Everyday Media

An everyday blog about media by everyday blogger Louise Alice Wilson.

Tag: Assessment Three

Scene Analysis: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

AGWHAAT: The Dance Scene

From the beginning of this clip Sheila Vand who plays ‘The Girl’ (a vampire) looks quite poignantly like a fish out of water as she wanders around this modern apartment with its ridiculously decadent yet tacky decor, such as the glowing fish tank which she stands aside at the beginning of this clip. On first appearance ‘The Girl’ feels like a pastiche of Count Dracula (Dracula, 1931), Patricia (Breathless, 1960) and Mathilda (Leon: The Professional, 1994). But it’s her movements that take on a distinctly non-human quality that make her feel more like a serpent waiting to strike, than any kind of pre-used character archetype. ‘The girl’s’ slow turns – keeping her head so upright it feels almost tilted slightly back and striking black hood – that drapes softly over her body – make her appear like a cobra arched upright, slithering slowly through Saeed’s (Dominic Rains) apartment. We watch ‘The Girl’ watch Saeed as he listens to music, snorts coke, smokes a cigarette, counts his money, lifts some weights and dances provocatively. As ‘The Girl’ watches Saeed fulfil a number of gluttonous and self-obsessed human behaviours she aligns herself with a snake watching it’s prey. She’s uninterested in what he does, or why he’s doing it, the only reason she is watching him is to to keep track of his physical body as she waits to strike.

Saeed unaware of her ulterior motives is parading around the room like a walking testosterone advertisement, indulging and feeding his own ego. Unawares to him, is that he is also indulging ‘The Girl’, wetting her appetite as she prepares to literally feed on him. As ‘The Girl’ strikes one of the drum kits cymbals – hitting a discordant note, Saeed walks directly to her as if beckoned by this ancient sounding chime. With her back to Saeed ‘The Girl’ appears as the typical victim, about to be done in or sexually assaulted by this young, huffed up, drug dealer. Saaed approaches all beady eyed and eager, reaching out to ‘The Girl’s’ basilisk shaped hood, and in keeping with her cobra inspired mannerisms she turns her head and body around slowly to face him – neck and body moving as if one solid formation. Saeed strokes her face and places his finger in her mouth, unaware that the balance of power had in fact shifted even before this scene had begun. ‘The Girl’ then reels back and strikes, biting his finger clean off, Saeed staring at her in disbelief.

The films title ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ makes much more sense after viewing this scene, as it suddenly becomes apparent that the title is not to be read as the usual ‘A girl walks home alone at night – potential victim trope’, that statement is intended to be read as a warning. No longer is ‘a girl walking home alone at night’ scary for ‘the girl’ involved, but rather it is scary for the people who run into her, becoming one of her victims. As this scene portrays the girl appears like the typical victim – petite and superficially submissive, but behind that delicate (however stone cold) exterior is a cold blooded killer.

 

Until next time,
Louise Alice Wilson

Colour Me Confused

Colour Me Confused:

This colour grade exercise was both and enjoyable and frustrating. As someone who loves regularly taking photos and editing them, I’m keen to learn more about how to do the same with my videos. However one major frustration that cropped up during this exercise, was the serious lack of image quality for video files, which leads to a serious lack of nice looking colour grade options. However, you gotta work with what you got. Below is a video that features multiple examples of various colour grades, plus a breakdown of each colour grade used.

 

Colour Grade Video: Rosie Being Rosie

 

Colour Grade 01 – Original Colour Grade – Unedited

This is the original colour grade of the video footage, completely unedited.

 

Colour Grade 02 – Pink Hue

Lumetri Color > Basic Correction

Temperature: +30

Tint: +12

Contrast +30

Highlights: -70

Shadows: +54

Whites: -9

Blacks: -17

 

Colour Grade 03 – Film Style

Lumetri Color > Creative

Look: Fuji F125 Kodak 2393

Intensity: 50%

Faded Film: +20

Sharpen: +20

Saturation: -4

 

Colour Grade 04 – Blue

Lumetri Color > Creative

Look: SL Blue DAY4NITE

Intensity: 100%

 

Colour Grade 05 – Sharp Yellow

Lumetri Color > Basic Correction                                      > Creative

Temperature: +149                                                                      Faded Film: +25

Tint: -106                                                                                           Sharpen: +100

Contrast: +30                                                                                  Vibrance: +70

