moyie
Eugen RochkoI know 100% that people will argue with me over this, but I miss when movies were professionally lit, when actors were intentionally blocked, and when more than teal, orange and beige were allowed to be on the screen. The medium has something to do with it--film made a lot of these things fundamentally necessary--but I think it's more complex than just that. The last few years' movies are just not pleasant to look at, with very few exceptions, and the change occurred sometime around 2015.
Cassander
gudenau
Quentin Leonetti
Mike Sax
@pineywoozle ‘s #3WordNote@Gargron Interesting about the colors. I do miss the curated lighting and blocking That said I’ve seen quite a few actors IRL and maybe they’re just getting better at hiding how artificially they’re lit and positioned cause it’s been jarring every time LOL. (I used to live in Santa Fe and the place is littered with em)
swanksalot@Gargron also the sound staff seems to have all been fired - dialogue etc. hard to hear
Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦The ultimate "how could this ever leave post like this" movie is Dunkirk. But apparently Christopher Nolan had a reason to make the dialogue utterly impossible to hear. Or something.
@swanksalot @Gargron
@swanksalot @Gargron
The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉@osma @swanksalot @Gargron My grandfather on dad's side spent the latter years of his life complaining that "youngsters these days don't enunciate clearly" and "mumble all the time". Never once did it occur to him that two things had happened: (1) he was slowly going deaf; and (2) the cadences and emphases of everyday English had shifted (as they have done for millennia) so he was listening for the wrong speech patterns.
20 years from now, older generations will be making the same complaints. 🤷🏻♂️
Have you actually tried to listen to Tom Hardy speak through a fighter mask while the Spitfire is rumbling and music is played at top volume? :)
@ApostateEnglishman @swanksalot @Gargron
@ApostateEnglishman @swanksalot @Gargron
@osma @swanksalot @Gargron I personally don't recall missing any important dialogue in that movie, but then it didn't engage me much anyway, so perhaps I did miss whole chunks and not even realise?
But then I'm also British, so there's that... 🤔
Vincent 🌻🇪🇺 en 🌹☘️@Gargron You place that cutoff remarkably late. Otherwise, who do you expect to argue? I won’t
Money is the reason. Movies have become investment vehicles, and investors want safety. Thus aiming for the biggest audiences, and most people want slop. Not just the looks, the storylines, characters, anything, aren’t much better.
Am I too cynical? Think not
Raven667Just trying to collect my thoughts to see if there is anything there.
im going to agree that most movies are slop, and movie companies are just trying to make money, but that is how its always been, the old studio system was built on having new movies to show every week and most were formulaic prior to TV and streaming. Then after the censors were kicked out they could compete on novelty, but that was only a small percentage of films, most are straightforward schlock, sequals and genre exploitation. The film companies just want to sell tickets, if some artistic expression happens in the process thats just a bonus.
I think what is happening is that the expectations are changing because of home video streaming, if you want everyday stories you can get that at home, so movies are only supposed to be the most novel, most prestigious films, or the biggest crowd pleasers, whatever gets people out of their private homes and into theatres. Christopher Nolans sound mixing choices are novel even if they arent good for filmgoers. Streaming allows films with small audiences to find them over time, but films for theatres have to be popular to justify the investment, there just arent enough people getting their entertainment from theatres to justify the investment.
BettyCanRip@Gargron
I also miss when the actors didn’t narrate the plot for you.
I also miss when the actors didn’t narrate the plot for you.
Peace is Not A Fable 
@Gargron
No argument here ! 😎
No argument here ! 😎
@Gargron
Check out the GrandMaster! Scorsese had something to do with it and Samuel MF Jackson too ? 😂
I saw the screening at the Blue Whale in LA. It’s amazing no special effects what so ever except for the “train” sequence.
The director came out afterwards and cinematographer and spoke of how they used the last of the the film stock Fuji had at that time and had to switch but some how made it work.
I was blown away. I also went to other screening that same season. Interstellar which it was and others.
But the vitally of the film in that movie stood out for me.
I just recently got it on Blue Ray. I still can’t believe they didn’t use special effect ( computer generated) for the most part.
