Perspectives on Filmmaking, ep 5 – Is Technology Enabling or Preventing Creativity?

by Nino LeitnerOctober 23^rd, 2017

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cinema5D and Olympus Europe are proud to present the 5th out of six episodes of Perspectives on Filmmaking: a discussion between leading filmmakers who endorse working with compact tools in their film productions. This time: is too much technology enabling or preventing creativity?

In case you missed the first episode, please watch it by clicking here, the 2nd one here, the 3rd one here and the 4th one here.

Does too much technology prevent us from doing things?

We start off this segment by talking about how overwhelmingly overused some pieces of technology are in filmmaking when they come out – Steve Won mentions the omnipresence of sliders when they were first released.

Janne Amunet and Florian Lein mention how limitations actually make you better. As Janne points out, when advanced technology becomes available to everyone in the future, the only thing that will make you stand out from the rest will be your skills.

I threw in how more equipment actually slows you down, and how more gear often means shooting less and missing more opportunities to produce content. Smaller cameras are definitely more versatile in terms of how fast they can be deployed and where you can shoot.

Noaz Deshe points out how larger crews and bigger resources make you slow – unless you move onto REALLY big sets where also big cameras can float around. Florian adds that the same is true for post production: a lot of people neglect it and don’t see how heavier files slow everything down massively, often without any additional benefit for those kinds of productions.

Janne mentions the importance of having a good plan when shooting: limitations and proper planning can actually make you much more creative, and help you build a film language.

“If you have a plan, you can improvise.”

Steve Won mentions his experience with shooting on film in film school, and how much it forced him to plan a shoot meticulously.

Stay tuned for the next and final segment of Perspectives on Filmmaking coming next week, where we will discuss the future of filmmaking technology and the future of each of the guest filmmakers at the table.