Highlights: -10

Shadows: +27

Whites: -8

Blacks: -3

 

Colour Grade 06 – Beaut Edit

Lumetri Color > Basic Correction                                         > Creative

Tint: +2                                                                                                   Sharpen: +99

Highlights: -38                                                                                   Vibrance: +70

Shadows: +7                                                                                        Shadow Tint: Red/Orange

Whites: +11                                                                                         Highlight Tint: Red/Orange

Blacks: -8

 

Overall:

Getting to experiment with different colour grades was pretty cool and it’s nice to get more comfortable with Premiere Pro’s color correction software. I think overall I like my ‘film style’ edit and ‘beaut’ edit the most as the look the most natural, however the ‘sharp yellow’ is pretty sick also. I often like colour edits that are either hyper natural or super extreme, so it makes sense that I like those three. If I had to pick one I’d probably pick the sharp yellow cause its a bit wacko.

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

Step Into The Light

Step Into The Light:

In this exercise we tried to utilise lighting present within our environment to light our characters in specific ways. I decided to utilise the dappled lighting present outside the RMIT buildings on Ceyda as she read through our script. The epiphany I had whilst working through this exercise, was that it is extremely difficult to consciously notice light and therefore be able to utilise it. Unlike framing, which once displayed on a monitor is generally quite easy to decipher and thus adjust, lighting remains elusive. It seems that from a young age were often encouraged to decipher why a certain painting is good, or what you like about a particular photograph. This deciphering often includes references to things such as framing, subject, use of space or angles utilised. However, unless you are speaking to an art critic you are unlikely to hear someone say I like this painting because of the way the artist has depicted the light. This lack of experience in consciously noticing light, seems to lend itself to an inability to read it when required. Even whilst I had Ceyda physically standing in front of me, it was quite difficult to work out the best place to position her, to use the light in the way I wanted. I’d say move to the left and rotate your head to the right more, then realise I’d pushed her in the complete opposite direction to what I wanted – framing generally isn’t this hard. I must say however, that the most difficult exercises are generally the most enjoyable. So often you feel like your going through the motions whilst learning the ins and outs of filmmaking. That when you are truly challenged you suddenly have an eagerness that wasn’t never present whilst you were sitting well within your comfort zone.

The second epiphany I had whilst working through this is exercise, was that Ceyda is a great actor, even though she vehemently stated that she wasn’t! Lesson learnt: trust no (wo)man. Even if someone states that they’re a terrible actor you may be pleasantly surprised and they may even bring something to the character that you never even thought about.

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

Who’s That Lady?

How to shoot a script for dummies:

If you ever need to shoot a script just call “1800-who’s-that-weird-lady-in-the-background?”

This was meant to be a post about how to shoot a script, because that was technically what this class was about, but I’m definitely much more interested in that weird AF lady in the background. She was the best (because she’s given us this solid gold footage), but also the worst (because she ignored me trying to shoo her out of the frame) (but I’m actually the worst, because I should have had enough foresight to realise, “hey, this is some good ****”).

I was originally going to edit together a string of shot reverse shots as an example of how we intended to complete this exercise, then discuss it. However, after reviewing the footage and remembering the weird lady in the background I realised that it was actually more poignant and revealing to display this excerpt as it’s own unedited stand alone piece – that which reveals a moment in time. Giving insight into our learning process and the hurdles/joys of filmmaking.

This is the annoying part where I talk you through the video you’ve just watched: I like how this video begins as ‘sound’ is being called, making it obvious that we’re only privy to this unfurling scene because someone pushed the record button. As the scene moves along the visuals are also  introduced as we hear ‘video’ being called – and we get to watch the scene slowly play out. We then see this woman enter frame, which no one seems aware of except the director, who then waits til she leaves to call action. Then as the clicker snaps down, the elevator doors open almost instantaneously after.  The scene plays out and the visuals end, but we get to keep hearing the scene until someone eventually presses the record button once more, disabling us from being privy to this scene for any longer.

I had a few major epiphanies after watching this video. The first being the realisation that when your ‘filming’ something or planning to film something your often so caught up in what you ~ should ~ be doing. That you fail to notice the much more interesting things that are unfolding in front of you. This not only disables you from being truly creative, but inhibits the work from being as interesting as it could possibly be. My second epiphany was that you can create a much more interesting scene by having multiple actions occurring in the same scene at once. And you can also relate these seperate actions by timing each action, to work well with another in the frame, suggesting some kind of relationship between the two. My third epiphany was that drawing attention to how highly constructed filmmaking is, can be extremely interesting and it doesn’t necessarily destroy the audiences relationship to the onscreen action, but can actually deepen it.

