Ignatiy Vishnevetsky talks about The Social Network in3D, Transformers, and we end with some Quick Questions
The following is a continuation of my hour-long chat with the new co-host of “At the Movies,” 24-year-old Ignatiy Vishnevetsky. After having covered subjects concerning his new job and his cinephile background, I wanted to delve into his brain’s more analytical corners while continuing to find out what impressed Roger Ebert enough to give Vishnevetsky one of the best jobs in the movies. Sans a somewhat lengthy discussion about what Chicago theater has the most comfortable seats, the following is a full dive into the wisdom of the 24-year-old co-host who is on his way to being one of the most recognized film critics in America. The following includes theories about why the seventh Saw movie might be one of the better films to use 3D, why The Social Network might have looked good in 3D, Michael Bay’s neuroses, and much more.
CLICK HERE to read Part 1 of the interview with Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
I was curious about what your thoughts on film school were. Do you think it just wasn’t for you or do you think it’s better to study film by simply watching movies in a more home video approach?
It’s different for every person. My own opinion, which could very well be wrong, is that if you want to direct a film, you should … take something else, medicine, law, literature. There are a few great directors that come out of film schools. And they usually come out of the same bunch of film schools. The odd thing about directing as compared to everyone else [working on the film], is that everyone else has to be professional. I think directors sort of have to be amateurs. Whereas you can’t just be a doctor. You can’t just load film into a camera without ever having touched a camera before. It’s not going to work if you’re not fully trained in it, or fully educated in that regard. On the other hand, I think, this is my perspective as a critic, is that maybe the key to directing is not to believe that you’re a professional. I think that people who tell you how something should be directed are wrong. There is no right way that a movie should be made. And the “right” ways still serve a bad movie, or one that is fairly boring. I think a director should always be going into the unknown, and probably have a good grounding in things other than film. When you’re making films, you’re ultimately engaging with all of history and culture. Ultimately, as a director, you should be worried about things that are more important than whether or not a shot is in focus, or if a boom mic is visible. There are more important issues in film. I think that film schools are very good for particular things. But I don’t know if you can really teach people to be filmmakers. Film school teaches people about lighting, but they don’t teach you about light. I think that’s what it ultimately comes down to. That sense of experience in the world is something that you get somewhere else.
Did you have any hands-on film work at Columbia College Chicago?
I did production, I shot 16mm shorts. I shot films after that as well.
Roger Ebert has been very outspoken on 3D. I was wondering what your thoughts were.
I think 3D is a whole world of possibility that people are not taking advantage of. I think there is a lot that can be done with 3D, and I don’t think anyone is doing anything with it. There’s so much that can really be done with 3D. I don’t subscribe to the notion that movies are just two-dimensional images with sound. I’m of the idea that cinema is something greater than movies. It’s a whole way of looking at the world, and kind of absorbing, interacting with life and history. Movies will change. The forms will mutate. But ultimately, cinema is something else. 3D has been largely disappointing. You see occasional really interesting uses of it, but will actually be brief and fleeting. You know what actually had fairly good use of 3D that wasn’t all that great, was Saw 3D .
I believe that I had the only positive review. It’s better than any of the other Saw movies. It’s by no means sophisticated 3D, but it actually makes fairly good use of the medium. Possibly because it’s actually shot on real physical sets. Almost all 3D movies you see nowadays are made on a computer. But they actually built most of the sets, and physically shot on the set to see what advantage they could take of the 3D camera. You know, The Green Hornet makes really interesting use of 3D. I think [Gondry] makes very interesting use of 3D during dissolves, which, first of all, you don’t really see dissolves in movies anymore. But he makes an almost gorgeous use of 3D during dissolves.
So much can be done if you have a depth of field with 3D. But no one seems to be really doing it. For example, rack focus is really weird in 3D. And a little pointless to have this shallow depth of field. So I’m surprised that more people aren’t shooting in really, really deep focus in 3D. Things like that are where you can take advantage of the best effect.
The thing is, people who are working directly in 3D, I don’t think they’re really doing their … like Avatar doesn’t really look that good. I don’t think it looks terribly different in 2D than it does in 3D.
I saw it on DVD later. The interesting ingredient for them is just a bunch of picture postcard effects. There’s maybe a shot through the glass in a door, that looks really great. It’s really crisp, and has this depth of field. For a fleeting second, you can see what 3D can do. Then it just goes back to as if [James Cameron] was making a movie in 2D, it just happens to be 3D. Which is how everyone is still approaching it. It’s not a huge difference.
You know what I would have loved to have seen in 3D? The Social Network . I wish that movie was in 3D. It does have a fairly crisp look to it, and I feel like that would work very well in 3D. I think that so much of it is kind of about building this sense of place in time, this kind of milieu that Zuckerberg is festering in. That movie would have worked better in 3D than Tron: Legacy , which oddly enough opens up with a thirty-minute David Fincher imitation.
Yes, it’s exactly the same color palette, until they travel within, and get inside of their new age-y father issues in the computer universe.
I kind of like the fact that Tron: Legacy is this weird, Frankenstein of a film. There’s 2D, and then 3D. It’s like part sound features, from the very transition where there will be some sound. In movies from the early 30’s or the late 20’s, you have this weird overlap where part of the silent aesthetics that were thrown out, but still survived. So you’d have inter-titles, but there’s sound, or color tinting, which totally disappeared in the sound era. But there are some color tint in early talkies.
I don’t know. 3D is such a very different beast. First of all, you don’t need to put on headphones to hear sound in a movie. So much of film is directly connected to how movies are actually watched, and how they are experienced. For example, cinema owes so much to the fact that it is supposed to be shown to a stationery audience. Film would not have developed the way it has if it wasn’t for the fact that people are seated, and looking at the screen. So, cinema kind of invented the captive audience. And then the fact that people have to put on glasses is always going to hinder 3D, or making it feel special. But you can’t predict the future, but maybe I’m wrong.
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