Three passages from Jamie Stuart‘s 12.28 Indiewire piece about “Why 2011 Marked a Shift In the History of Cinematography“:

(a) “2011 was the year in which the Arri Alexa, the first significant digital camera released by leading equipment developer Arri, was put to wide use. Three wildly different examples of the new camera can found in Drive, Hugo and Melancholia.

(b) “Somebody needs to slap Steven Spielberg in the face and tell him to wake up, because he cannot move forward as a filmmaker by holding so tightly to the past (he even wishes he could return to cutting on a Moviola). The roots of filmmaking are its language, not the technical medium. I love Spielberg, but his stubbornness is depressing me. He should be leading the way. Spielberg cannot move forward as a filmmaker by holding so tightly to the past.”

(c) “The first major digitally shot and projected feature I saw was David Fincher‘s Zodiac at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater in 2007. Shot by Harris Savides, Zodiac was actually designed for a film print release with digital as a minor component. The digital image was so clean and sharp, so alien, that it was almost a distraction.”

(d) “Now, digital is the new normal. This needs to be accepted. Movies will go on. The past will inspire the future. But the future will also need to stand on its own feet.”