http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/filmmaking/filmmaking-tips.html#camerawork

I was reading this article on an interesting filmmaking website and here is what I found (production design section) :

Don’t film your actors against a white wall, especially if you’re shooting on video. If you really must have a white wall as a background, make sure it is not lit flatly: dappled light will make it look a lot better.

Isn't that what I've been saying all along ? So what now ?

Filmmaking rules are terrible, they're holding cinema back.

I agree with that, but the thing is back then when I talked about white walls people were acting like it was a strange opinion or I was spouting nonsense.

The quote looks like advice - and probably good advice. If someone chooses to follow it too unthinkingly, that's their problem.

Besides which, what's this nonsense about holding cinema back? Holding it back from what? This is the avant-garde artist's fantasy: that there is some aesthetic Neverland just over the horizon which we could only reach if we were more willing to break rules. History does not bear this out.

By "holding cinema back", he just means it would be limiting yourself to think in terms of rules.

History does bear this out, otherwise the films of today would be identical in style to the films of a hundred years ago.

Holding it back from what?

Holding it back from true progress. Pushing the boundaries is hardly about sticking to the old rules, is it? It is a severely limiting and conservative mindset that isn't doing much for the medium as is.

Amateur DOP's that shoot on white walls deserve to be shot.

Is it even that hard to throw up a hard light and a cutter?

Or use a bit of production design and hang up a picture? Any kind of story relevant objects? There's always something lying around.

This is obviously only referring to cheap student films or amateur films, which is vastly different to actual professional films, where I can remember no instances of a white wall holding back the film, let alone snow.

It would also apply to professional films, the difference is they would have the means to not light it flatly, as the writer puts it. So the wall wouldn't really be pure white anymore. Pure white screams home video. See Ben & Arthur for a particularly awful example of what happens when you don't put any though into it.

A director can always make the choice to use pure white walls, but it has to be for a good reason. Note that everytime a film has an overly white look in a movie it's for a specific reason, for example giving a sterile atmosphere in 2001 and THX 1138.

where I can remember no instances of a white wall holding back the film

That's because they don't put themselves in the position to have problematic white walls in the first place. They use appropriate lighting, color correction, or simply have sets with walls of a color other than white.

"where I can remember no instances of a white wall holding back the film, let alone snow."

Hmmmmm ... how about Pink Floyd The Wall (1982)

It's talking about trying to get good looking production design and not just putting actors against a plain white wall, unless a white wall is exactly the production design you're after for which it gives advice for making it interesting.

It doesn't take into account the possibility that the director's vision for a scene is a stark white background. Only a person with no vision would shoot against a white wall or any background without thought of how it will look on camera and alongside other footage. Only a person with no vision would proscribe shooting against a white background because it doesn't inherently provide good production "value"

Bingo! A lot of such advice comes off as "If i can't see it ... neither should you."

Well, I agree with everything you said. Which is sort of my point : when you're shooting white walls, you need to be careful. Of course you are right you need to be careful about everything when you're making a movie anyway, just saying white walls are a particularly vicious enemy. Most other colors look good in most situations. Having an unintended white wall is much worse than having, say, an unintended red wall.