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

 

Shot Reverse Shot

Sussing out that ‘shot-reverse-shot’:

Learning how to create a shot-reverse-shot is – I guess – super important, considering it’s utilised in (most likely) every film you’ve ever seen. Not only would it have been utilised in every film you’ve ever seen, but it’s probably been utilised a butt load in every film you’ve ever seen. The reason that the shot-reverse-shot is so prevalent in mainstream filmmaking is because it’s one of the easiest ways to establish the location of characters and their relationships to the objects and people around them.

I’m sure there is an art to creating a smooth shot reverse shot, that feels ‘real’ and ‘natural’ but what most surprised me about this exercise is how easy it was to create shot-reverse-shots that smoothly went together. When you shoot an exercise like this you think, “omg how am I gonna piece this **** together”. Then you get to the edit suite, bang the clips side by side and voila, your scene actually seems to makes sense. This was a pretty major revelation to me, but keeps in line with what Paul’s been speaking about since day one; which is that filmmaking is more a process of getting things done, rather than some mythical creative endeavour, only achieved by those who are truly gifted.

My second major revelation was how amazing of an actor I am, I was honestly just truly blown away by my own performance. Especially that killer death scene at the end and my ability at maintaining ‘dead eyes’ throughout that dramatic pan. If you ever need an actor?

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

 

Blog Post: Week 8

Blog Post for Week 8

This week in class we worked on lighting as you can see in the example above. We essentially attempted to create a three point lighting setup that lit up both me and Rosie. However due to equipment constraints we only had two lights to work with.

Originally we had one key light on the left hand side to light both me and Rosie and then we had one light behind to backlight us, using light from the room as fill. However, because me and Rosie we’re standing so far apart we ended up using the two lights as seperate key lights for each of us. The reason we were standing so far apart is because we were also attempting to master focus racking whilst panning. This clip doesn’t show an example of the panning, but rather a shoddy kind of zoom out, to capture both of us within the frame.

The lighting in this clip could almost be described as an extreme style of ‘split lighting’. Where you split the face into two equal halves, with one side being in light and the other in shadow. Often split lighting would be done with a less bright fill, adding some light to the shadowed side of the face, but since we were one light down we had to make do. I think it looks pretty cool, because it’s super dramatic. However, you’d be limited with the number of practical ways that you could utilise it.

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

Blog Post: Week 7

Blog Post for Week 7

This week in class we attempted to get more comfortable with focus pulling. First off we got into small groups then we took our camera’s out and found a spot to shoot.  We then applied a piece of tape to the side of the focus ring and began to mark the tape with specific focus lengths, depending on where our actors were standing. I thought i’d look further into focus pulling so decided to analyse the use of it within a film. Below is a clip from The Young Victoria (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2009).

Within a four and  a half minute segment this film utilises numerous focus pulls.

 

Focus Pull #1 – 0:01

The first focus pull is used to exaggerate the number of glasses on the table, which is also seeks to exaggerate, the opulence of this party and the wealth of it’s attendees. The focus pull is quite beautiful, first we see the first glass in focus, then it switches to the second, skips a glass, switches to the third, then skips through a bunch more hitting specific glasses as me move through the entire row.

Focus Pull #2 – 0:11

The second focus pull switches between capturing an item of food on the table, to switching focus to the host of the party: King William. Directing the viewers attention to who William is looking at. Indeed it is a concerned face, as he stares at his niece (Queen Victoria) as she looks as astutely back at him.

Focus Pull #3 – 0:26

The third focus pull allows us to detect which person Lord Melbourne looks at, as he speaks to Victoria, also informing us also as to who he is speaking about.

Focus Pull #4 – 01:25

The fourth focus pull, pulls us away from Lord Melbourne and Victoria’s conversation, to the other side of the table where the Duchess of Sutherland and the Duke of Wellington begin to gossip about them.

Focus Pull #5 – 02:04

The fifth focus pull is used to intensify the King William’s feelings on confusion as he looks around the room, focusing on the orchestra in the back and then switching to a bright candelabra over head.

