Month: August 2019

Gone Girl Scene, “Should I Know My Wife’s Blood Type?” [0:00-1:10]

(20th Century Fox on YouTube. Viewed 29 August 2019. found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KNvRccCgME)

This scene in David Fincher’s Gone Girl [2014] shows Nick at the police station, being questioned following his wife’s disappearance. In the whole of Gone Girl, there is a colour palette of green and orange tones. This scene in particular has a green/blue colouring, enhanced with post-production editing. Additionally, the costume and production design assists with the effect – for example each character is wearing a different shade of blue, and the chairs around the table and other background props are green and blue.

This whole scene, the character’s faces show a chiaroscuro effect, facilitating the mysterious atmosphere of the scene, and the mystery of each character. The audience and Detectives Boney and Gilpin alike do not know if Nick is innocent or guilty. Equally the Detective’s thoughts on Nick are also undecided. The lighting defines each character in the space to achieve this atmosphere overall in the scene. Actor’s facial features are also consequently emphasised, enhancing individual movements. Additionally, the background walls are light-coloured, so the characters in front do not disappear into the background.

For example in the frame below, the key light is coming from above, a hard light, wrapped around Detective Boney’s left side and shoulders. This mimics where the average ceiling light would be in the interview room. There is also a soft directional hair light, showing that strip of shine on the top of her head. The fill is coming from behind the camera, both bouncing and softening the effect of the key. The light on the face is modelled, with the shadows falling expressively under the eyes, enhancing the hollows and creating the creepy look. If all is to be expressed in the eyes, then Detective Boney is staying hidden.

For Nick, the lighting space is similar to Boney’s shots, encouraging continuity in the scene. The light is directional from the top shining down, and hard, to define certain features. It comes from his right, placing Nick in a relative position to Boney. The hair light is top-lit and slightly enhances the front, as the rest of his hair is dark. The fill light is faced towards Nick’s face, only slightly softening the shadows, and creating a tired and worn-down look – especially in the puffy eye-bags and drooping eyebrows. Additionally, the light on his shirt is perfectly exposed to reveal the creases enhancing his dishevelled and lazy look.

Detective Gilpin (shown below) is the most underexposed character, with the same hard key light from the top, exposing his forehead and nose. There is negative fill on the left, darkening his shirt, and creating the angular modelling to the face. The light on his hair enhances the shine, and the perfectly combed shape. Gilpin, the seemingly least impactful character in the scene, embodies this by being mostly out of the light. When all three characters are shown together, the lighting choices from the individual shots are skilfully replicated on to each character.The interview room in this scene is surrounded by glass. Glass walls and doors were important in this instance because the of the open-ended conclusions of the characters, and the nature of the questioning. Nick is not, and cannot see himself as trapped at this stage, and the Detectives have not (seemingly) got Nick cornered. It does not indicate complete transparency, but the unknown situation that Nick is locked into. In terms of lighting, this necessary glass background poses the challenge to light the scene without reflections.

The only distinct reflections seen are of the characters within the room. The entire hallway in the background has been lit, which helps combat the reflection issue. This could just have been by using white-coloured overhead lights. Additionally, cutters may have been used to block out the top lights from hitting anywhere but the characters below, including the glass surrounding. When Nick leaves the room, the lights outside the door are easily seen, indicating the exposure is balanced so that this set detail is not lost while the characters are appropriately lit.

Overall this scene has a noir quality consistent with the rest of the film, and particularly plays with shadows to capture the mysterious atmosphere.

This week I gained more awareness about lighting setups for different shots and how that affects the continuity when editing. It is important to note that starting with the mid-shots when shooting means that the baseline is set, and the close-ups can therefore be refined to exactly how I want, whilst still fitting in to the overall scene. I always find it interesting to see the set up of the shot we create, and how it looks to the naked eye compared to through the camera on the projector. I think that it would be helpful for me to draw diagrams of the practice shots (as I do in the exercises) with my notes so I can refer back to examples instead of just re-reading “key light was x”, and having to figure this out. So, I guess that this class has also helped me with my note-taking skills, which is something I would not have initially predicted! So I will definitely be bringing some physical paper for the next class.

Introducing the gas discharge lamps, and in this class the Kino Flo lamp, was interesting and good to know especially for shooting, when needing a soft light in a small space. In further research, I have read (just on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kino_Flo), that in the production of the movie Barfly [1987], the Director of photography was filming in a cramped interior space and therefore could not fit a traditional lighting set up. the gaffer and the best boy came up with the fluorescent light with a remote ballast so that the unit was light enough to be taped to the wall. They then created the company Kino Flo! It makes sense that these sorts of things are created out of need, and makes me intrigued in what technology and equipment is still to come in the industry.

