Has Technology Ruined Filmmaking?

Let’s look back at some of the greatest films from the past ten years, what comes to mind? Now these probably change depending on your taste of film, style and a plethora of different reasons but when I attempt to look at what is the best film in the last ten years I think something along the lines of Inception by Christopher Nolan (2010), Avatar by James Cameron (2009) or End of Watch by David Ayer (2012). Now the reason why I like these films is they have an interesting storyline but they also have unsterilized technology to help change the way in which they tell their story in a wide variety of ways, Avatar waited years for technology to advance to a point which would allow them to produce the film they imagined, End of watch – one of my personal favourite films of all time used small cameras that were mounted to the actors, I feel if the film where to be made without that style of shot and cinematography it would have a completely different feel and may not even have as much affect as it did.

Another way technology has allowed and enabled filmmakers is by giving them the ability to not only tell their story but it has given them the ability to create even worlds that are able to be more immersive and take the audience on a journey, one of the most popular ways this has been done is through CGI or Computer-Generated Imagery one way we can see that CGI has helped change the film industry is with the amount of films use it, almost every film use some form of CGI whether it’s to remove a hair from am actor’s face or completely animate a character within a film, because of its wide range of abilities it able to be used to fix small imperfections in films that might not been noticeable on set.

Apart from making cool looking worlds but there is a technology advancement we take for granted and that is how filmmaking has been made more accessible, has filmmakers we don’t need to buy a camera then film and then pay to get it processed but rather now we can make a film with something a small as our phone, making film more accessible has not only made film a more immersive art form but now it is easier than ever before for someone to tell their story.

Let me know in the comments other ways technology has help make filmmaking easier or better.

Andrew Petropoulos.

References used in this post:

Video: Media Magic Entertainment (2009) 'Avatar Exclusive -Behind The Scenes (The Art of Performance Capture)' Youtube. United States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2_vB7zx_SQ

Image: Gyllencrazy (2018)

https://gyllencrazy.wordpress.com/page/8/

New York Film Academy (2017) 'The Evolution of Film Over Time — A Brief History.' NYFA. United States.

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/the-evolution-of-film-over-time-a-brief-history/

Image: Reńee, V. (2017) 'Pros and Cons of Making a film with your smartphone.' No Film School. United States.

https://nofilmschool.com/2017/08/pros-and-cons-making-film-your-smartphone

Huffington Post (2016) 'How CGI changed movies forever.' Huffington Post. Australia

https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/05/12/how-cgi-changed-movies-forever_a_21358758/