Is this style of cinematography good by today's standards?

harmonica

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Shooting a suspense sequence at night for a microbudget thriller, can be difficult since you don't have permission to light the streets, and people complain about generators making noise of course. I was watching Dirty Harry (1971), and noticed how a lot of the night scenes, like this one, are underexposed in a lot of the picture:


Dirty Harry - The Cross Scene - YouTube


And also some of the street shots like the one at 1:18 into this clip are also underexposed:





But nowadays, when you are trying to make a good if not great impression, and break into the business, would this type of underexposing for a microbudget film be thought of as artistic or amateur?


In my camera, though, there is a lot more noise, so I guess I will have to denoise it, if that is acceptable as well.


What do you think? Thanks.
 
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I think you just do the best you can with what you have, and hope it takes you somewhere. That's what I do when I shoot photos.

Best,
Jake
 
I don't know anything about the industry, but that looks pretty bad to me.
Underexposed is one thing (like at the very end, dark but okay). Complete silhouette with blinding harsh lights for no apparent story-based reason is ... blah.
 
Oh okay. So it's probably risky to use this style, to save on budget then. It would make a bad impression on investors then most likely?
 
Derrel, the vast majority of the film is lit perfectly well.
If that one scene were singled out as historically significant or something, it would be a different story.
 

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