On reflection of Exercise 6, being behind the camera was a good experience as I realised I did not have the best knowledge to be working on the shooting. This is definitely because I am not very experienced in setting particular elements (for example, the f-stops) and therefore I need to work more with my camera at home and also the school cameras in solidifying these elements. Apart from this, the exercise was good and the group collaborated well. I know I definitely need to have more confidence in my abilities and just go for it when it comes to these exercises, and try to put to use all that I have learnt so far.

In terms of analysing films, I found it interesting to think of the concept that quickly, we are able to believe what we see in a film is it’s reality. I think this is part of why can look at a scene and say it was “good”, because it has clearly been thought about and contains stylistic elements – as opposed to just setting up the camera and shooting. This is especially true when we analyse a film and can understand the motivations behind different decisions, but it is interesting too when these elements are merely functional.

In the Sudden Fear clip, watching the moonlight through the blinds, of course this is not realistic to the life we live in. When I watched it, I did not think twice about the fact that the whole room is lit up at night time. This reflects a concept from the Nicolas Roeg reading, that more striking lighting decisions are acceptable when the image is in black and white. I think this is something I will look out for when watching films. Noticing lighting choices that may not be a stylistic necessarily, but are more so achieved for practicality. Further to this, how choices may differ between colour images and black and white.

In class this week, we started with going over setting up the cameras to shoot. This was important because there were a few things in there that I had not learnt before, or solidified. This includes setting up gain levels and how to properly manage the picture profile, and knowing when to use the presets and when to turn them off. I think I will need quiz myself on all of these principles and terms so to not forget…

In the impromptu exercise of replicating the sunlight artificially, I thought the artificially lit shot looked better. This is because it was warmer, bringing more life into the scene. This was opposed to the naturally lit shot, which was a bit greyer and less bright. I assume that if it were my scene, in the editing process I could colour grade and liven it up. But for the purpose of reflection, I prefer the artificial light. I do not think it was too bright, I believed that it could be sunlight. I think it also had more dimension to the naturally lit shot, which seemed quite flat.

Even though the initial purpose of the exercise was to replicate the lighting, I have learnt that it is useful to experiment with the lighting in differing ways (e.g. full sunlight and full artificial light), especially if something seems a little uninteresting, because better results can be achieved. Of course I may not always have this chance in class, but I will try to pursue this in my own projects.

On Thursday we had a very educational lesson on constructing a crew and set. I was the Assistant Director, which at first I must admit I was not too interested, but now that I know what the role entails I think it would be quite a rewarding job. I like learning about the many roles that are involved in a film crew, and this is reassuring because it gives way more scope to what I am interested in pursuing in the future. In terms of an AD, I like that the role is extremely involved in the whole process, from producing to filming. There is also great responsibility and control over the crew and set. I am glad that I could get a little insight into the role this class.

Reflecting from last week (in the Emmaline exercise), I noted that it was frustrating that we were setting up for almost the whole hour, and only shot in one hour (with little experimentation). It happened again this week! I was not frustrated however, I found the class really interesting to learn about each of the roles. I am excited to introduce the equipment we did not get to use today in future classes (the boom mic being one example). I think in this case as well there was not as much experimentation needed, we were somewhat limited in our set up of the room. Also the director had a vision which meant that all we needed to do was follow, and work on any difficulties (such as the reflection in the window) on the way. I am keen for future classes where we will now have more of an idea of what our roles are, and how we can make the most of it to create a really good scene.

This week was a good introduction to colour in lighting, and I learnt many new concepts. The colour temperature and daylight/tungsten settings were interesting to learn about, but also introduced new ideas that I will have to think about when performing lighting myself. It also introduces further ideas for creativity, that being that light temperature is not always indicative of the light source. This is something I can be imaginative with when lighting.

The sunlight exercise was good practise for setting up a scene wholly. I enjoyed the whole concept of the exercise, that we got to play with lighting changes specifically, and it was an educational process as a group to figure out different ways we could achieve what we wanted. The only thing negative takeaway was that we had a time limit of one hour, and still managed to only film for the last five minutes. I think in future it will be more helpful to our learning to film many different takes instead of just trying to set up the (one) best shot we can. This way I think we will be able to learn more in the timeframe given.

Watching back the Rachel/Barney exercise, I was still happy with how our scene turned out. I liked that it was filmed logically – by that I mean it was clear that the audience was seeing what Barney saw, not just watching the scene play out. Two times this was clearest, first when the Rachel character was out of focus in the background (Barney has not seen her), and second when the camera followed quickly the eye line to Rachel coming seemingly out of nowhere. This added a new layer of meaning to the scene, an aspect of the class exercises I want to continue to explore. This also goes with what was reiterated in class, asking ourselves: why have we shot the scene this way? Analysing the implications of shooting when watching a scene is one thing, but bringing meaning to the shots we create is something that I want to work on more.

