Cinematography is the art and craft of making motion pictures by capturing a story visually. It is different from the concept of film genres, although each genre often ends up adopting a particular style of cinematography. Sometimes, even different shots in the same feature may have been shot with different cinematography styles. Here are the five common styles.
Realistic style
Many of the films ever produced are shot in the realistic style. One of the objectives of the realistic style is to avoid drawing extra attention to the cinematography or camera work. The lighting sources are preferably natural, but the lighting techniques are cinematic. The shot-taking is typically objective without any extra effects or meaning attached. The camera is usually framed at eye-level and tends to reflects human behavior despite the tonality and genre of the film. Despite their grand canvases, a number of Christopher Nolan’s films as well as MCU films have regularly used the realistic style.
Documentary style
The typical sign of this style is the perceived lack of lighting. The frames give out the appearance of being shot on inexpensive video or CCTV cameras, and the shots usually appear un-staged. The directorial style also tends to combine on-and-off camera vignettes. A number of horror filmmakers have used this style in their production (especially in terms of “found” footage horror) and even a comedy sitcom like The Office has used the documentary style very effectively.
High-key style
The most cheerful of the styles, the high-key style of cinematography is characterized by lightness and brightness. The characters are typically well lit, and the shadows are only important for depth and dimension. Sitcoms, romantic comedies, cartoons and advertisements selling food and premium cosmetics usually employ this style. However, this style is not always easy to crack, and it requires careful planning and consideration for staying consistent throughout the runtime of the feature.
Expressionist style
This style, though not as voguish as it used to be, continues to make its presence felt in prestige projects. Strongly influenced by German expressionism in cinema, this style has films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Fritz Lang’s M (1931) and golden era Hollywood film noir as the canonical examples to its credit. Even in the cinema of India, this style found favor with directors like V Shantaram [Do Aankhen Baara Haath (1957)] and lensmen like the Mistry brothers (for a detailed appraisal of their style, read here). The goal of the expressionist style is to use light in a less subtle way so that the result is always moody and sombre. Any effect achieved in-camera or in editing can be considered expressionist, and filmmakers as diverse as David Lynch and Zack Snyder (300, Justice League) have used in-camera effects, double images, flashes, dissolves, alterations of shutter speed speed and frame rate, and color-based motifs to create the expressionist style across films of different genres and tonalities.
Hyper-stylized
In direct contrast to the realistic style, the objective of such cinematography is to present a very stylistic example of the film’s reality, more form than function. This kind of cinematography may or may not include cartoons, CGI or VFX. A Scanner Darkly is usually considered as the classic case of this particular brand of cinematography. A lot of Japanese anime, too, is highly stylized in its cinematography.
