@goanna Yes, editing is really, really key.

One of the GH2 users on asked for some feedback on the editing for his 8 minute short (and of course I'm sure he'd love it if anyone from here that is also on there weighed in on it).

After he asked me to give "RAW" feedback on the editing, I wrote something that somewhat resembled a verbal EDL with commentary... about 2,000 words worth. Now, that may have been completely excessive, but I think it gives a good idea of how much there is to be done with something like that, even in an 8 minute narrative film with relatively few cuts.

@Mirrorkisser Very much agreed. Apropos of our discussion last night, I'm trying to remember an article my father referenced from a photographic journal years ago where several exceedingly talented photographer were given Polaroid cameras and tasked with getting artistic shots with them, before coming back with images that blew away what the amateurs attained with their SLRs.

And then of course I think back to what an old tech friend of mine from Santa Barbara, Jamie, said about the medium format camera he got as a kid at Woodstock. When he went to college for photography later on, still using the same old camera and getting weird looks from the more affluent students sporting modern SLRs, the professor singled him out during the opening lecture as being likely to succeed - because he recognized the camera as the same one he had given Jamie when Jamie was a child and could infer that Jamie had refined has craft with that camera the whole time instead of looking to new technology to solve his photographic challenges.

@mpgxscvd "In my opinion if you can't shoot RAW in camera then you should get the image as close to its final state as possible in camera."

I will agree and add that manipulations that are done in-camera with camera settings and lenses/filters manipulate the uncompressed image in higher bit depth, which gives better quality compared to similar manipulations on the heavily compressed image in post processing.

If the image will be graded in post production it might be best to try to aim for the widest gradability using in-camera, lens and filter settings when shooting using Film mode and WB settings creatively. It is easy to load one RAW image into RAW editor and see what kind of flexibility is available in the camera before the image is compressed and fixed to certain values.

@Mirrorkisser Very much agreed. To expand my father's earlier quote from last night, he said that great artists should have tools of such transparency that what we see in their work is their vision and creativity conveyed with deceptive effortlessness and grace.

I just realized I haven't actually really addressed the original topic.

"Cinematic" is descriptive of the relationship between what the viewer experiences when they encounter a given clip/angle/lighting approach/etc. vs what they experience when they encounter the baseline they had established from watching movies they felt positively towards in the past. The closer it gets to that experience (or what the viewer considers to be amplified version of that experience) the more cinematic it is.

Thus it is both highly subjective and a constantly moving and evolving target. One of the keys to creating what I consider to be a cinematic experience (which by my previous definition may not translate to others) is that all aspects of the work consistently serve the intended experience, with nothing running contrary to that (and few things even being entirely neutral in regards to it).

If the tone of the movie is supposed to feel natural and improvised, artificial lighting should never be too obvious. If the movie is highly dramatic, then special attention should be placed on the mise-en-scène (how things are composed within the frame). The editing should be fluid by default, or highly deliberate when it is jagged or agitated (even then having what appears to be an intentional rhythm, even if it is a very intricate one).

If the technical aspects are aligned so as to bring you closer to the film, rather than to let your mind wander or disconnect, then the material can often be considered cinematic. When the technical aspects distract from what I am watching, then it is not cinematic.

Good morning ! Thank very much indeed to you all again for the very valuable inputs Maybe "filmlike" is more correct. Because I still think that the film look is the reference for movies. The GH2's shots that I have seen are very very good in terms of resolution, for instance. Filmlike ? I do not know ... it's different. Have you ever seen a filmlike video ? in which occasion ? I would like to add that I have seen highly compressed versions of movies shot on film. High definition ? not at all. Filmlike ? absolutely. Therefore it could not be a problem of resolution in the end. Thanks and regards, gino

Gino, you are trying to grasp one very wide and elusive subject. Previous posters have tried their best to describe it, some from technical and others from some other formal or narrative or artistic aspect. It's all true (well, most of it) in the same time.

General audio and visual atmosphere, consisted of elements such as photography (static and temporal), music, acting, editing etc. etc. and how those elements correlate is what makes us as viewers emotionally engaged towards the 'the story', the characters and their motivations, situations and outcomes. And that is cinema. Film. Cinematic or filmlike can be the term that describes some form that is not immanently film, but that has some, or all of it's qualities. To put it this way, you might shoot your backyard and dogs and flowers with 35mm film 100kW of light with best DoP and Sound, and it probably would look cinematic. But would that be cinema? On the other hand, there are many decent films shot on much worse cameras than GH2 for example, with cheap lighting and not so amazing and expensive gear.

"Cinematic" is an elusive term whose meanings slip and slide, and could point to everything and yet nothing. In today's post-structuralist, pluralistic world, "cinematic" could refer to anything from the qualities first associated with silent movies, to a short DIY clip recorded at this time with the iphone. So, given such diversity, what is "cinematic": Story? Structuralist elements like plot, cinematography, editing, use of music and sound? Today, any clip that has two black bars on top and bottom passes itself off as cinematic, but is it? :) Is a grainy picture cinematic? Must "cinematic" be of a certain aspect ratio, and even then must it always be 16:9?

