The term "cinematic look" is associated to aesthetics, be it a beautiful bokeh, a film (analogue) like rendering, a flamboyant colour reproduction, and the list goes on. We are even using "cinematic" to describe our work in still shot photography. But what precisely is "cinematic" ?
I consider the word "cinema" to be a collective effort from a lot of people: camera people, sound people, design people, light people, writing people, post processing people, logistic people, I'm trying to be gender unbiased and politically neutral so on and so forth. Anyhow, it's fair to say achieving a "cinematic look" would require quite a lot of work.
I'm a home made videographer, wouldn't even call myself a cinematographer. I lack the resources such as the skill the money and the knowledge, so obviously I cannot replicate the full glamour of a motion picture. But is it possible to minimise the required efforts and still get a pinch of that cinematic feel ? The answer is the Anamorphic lens. The stretched image made by the anamorphic reminds me of the theatrical experience I've had in the past, regardless of the screen size I'm viewing now at home.
So the de-squeezed format, does in fact, contributes to "cinematic look", and rather largely too I would say. Could the same squished format apply in still shot photography ? Wouldn't it be similar to the Hasselblad Xpan ? I think so, but something still doesn't feel quite right, you wouldn't describe an image taken by the Xpan to be "cinematic". So what gives ?
From a layman's POV, we love wide angle viewing experience, but this may only be true for a motion picture. We see Tom Cruise running, and we also see there's a cliff in front of him, yet our eyes are still fixated on Tom. We know he's about to jump, we are anticipating the excitement. The excitement doesn't come from the cliff, it came from Tom and what he's about to do. We need to see there's a big cliff ahead, we need to feel just how high and dangerous the cliff is, and most importantly, we cannot not see Tom.
But for still shot photography, do we need to build up the excitement like in the movies ? Or do we want to submerge into the stillness of a photo and let our imagination takes its course. We know how hard it is to use a wide angle lens, it's prone to include unwanted "things" into the frame and causing distractions. And these "things" would become even more distracting when they just sit there. A photo does exactly that, it just sits there without ever changing.
Motions, be it Tom running wildly, cameras following Tom, switching to a different scene in the spur of the moment, music to pump up our emotions, all sorts of things are happening / changing during the few seconds of Tom running. These "happenings" are what I'd consider a motion, another word for motion is "distraction". I mean it's the whole point of watching a movie, distractions are why we enjoy movies so much.
"cinematic look" in still shot photography may just be the colour, the halation, and the content of the photo that are similar to a movie, call it a particular style that we could reference upon. But fundamentally, photography is about removing / minimising distractions, so the viewer could simply focus on the intended. My 2cents.
It's absolutely amazing camera these days does both still and video, so It's worth taking some time to think about the differences between them.
