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Why the hate for Alex Kurtzman?

Here comes a somewhat off tangent rant, but cinematography is awful these days. The trend is “natural lighting”, meaning they don’t want you to think there are studio lights but only whatever light sources might be in the environment. Problem is, this makes for a flat, muddy, frequently dark picture. Picard Season 3 was just the nadir; it was shockingly bad. It was often a struggle to see who was doing what.

Back in the day, the director of photography could easily do a darker scene but they still had the sense to use the proper lighting to actually LIGHT the actors. Perfect, artful use of chiaroscuro. Generations is an example of how to do this well. P3 is an example of how NOT do anything visually.

Fully agree. Lighting on tv nowadays has basically 2 choices:

1) Flat, full tv lighting. Which, well, looks like tv lighting. A lot of modern police or medical procedurals get away with this. But it still "looks tv". And not "prestige tv", but "network tv".

2). Natural lighting. Natural lighting is hard as fuck to get right. That's why actual movies take a shitload of time to film, and half of them still look bad.

Some "prestige" tv (like house of dragon) still do proper lighting. But that costs a lot per episode, and you need to hire experienced directors.
So most "prestige" shows just do natural lighting on the fly after the 2nd or 3rd episode went over budget, and as a result everything looks too dark and weirdly highlighted.

The solution in my opinion is - ironically - what a Kurtzman show does: "Strange New Worlds" - Use natural lighting, but in a very brightly lit environment.
The new Enterprise is very shiny. Outside is shiny. When they film in the VR Box the environment is usually well lit. And as a result, everything still looks lit somewhat naturally and modern, but you still see the whole thing, and not for example have a bright reflection on Picard's baldness but his face hidden in shadows.
But that's not what the other, also darker in tone, prestige tv shows do, though. Stranger Things' monsters wouldn't really work if everything is brightly lit. And most modern Trek wants to look like the expensive competition.
 
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Doesn't mean I like it. Feel the same when my office does corporate bull crap morale activity that feels fake.

And yes thats true to some extent to previous Trek promotion and other media. Just feels even moreso "fake" with the current regime of showrunners. (IMO)
And what, did it feel more authentic when Berman would just regurgitate the "we're all very pleased" line in every interview he did for the entire time he was running the franchise?
 
The perfect lighting for me (just eye test im no expert) is what we saw in Star Trek First Contact. Especially on the bridge. The worst is much of Discovery (with that blue hue ) and Picard Season 3. I would take TNG/Orville/Star Trek 6 lighting over that if I had to chose.
 
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Most of the TNG Films drive me nuts for lighting. Uniforms don't pop enough against the backgrounds.

Orville and TNG rely on beige too much.

I'd go with something like Stargate for lighting.
 
And what, did it feel more authentic when Berman would just regurgitate the "we're all very pleased" line in every interview he did for the entire time he was running the franchise?
To me it did. Moreso because allot of the other stuff he said ( to me ) didn't come acoss as fake. Especially after I saw his lifelong mega long archive of Hollywood bio interview on YouTube. Berman actually had discussions with Roddenberry so I hold more weight to what he said about his vision even with a promotional lens .

I disagreed with his "sonic wallpaper "mindset on TV musical scores though. Had my beefs about him too don't get me wrong.
 
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The other day me and friends had a nostalgic get together in honor of Picard Season 3 ( which we loved). We had some beers and chewed the fat in the pitch dark. Great fun but we couldn't see eachother. Felt appropriate. 😄
The actors felt the same while filming.
 
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Good news, everyone!

:lol:
I'm no fan of Kurtzman. But isn't him getting fired something they have said a couple million times already? Nothing new here IMO lol
 
More weight to this rumour Ive heard because it's comes from a friend of a friend "s first cousin who knows someone in the inside instead of a friend of a friends 2nd cousin who was once married to someone who knows someone on the inside.

Game changer .
 
I'm pretty sure I saw that video in my feed and just inform YouTube to block all content from that user.
I recently did that with his one channel, but the bastard went and started another!

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He's playing everyone's favourite hits!
 
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