Cinematographer or director of Photography

Cinematographer or director of Photography:

If the screenwriter is the author of what happens and the director is the author of how the scenes go together, then the director of photography is the author of how individual shots look: how much light or dark there is, how much of the screen will be filled and how much will be empty, and the like. The director and cinematographer work hand in hand to create what you see onscreen and the way it affects you.

Cinematography tells you where to look and what to think about what you see there. In the beginning, filmmakers would simply point the camera at people and start filming, because the very idea that something had been filmed was enough. Toward the end of the silent era, cinematography was raised to a high art that many of the DoP's inteviewed think will never be surpassed, because the introduction of sound took away from the main visual element of the film. The second great awakening of photographic art was, according to these geniuses, the post-World War II film noir cycle, where the brilliant composition of light and shadows became a character almost as important as the ones doing the talking. They almost unanimously believe that the coming of color detracted yet again from the art, and point to several sequences from films like Night of the Hunter to show the beauty of black and white photography that cannot be recreated in color.