Focus Pull #6 – 2:13

The sixth focus pull allows us to see who King William is signalling at to turn off the music. This constant use of focus pulls to change focus on specific characters makes the audience feel as if there attention is constantly being darted around this room. Create an overall sense of complexity to the interactions and goings on of tonights event and simultaneously Victorian Society in the 1800’s.

Focus Pull #7 – 3:48

The seventh focus pull once again switches between two characters: Victoria and Queen Adelaide, tracking alongside King William’s conversation. We first focus on the woman who he is talking about and then switch focus to his wife, as she attempts to stop him from speaking, as he is beginning to embarrass himself.

Focus Pull #8 – 4:15

This focus pull almost brings us back full circle as we switch from attendees of the dinner, to the Duchess of Sutherland and the Duke of Wellington as they once again gossip about what is going on.

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

Blog Post: Week 6

Blog Post for Week 6

This week during class we were asked to compile a series of images that inspire us. I decided to make it more specific by picking a bunch of images that inspired me specifically for the shoot we have coming up.

For our upcoming shoot the main themes are:

  • Shooting at Night
  • Suburbia
  • Australiana
  • Vintage Vibes (More specifically 70’s Australia)
  • Surrealism

The images below are shots that relate specifically to our themes and could be used as inspiration or guiding material as to how to include or utilise these various themes within our own shoot.

 

Angel Olsen – Shut Up & Kiss Me (Music Video)

This image of Angel Olsen ticks all of our theme boxes.

Shot at night – check. This shot seems to utilise some kind of large white light, plus the locations streetlights to create a blanketing of white light over the whole scene.

Suburbia – check. There’s something about blanket white lights that just scream suburbia, maybe its their association with Coles and 7-Eleven.

Australiana – not a specific check, but it does feature the Americanised version of this – Americana. The oak trees, the wide roads, the 80’s Merc, the large blocks.

Vintage vibes – check. Old school car, sparkly wig, 3/4 flares.

Surrealism – somewhat check. Music videos always seem to feel somewhat surreal. I guess thats because the rules of that world are often quite different to the ‘real world’. The obscureness of this shot, lends itself to ideas of surrealism. Her sitting on that car, the random truck behind, the sparkly wig. The logic isn’t directly obvious.

 

Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Music Video)

Shot at night – Check. This shot also utilises blanket white lights to caste a bright white light over the whole scene, as well as utilising the tennis courts spotlights.

Suburbia – check. Nothing more suburban and family orientated than a tennis court, field and a bike.

Australiana – check. This is an American video clip, but tennis courts can read as being super Australian, as sport is a massive part of our identity and youth culture.

Vintage vibes – somewhat check. Tennis courts and sports in general are often seen and pitched as being vintage. I think it’s that association with a time gone by, youth and nostalgia.

Surrealism – check. Pink avant grade dress, random dancing in the rain. Like Wuthering Heights but the more modern, depressed version.

 

Julia Jacklin – Leadlight (Music Video)

Shot at night – nope.

Suburbia – big check. Nothing more suburban than a local high school that exists purely in shades of vintage brown.

Australiana – big check. Julia Jacklin is quite literally the queen of Aus-core and all of her videos revolve around exploring a uniquely Australian aesthetic.

Vintage vibes – big check. I assume this local high school has barely changed since it was built in the 60’s. It’s quite reminiscent of the place we’ll be shooting: The Thornbury Bowls Club.

Surrealism – somewhat check. Julia Jacklin’s videos often featuring her dancing through nostalgia places, like she’s walking through a dream, or exploring a memory. That in itself feels surreal, or at least toys with some surrealist notions.

 

Julia Jacklin – Pool Party (Music Video)

Shot at night – nope.

Suburbia – mos def. Julia Jacklin grew up in the Blue Mountains and she seems to shoot all of her videos there. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was her own house, or the house of a relative. This house screams 1970’s Australian suburbia.

Australiana – big check. Definitely, see above.

Vintage vibes – big check. Definitely, see above. Plus, she’s wearing a plaid skirt and calf length white socks!

Surrealism – Somewhat check. See above.

 

Lorde – Green Light (Music Video)

Shot at night – Yup. Though it’s not evident in this shot, this music video was shot at night and makes great use of the gilded city streets and neon lights that appear post 6pm. I love the lighting setup of this shot. The front room lit with a green light, like a fluorescent bulb but to the extreme. And the back lit with some kind of blue light. These two colours bounce off of each other and Lorde’s pink dress, to create an interesting interplay of colour.