What i find sad and ironic is that film has come to the end of its life, but digital is trying its best to simulate its properties. We have software that adds grain to digital files, trying to create a certain texture, but what's the point of it all? Reminds me of what an old pro used to say, "if you have $10, 000, just make a $10,000 film. Don't pretend otherwise."

@lumiere61 No, there is not an inherent disadvantage in having a higher resolution sensor - the thing that makes the difference is how it handles that resolution (and in the case of the GH2, how it handles the drop in resolution from the sensor to the output). A smaller pixel pitch can mean more ISO noise, but that is not what you are talking about.

The R3D Epic shoots 5K horizontally (roughly the same starting resolution as the GH2 stills in 16:9 which is 4976 pixels in JPEG output) and is one of the preferred cameras for digital cinema. Hugo (which you described as maybe too detailed) was shot with a 2.5K Arri Alexa which has a soft filter built in - it looked detailed because they wanted it to, not as a byproduct of the camera. So it's not a question of the starting resolution being a problem. I mean, some other cameras handle the down-conversion poorly, and that is a problem for them but that's not he issue with any of the 3 mentioned so far. Hugo looked sharp because they wanted

Digital theaters (excluding IMAX, etc.) are generally based on 2K and 4K. Film is sometimes scanned at 2K and sometimes at 4K. RED movies are generally shot at 4K and above, and sometimes (like The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo - US Version) they are screened in 4K. So yes, the resolution does sometimes get used.

The GH2 has a tendency towards producing images that are both sharp and contrasty - to make it look more like film you can do some of the things I mentioned earlier. But you were on to something earlier when you said it was not the resolution that was the issue. The look you are going for is largely (but not completely) independent of the resolution.

Hmm, 'cinematic' huh? How about when all the technical and creative aspects of motion picture storytelling combine to temporarily induce the audience to willingly suspend their disbelief and be engrossed by the experience (good or bad :p)

Thank you very much again ! Great product indeed this GH2 ... I read that in some ways it could be even better (image quality wise) than Panasonic af100 camcorder, a big achievement indeed. Kind regards, gino

@goanna +1. Anything worth watching multiple times is "cinematic" to me.

These lofty references to writing, acting, set, etc., etc., etc. that always seem to crop up in these discussions do not address the power of a still frame from a film that can retain much of the impact one would get from seeing the scene in motion and fully in context. I think these other issues get pulled in when the folks trying to contribute simply don't know or can't put into words what affects their perception. They mostly add noise.

I'm not talking down at anyone, just acknowledging the difficulty even creative people have with accurate, useful articulation of complex, often emotionally-charged, intangible issues. That said, I think it's most useful here and other shooter-oriented discussions to keep to technical issues surrounding light, lens and how the interaction between these two things are captured, interpreted (technically and emotionally) and manipulated.

edit: with this in mind, "cinematic" to me, I would reserve for imagery that immediately looks better (more pleasing, more impressive, prettier, more dynamic...more...I know, another broad term) than the same scene with the naked eye. More than merely representative. More than merely a record. Every successful example I see I see as a different flavor satisfying that expectation (16mm, S16mm, 35mm, 35mm-Ana, 65mm, DSLR, etc.) ideally, with as many differences between each interpretation as there are similarities.

The most basic set of traits that need to be present when the picture moves, for me, are 24fps + 1/2 interval shutter speed where deviations from this are okay for slow-mo or select, action-oriented techniques that don't completely wreck the flow of the surrounding footage.

I hate to be anyone's pedantic Uncle Goanna here, but words matter and we have to agree on what were talking about.

Here are some hypernymic adjectives:

Childlike (pertaining to the behaviour of children); ecclesiastical (of the church); maritime (of the sea).

..and "Cinematic," (of the cinema).

Language changes with its usage and is defined by it. We are seeing the birth on this site of a new meaning of, Cinematic.

Until now there have only been two definitions/usages of the word:

• Pertaining to the cinema industry. "They manufacture cinematic cranes."
• Imagery evoking a movie-like aesthetic. "The sun rose over the cold Albuquerque morning with a cinematic foreboding."

The new usage of motion picture looking cinematic still strikes some of us native English speakers as a tautology.

"The film looked cinematic" is indeed meaningful when a film critic is saying it, is using imagery. We get the nuance. As in, "he is a very painterly artist."

On the other hand, if the farrier says, "your horse looks equine", he either fancies himself as a horse poet or has been kicked in the head by one.

Same for the absurd, "your child looks childlike," whereas "your grandmother looks childlike" is fine by everybody.

(How's my grammar lesson going? Keeping up, lost, distracted or already thought up a reply?)

OK so we're now all calling a video's look something "cinematic", whereas once, if you'd told Orson Welles his film looked cinematic, he'd have given you his best cinematic stare and sent for the studio nurse.

It's interesting to see how others are coping with using the word differently.

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