is
director of

Into the

Digital Breach

"inevitable." Their failure to acknowl¬

edge film and digital as entirely distinct

by Richard Crudo, ASC

When I was in firstgrade, my parents
took

me

to the 1964 World's Fair at

New York's

acts of

deception are no less immoral
as destructive. Propped up by
the most irresponsible journalism this
side of the political beat, they are doing
and

just

Flushing Meadow Park.
vividly recall the overwhelming
sense of optimism that pervaded the
grounds, the feeling that things were
moving fast and a perpetually better
future was the flip of a switch away. The
spare-no-expense philosophy and James
Bond-meets-the-space-age gadgetry of
the attending corporations encouraged a
weird euphoria that made us all believe
that no matter which direction society
chose, the glossy technology they were
selling would be the solution to every
problem.
Well, if the litany of human
events played out over the ensuing 36
years isn't proof of the astounding silli¬
ness behind the fair's big fib, then I
suggest you take a quick flight around
the neighborhood by way of your NASAdesigned personal jet pack (circa 1970, of
course). In my defense, the majority of
adults were fooled by the hyperbole
fronting the essential hollowness. And it
is this fact above all that parallels the
profoundly disturbing situation that faces
cinematographers today.
The outrageous claims made by

not the new digital devices that are
being rushed to market will allow us to
at least equal if not surpass the best of
what we already put on screen.
This shaking-out process can be

the multinationals of 1964

viewed

I

can

still

were

enabled

massive

disservice

that, if left
unchecked, could result in a serious

a

degradation of our craft.
The entire issue revolves around
how

changing business will ulti¬
mately relate to the long-established
standards of cinematographic excel¬
lence
and more specifically, whether
our

-

Right
has

now,

digital

long way
to go in measuring
up to celluloid
as a

a

mode of

both capture

and

delivery.
or

as a war,

with truth

as

the first

casualty. Many of the men and women
at the forefront of the "digital revolution"
are merely salespeople who think they
know what's best for us, but they really

facturers and vendors of

alarming need for education across the
industry. I've lost count of how many

new

cinema

technologies have sharpened this tactic
with some outrageous claims about their
products. While we might accept this for
common advertising, in the context of
advancing an art form these calculated
September 2000

matters: their own.

Exacerbating matters is the fact
exceptions, the trade press
has played directly into the manufactur¬
ers' hands. The uninformed posture of
most of the writing from the trenches is
baffling when facts are only a phone call
away. While dis- and misinformation are
hurtful enough when picked up by the
mainstream media, trade pieces -
which invariably conclude that "film is
dead"
are even more damaging,
especially because undiscriminating
that with few

executive decision-makers often look to
these

questionable sources for justifica¬
Objective, unbiased, impartial news
seems to have become a quaint notion in
the face of a widespread effort to dumb
down cinematography. The reasons for
this are incomprehensible, and the most
insistent proselytizers, like the legion of
manufacturers' yes-men, are generally
the least qualified to comment on the
situation. Witness the blatantly anti¬
film/pro-digital agenda of so many
reporters - which is both amusing and
incredible, given the fact that they have
virtually no practical experience with
cinema. Cast in this fashion, it's easy to
see that much of what these people are
publishing is not journalism - it's
tion.

propaganda.
Then

again, who's kidding whom?
everything boils down to money,
vigilance is required to ensure that

do not. Their unanimous lack of any
substantive creative resume would be

When

comical if it didn't indicate such

art

seminars

and

an

I've
manufacturer's

demonstrations

attended in which

a

reason

-

overenthused
public-relations
machines and a drowsily complicit press.
The flacks simply repeated their lies loud
and hard until they became accepted as
facts by an unsuspecting populace. A
stroll down the aisle of any recent indus¬
try trade show would indicate that manu¬
by

176

mediums underscores the main

why cinematographers will always
reserve the right to recognize the only
aesthetic and technical judgment that

representative is bent on convincing me
I'm seeing something that is plainly not

extra

doesn't lose out. The advancements

of the past

few years have come at a
and volume that the cameramen of
the studio era could never have imagined
over an entire career. Consequently,
many of the long-standing rules have
pace

Continued on page 175
American Cinematographer - September 2000

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