Suburbia – this is most definitely urban, it’s shot in Los Angeles to be exact. Even though this music video has an urban setting I do feel that the way that it explores the setting is very similar to the other videos. You have this character walking around somewhat lonely streets bathed in light. Inciting feels of nostalgia, exploring themes of youth and the effect of space on actions.

Australiana – nope. Though that dude in the background does look pretty janky.

Vintage vibes – nope. This video feels more timeless than vintage, like a clip that could be from the 70’s or from the 2010’s.

Surrealism – not really. This video feels more real than some of the others. There’s something about a large city that lends itself to feeling more real than the suburbs. Like the suburbs could be a dream or a delusion, but a city is large and bustling and linked in to everything else that it must represent reality.

 

Lorn – Acid Rain (Music Video)

Shot at night – yup. This shot, similar to the one above, features a girl dancing around at night, bathed in neon lights, streetlights and headlights.

Suburbia – yes? Some kind of 50’s America kind of suburbia, where cheerleaders would be hanging out at the local diner.

Australiana – not at all.

Vintage vibes – Yes. That 50’s diner and cheerleader outfit says it all. This clip is certainly playing with nostalgia as well as old school archetypes.

Surrealism – Yes. I’m pretty sure the premise of this film clip is that this cheerleader crashed into that pole and is imagining this entire scene while she sits unconscious inside the crashed car. The whole film clip feels like Michael Jackson’s – Thriller, but reimagined with a female lead and a 50’s time stamp.

 

Sticky Fingers – Gold SNAFU (Music Video)

Shot at night – hell no. Shot during the afternoon with no UV filter and totally blown out images.

Suburbia – The Sydney version of it.

Australiana – Yup. Who else has an influx of these 70s’ 80s’? 90s’? concrete box structures, that we decide to use as shops.

Vintage vibes – For sure. The whole video has a 70s’ vibe to it. With characters wearing matching caramel two piece suits and silver aviator reading glasses.

Surrealism – Nope.

 

Tame Impala – The Less I Know The Better (Music Video)

Shot at night – nope.

Suburbia – potentially? There’s something about high schools that always feel suburban. Unless we’re talking about one of those New York City high schools…

Australiana – nope.

Vintage vibes – Yup. Cheerleaders in colourful outfits always feels a little vintage.

Surrealism – Yes. This shot is not surrealist at all, but later there are shots of giant monkey hands reaching down and scooping people up, which is pretty trippy.

 

The Knife – Pass This On (Music Video)

Shot at night – Yes.

Suburbia – Some kind of strange European version of it.

Australiana – Nope. But those wood panels wouldn’t look out of place at a 70s’ RSL.

Vintage vibes – Somewhat. This clip feels like it’s been set in the modern day, but is happening in a space that is vintage.

Surrealism – Somewhat. This singer trips me out, she feels like she’s somewhat metaphysical.

 

Yall – Hundred Miles (Music Video)

Shot at night – Yes. And they make masterful use of this rooftop basketball court, with the dilapidated buildings in the background.

Suburbia – Yes, but he Barcelionian version of it.

Australiana – Nope.

Vintage vibes – not really. But these girls do feel a little ‘Virgin Suicides’ with their long hair and matching tennis outfits.

Surrealism – not really. Why does people dancing always feel a little surreal though? Is everyday life that restrictive.

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

Blog Post: Week 5

Blog Post for Week 5

This week we completed a lighting exercise where we had to make use of lighting present within the natural environment. Soon we’ll begin shooting our own projects, so i’m keen to investigate lighting further in preparation for that. Thats why i’ve decided to search through Film-grab.com to find some lighting setups that I really like, and perhaps take inspiration from.

 

The Sorcerers (Michael Reeves, 1967): 

In this shot it looks like they’ve used a three point lighting setup to light this character, utilising three differently coloured spots. The backlight looks like a deep red colour, whilst the fill is a green colour and the key light is a deep magenta. The use of these three lights adds a great amount of depth to the characters face, whilst accentuating her wrinkles and eye bags with their strikingly hard light. The three colours however obvious they seem upon initial viewing, meld seamlessly into normality after a good few seconds spent staring at this image. This woman strikes me as an interesting mix of frightening, curiosity inducing and mournful. Overall it’s a really interesting lighting setup that i’d be keen to imitate one day.

