Gravity and the case for awarding Visual Imaging and Stereography

Alfonso Cuar ns outer space spectacle Gravity is being heralded in some quarters as a cinematic landmark on par with the shock of the Lumi re brothers train hurtling toward the screen and the inventive film grammar in Citizen Kane (whose long tracking shots are antecedent of Cuar ns signature takes).

It will justifiably be lauded during awards season not least in visual effects and cinematography. Yet if ever there was a work which renders the boundaries between those disciplines indistinguishable, this is it.

Just how much of its visual richness originates in a computer, and how much from traditional cinematography? Gravity is not unique in this regard, though its closer proximity to realism than, say, Avatar or The Lord of the Rings, brings the question to the fore.

Twenty years ago what we did, along with every other facility, was termed post production, declares William Sargant, co-founder and CEO of Framestore, the lead visual effects house on Gravity. Now that term is no longer relevant. What we do is digital production.

Facilities like Framestore, he adds, become an essential element of storytelling.. we are embedded right at the start in pre-vis and production design solving problems.

Much of Gravity was shot in a 10ft x 10ft space rigged with over 4000 LED bulbs for cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to create the lighting effects. But pre-visualisation and rendering were just as important to the final image as the material shot in-camera.

Emmanuel spent one week a month over the best part of a year pre-planning the lighting with our artists, explains Sargant. He had no problem conceptualising that a virtual sun was one of his light sources, or in using the light reflected off the earth. He is still using a director of photographys traditional craft skills to frame and light a scene, but he has a different set of people on his team helping to enhance the photography.

Is it possible in such cases to distinguish, in the final image, the work of cinematographers from pre-viz artists, animators and crews of virtual light technicians?

Indeed Howard Koch, who was until July this year, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has suggested that this type of work be recognised in a new Oscar category of Visual Imaging.

Thats not to denigrate the work of the cinematographer whose eye remains essential to creating and maintaining the look from concept to screen.

With digital capture we have been given a completely different set of tools, trading physical lab processes for computer-driven techniques, creating possibilities for the image to be pushed any way we wish in post, says revered cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.

He co-founded the Global Cinematography Institute(GCI) with the intent of transforming directors of photography into directors of imagery.

In the GCI newsletter he writes, In a time when film is disappearing fast and digital is making progress in image quality improvement, it has become important for cinematographers to master these new tools.

Professionals taking Zsigmonds course in Expanded Cinematography are trained in both live and virtual cinematography and should be just as versed in film as with the artistic visual side of video games .

The other essential element to Gravity is 3D, without which it is doubtful if the story, which gives the audience a sense of being suspensed in orbit, would have the same impact.

Gravity joins a growing body of films, from PINA to Hugo and Life of Pi, in which stereography has been made inclusive to the filmmaking process, giving weight to the argument that when used well, 3D can enhance storytelling.

These select films are also drawing positive reviews from critics who until now have given stereography a glancing mention at best. The latest to receive acclaim is Jean-Pierre Jenuets The Young And Prodigious TS Spivet which prompted Varietys Jay Weissberg to declare, Not since Hugo has three-dimensionality been used so inventively and Screen Daily to judge the films 3D redolent and an unusual joy .

Jonathan Holland for The Hollywood Reporter wrote of Spivet, The films greatest achievement is in the accomplished 3D treatment.

Stereographers are adament that no matter how good a 2D-3D conversion - and Gravitys 3D was largely added in post - it cannot achieve the same degree of emotional involvement as a native shoot.

3D is not just hitting a button in post, says Demetri Portelli, Spivets stereographer. It is something discussed, planned and played with and it is very creative.

"3D films have quite rightly received a lot of bad press," Chris Parks, stereographic supervisor on Gravity told The Hollywood Reporter. "The main thing I hope the audience will take away from Gravity is that good 3D can definitely enhance the experience.

With that in mind, should awards bodies consider introducing two new craft categories? One for visual imaging, and another for stereography? If so, the Oscar runners for 2014 would see an incredible bake-off between Parks, Portelli and The Great Gatsbys Alonso Homs.

Stereography and virtual imagery are at the nexus of where technology and creativity meet, a theme which is at the core of the IBC experience.

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