Cinematography: Theory and Practice, 4th Edition

01writing with motion

WRITING WITH MOTION

Filmmaking is about telling stories visually. The cinematography of a film is central to this. The word cinematography is from the Greek roots kìnema “movement” and, gràphein “to write.” Cinematography is more than just photography—more than just recording what is in front of the camera; it is the process of taking ideas, words, actions, emotional subtext, tone, and all other forms of nonverbal communication and rendering them in visual terms. Cinematic technique is the entire range of methods and crafts that we use to add layers of meaning and subtext to the “content” of the film—the actors, sets, dialog, and action. Figure 1.1 illustrates this—it could have been just a shot of a guy holding a skull, ...