 

Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell, 2012):

This lighting setup seems relatively simple but who knows? It seems like they’ve used a large soft white light to light the room and used a white spot with barn doors to create a directional light that hits Jennifer Lawrence directly, highlighting her in this relatively flat image and scene. The flatness of this scene is the most impactful thing about it. I’m sure they could have used multiple lighting setups to light the staircase, room and doorway to add more dimension and interest. But the flatness works well to dull the room and add weight to how Lawrence’s character is feeling in this drab environment.

 

Prison (Ingmar Bergman, 1949):

The soft focus on this characters face is interrupted by the clarity of her eyes also highlighted by a directional spotlight. Nowadays such an obvious effect may be considered gaudy but it’s highly effective. The spot does well to direct the viewers eye to look directly into that of the characters and to distort the rest of her face into a shadowy mass. In this scene we get a sense of the characters soul, hidden behind the eyes, disconnected from the physical body as we stare into her depths. I’d love to sneak this into a shot and hopefully get away with it.

 

Love (William Eubank, 2011):

Supposedly Stanley Kubrick paved the way for ‘Practical Lighting’, which is the utilisation of lighting visible within the frame to light the scene. William Eubank makes great use of practical lighting in this shot, casting a soft glow over the entire room. Presumably there is another, or perhaps multiple soft lights that are also helping to light the characters face. I also really love the green caste over the entire frame, but presumably this was an effect done in post. I must experiment with this.

 

Paul (Greg Mottola, 2011):

Lawrence Sher also makes great use of practical lighting in this scene; to caste an ominous glow around his two lead characters. The daggy headlights are great also, I just wish this shot was framed differently. Stacking them right in front of the truck (or whatever it is behind them) makes the image look messy, especially with so much blank space on the left hand side of the screen. Maybe if the truck had been more to the right hand side of the frame, leaving  a smaller amount of ‘talking space’ on the left hand side of the frame. These characters are also lit front on by some kind of soft light.

Chloe (Atom Egoyan, 2009):

I’m a big fan of mirrors in film and this shot utilises this antique mirror well. We get a dirty over the shoulder shot of Chloe as she looks at herself. Her face lit on the right hand side by a soft white light, exposing half her face and leaving the left hand side in shadow. Cleverly the de-silvered parts of the mirror also caste various black shadows over Chloe and the frame itself. Chloe is also backlit by a soft light, allowing the back of her head to still look bright and blonde within the left hand side of the frame. The bokeh lights in the background adds dimension and intrigue to this shot. I looked up the cinematographer and of course it’s Paul Sarossy ‘Canada’s most prolific and awarded cinematographer’.

 

New Nightmare (Wes Craven, 1994):

Mark Irwin makes great use of a hard white light to turn Freddy Krueger into a black silhouette. Utilising that hard light he creates ominous black shadows streaking out from each of his fingers, reminiscent of the blades he has on his left hand. There are also some practical lights viewable in the frame lighting the crowd of people. Assumedly they were also lit with a seperate light.

 

Closer (Mike Nichols, 2004):

This scene is visually one of my favourite in all of cinema history, is that bad? I dunno. Many others love this shot also, as i’ve seen it recreated by multiple artists. The lighting setup seems relatively simple. Natalie Portman is lit via a simple three-point lighting setup. With a white light for the back and fill light and the key light is pink. Clive Owen seems to be getting some of the spill from Natalie’s pink key light, then his back is also sit with another white light. Then the wall behind them is also separately lit.

 

Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970):

Relatively simply lit, using a soft white light to illuminate the right hand side of the characters face and the window in front it. The soft lighting makes this shot and the character look somewhat dreamy. Though I mist admit that I’m more into this shot because of it’s composition than the use of lighting. Having those bright red and green buttons, out of focus, on the right hand side of the frame add interest and intrigue to this shot.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4- The Dream Master (Renny Harlin, 1988):

Another great use of three-point lighting and coloured gels. This character is front lit with a green-ish light, the key light is purple and she is backlight/almost side lit by a pink light. The neon colours add dimension to the image and make it a lot more visually interesting. Horrors are a great genre to push the use of coloured lights, as it seems to fit in with that ‘world’ easily. And adds to the sickening but enjoyable vibe of the overall film.

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson

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