Your power of observation is golden 🕊
Michael Cook@Gargron Gaming went through a similar pallet in the early 2000s. I’m glad that passed.
And I know how you feel. It may be part of why I like animation so much, it hasn’t been hit so hard with browning. It’s so great when a movie has colors that really pop.
Yeah a movie about a guy trapped in the middle of the Sahar or Death Valley is going to be low on color. NY, LA, Minneapolis, other real cities have colors.
mini@foobarsoft @Gargron yeah, I don’t miss the 360/ps3 brown era of 3D games! I’m glad gaming has mostly moved on from it.
It’s amazing how much better things look with some actual brightness and colour :)
raphael@Gargron i recently saw a reasonably amply budgeted film’s fight scene without audio while a conversation was going on in the room.
i hadn’t been reminded of that ‘every frame a painting’ episode like that in a while. what a mess! no shot was there to communicate something about the altercation, angles jumping all over the place, none of them doing anything to make movement and position apparent… we can talk about changes in fashion all day, but that was just not good craft.
ethan daniel@Gargron if you haven’t seen ‘The Eight Mountains’ by Groeningen you should. Came out in 2022, and gave me a lot of hope about what films can create these days. Another standout is ‘Happy as Lazzaro’ by Rohrwacher in 2018, unusual in plot and beautiful cinematography.
Owen 🇦🇺@Gargron The obsession with HDR — super dark scenes to mimic realism in light levels is also annoying. It’s more difficult to enjoy what you’re watching if you’re struggling to see what’s even on the screen. I get that in real life, something might be happening in pitch black conditions but I think for cinema it’s still better to just give the suggestion of darkness rather than the complete actuality of it. 🤷♂️
The Stage Rabbit (he/him)
Eljorgeabides
rainynight65@vanitalo @Gargron it's like the series Silo. Yes, I get it, they're in a concrete bunker hundred of metres below ground level. Cool. Now put up some ambient lighting so that I can actually make out what the shit is going on on-screen.
Unfortunately, artificially dark scenes are also often used to conceal bad VFX.
BashStKid
Pare@vanitalo @Gargron I did watch 'Young Frankenstein' a couple of weeks ago, and laughed out loud because in one scene it is supposed to be quite dark, and the characters have a lit candle to light their way.
Of course the candle casts shadow because of the stage lights. Nobody comments, and while it's a comedy film, the supposed darkness is very clear to the viewer.
Ham on WryI can’t argue with you about this because you’re 100% right.
Marius Meyer@Gargron I don't know what you mean.
ZephyrXero@Gargron everything getting soft lighting so they can make decisions in post rather than committing on set is a scourge on cinematography
Courtney@Gargron the combo of filming/mastering/editing/projecting on digital, digital color grading, and home streaming has really tanked the color spectrum we see in most films.
@Gargron this video covers a lot of the issue https://youtu.be/yN0H_WfWOp4?si=GKnFGC77OxhGkRob
The Biggest Mistake in the History of Hollywood
Glyph
contranym
Darren du Nord@Gargron La La Land was the last great movie. There, I said it.
jeremy // making Star Spark@Gargron No, no, you’re right.
Zimmie@Gargron It seems to me like there are about as many well-lit, well-graded movies as there have always been, but that there are more movies overall than there ever have been in the past. A lot of movies—even from big studios—are basically shovelware, yes. A lot of really good production and post techs have gone to prestige TV rather than movies, yes. Still, there have been tons of expertly-produced movies in the last decade.
Mason Loring Bliss@Gargron The thing that bothers me the most is the sound quality. Older things took pains to be audible. Modern stuff, half the time I can't understand what they're saying. But it's not my ears. I go back and listen to older stuff, and it's still clear.
Mim54
Gryphon Myers@Gargron on the topic of movies that look good: The Ballad of Narayama (1958) 🤌
Chris 🦑@Gargron nothing to argue here. The movie industry right now is a noob photographer who thinks "great, with that dynamic range I don't even have to expose correctly anymore". And that's what they are literally doing.
When has "I don't know if this scene will be in daylight or night time right now, let's shoot anyway and fix it in post" became a thing?
Elle@Gargron I know where you're coming from and partly share the sentiment myself, but I can assure you there are MANY great films being made today! One just have to look further than Hollywood's blockbusters or Netflix recommendations. Let's support the artists making that happen :)
Feyter
BSM (sw.s) 🇨🇭@Gargron Die Film-Industrie ist aber auch immer ein Spiegel der Gesellschaft. Seit einigen Jahren gibt es kaum mehr Komödien.
Die Filme sind sehr häufig düster, dunkel, dystopisch und auch immer wieder so seicht, dass das Meditieren einer Schnittblume fast schon als spannend bezeichnet werden kann.
Ja, die Krisen, Kriege, Konflikte machen etwas mit den Menschen - dies sehen wir heute auf den Leinwänden. Leider!
Als Gesellschaft müsste uns dies zu denken geben.
Dan Patch@Gargron I agree with you that this trend exists and is swallowing up lots of movies, but there is some relief in the wide-ranging supply. I went looking just for a still from "Sinners", which I think is a fine example against that trend, but I found a dozen more to boot.
for your consideration:
https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-film-cinematography-2025/
Micheline Andresa@Gargron I totally agree. Nowadays, it feels like movies are afraid of real shadows and vibrant colors. Everything has turned into a gray, digital mush to accommodate streaming and CGI, but we lost the soul of cinematography in the process. Older films had a texture and depth that today's color grading algorithms simply cannot replicate.
Ambient Sponge@Gargron I will agree with you 100% on this. There is so much about modern movies that I hate. The lighting is dreadful a lot of the time. It's like it's a lost art. Also, sound mixing is bloody terrible.
Alex o_O@Gargron watched the 1955 Austrian movie Sissi the other day, not a masterpiece by any means but good god it’s nice to have natural (though I suppose in reality it was anything but natural) lighting and colours.
That said, there are plenty of beautiful looking movies made today too, just not the norm.
Sean Bala@Gargron RE: Blocking in Film - you are reminding me of director Mike Nichols (The Graduate, The Birdcage). He and his stage partner Elaine May were some of the earliest improve comedians in the US. His films were meticulously acted because the casts would rehearse the films like a play for weeks before filming. That allowed them to inhabit their roles, have natural reactions, and to get the blocking just right.
Daniel
Eoin O'Beara@Gargron I agree, mainly American movies.
Fabien
Peter Brett@fabienmarry @Gargron Speaking of TV, the cinematography (and especially blocking) in ‘Andor’ is absolutely superb
Robert Belton@Gargron
"90% of everything is crud" - Sturgeon
You don't like the aesthetic, but unfair to imply it's 'unprofessional'.
Maybe you need to look elsewhere besides Hollywood. Digital production and distribution has opened up filmmaking to so many talents that couldn't afford it previously. Drama aside, nature photography and documentary can be better quality now.
The most interesting drama I've seen is no-budget Japanese films. "One Cut of the Dead", "River", "Beyond the Infinite 2 mins".
Hanja
gorfeld 
cubeos@Gargron You should watch "One Battle after another". Anderson does some clever tricks with color grading and blocking. The way he shows how the main character is lost is by putting him in awkward places. The color grading encodes the situation the characters are in. And he shot most of the film using VistaVision cameras and film material. It shows.
nathan@Gargron if you understand french, I recommend this video explaining why color has disappeared since beggining of 2000s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTCVYCdWSFY
TLDR: 9/11 drama influence + beggining of filming in numeric.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTCVYCdWSFY
TLDR: 9/11 drama influence + beggining of filming in numeric.
Pourquoi les couleurs ont disparu au cinéma
Wenzel Massag@Gargron afaik a lot of it is due to actors aging and every larger soft boxes hiding their wrinkles. If only there was a solution to this… like showing that humans age and that is ok, maybe?
Izzy 
Stephen WenzelAbsolutely right. The color palette to me seems murkier since the advent of digital recording and color post-processing to set entire scene "feel".
ExperiencersInternational 
🇵🇸@Gargron I know someone who complains a bit about the whole lighting thing. I don't really personally like things being dark either, I've always liked weird filters and things being vibrant.
I just prefer older films though in general, I think 80s-00s were the best decades
I just prefer older films though in general, I think 80s-00s were the best decades