Reflecting on the sunlight exercise, I found reflecting upon managing the exposure of the shot interesting. This is because I have not had much experience with (or achieved) managing light changes in the shot and having anticipatory exposure. As in previous weeks, this is one of those things that I can really put to use on the day of filming.

I think our method of showing sunlight through the window was okay, but we executed it poorly and it therefore did not look effective. By using the artificial light, and the black cutter closer to the subject, the end result did not look organic. I think the other group were more successful, as they ended up with a far more natural look. They had the cutter closer to the light, giving the line of sunlight a softer edge. Additionally, which is something in particular to think about for next time, they used a fill light so the key light would not be as harsh in the frame. This also makes it easier to manage exposure, and again, gives a more natural look to the shot. To be fair, in the room we shot in, this could not have been achieved as successfully, but still there were fewer limitations than initially thought. Next time, I will try to experiment more with these ideas, and put them into practise.

Additionally in the lesson I enjoyed watching the clip from The French Connection. It was a good example of how seamless a sequence can look even though the colours change so drastically, from shot to shot. It is further an example of it being the cinematographer’s task to control where the audience is looking in the frame, and I found it fascinating seeing how it was done in the scene. It further shows me that colour in a shot is open to interpretation by the creator and is something to be experimental with. I would like to play with this idea in a future exercise.

 

 

Week 1 Reflection:  https://www.mediafactory.org.au/eleanor-holloway/2019/07/28/film-light-w1/

Week 2 Reflection:  https://www.mediafactory.org.au/eleanor-holloway/2019/08/07/film-light-w2/

Week 3 Reflection:  https://www.mediafactory.org.au/eleanor-holloway/2019/08/08/film-light-w3/

Film Description:  https://www.mediafactory.org.au/eleanor-holloway/2019/08/08/shot-scene-description/

Painting Description:  https://www.mediafactory.org.au/eleanor-holloway/2019/08/08/painting-description/

Back to the Future Part III

(Viewed 8 August 2019. Excerpt from scene, from 00:00 to 00:37)

This shot from Back to the Future Part III takes place at night, meaning all light sources are artificial. Throughout the sequence, it is well exposed – there is little detail lost in any given frame.

The sequence begins with a hard key light, casting soft and diffused shadows on the characters faces – those wearing hats. The scene has been filled considerably, with all detail in the character’s faces clear in the frame. When the four actors are lined up (00:06+) the character on the far left has the most detail lost in his face due to being closest to the light, therefore making the shadows harsher.  Also on his face, the light shines from his left, meaning there is a key light shining from behind the actors too, filling the shadow so it does not appear as harsh.

When the shot goes to the woman, the lighting is soft on her face, and well lit from the key light on the right of the frame, and filled towards the shot. The shadow is harsher on her face (camera left), but because of her orientation, it is not seen. When the shot switches back to the men, the shadow is much more prominent on Doc’s face. There is a hard key light above, in the top right – the shadow from the man’s hat behind reflects on to Doc’s white hair, revealing this. the fill lights are hard on the left of the frame, again casting a shadow on the central actors faces.

In the beginning of the sequence, there is a longer focal length and therefore a shallow depth of field. Only the two subjects dancing are in focus, and the background characters and setting, whilst well lit, are indistinct. When the four characters are lined up in the shot, the focal length is shorter, and therefore is a greater depth of field is achieved. This is done so the group can be seen as a whole, ensuring the two minor characters are not out of focus. When the shot turns to the woman, she is the point of focus – there is a shallow depth of field, and only her face and the back of Doc’s body are completely visible. When the shot goes to the close up back on Doc and Tannen, there is a greater depth of field than before, because both of their figures are clear, but still quite a blurred scene behind them.

Displaying control over the focal length, when Doc turns and says “I wouldn’t give you the pleasure..” (00:28) the focus changes quickly to his face from the woman’s. When she starts talking, her face comes back into focus, too. This is contrast the the next shot, where the focal length is shorter and there is greater depth of field. All the characters are in clear view.

 

 

Motor Lights by Clarice Beckett

(Viewed 8 August 2019. found at: http://art-now-and-then.blogspot.com/2016/09/clarice-beckett.html)

The painting Motor Lights by Clarice Beckett shows a car heading towards the foreground on an overcast evening. Because of this cloudy weather, the sky produces an extremely soft key light on the scene. The rainwater pooled on the road creates the fill light, soft again, reflecting from the key light. This is a strong reflection, as the colours and brightness are the same as the sky, but it does not illuminate the area surrounding. This is exampled with the side of the road being dark, with shadows under the trees. Additionally, the car is only lit from the top, meaning none of that light from the road bounces back up.

Adding to the light on the road, the car’s headlights create strong beams that illuminate straight through the foreground. The artist has interpreted a focus on both the car and the railing next to it, these being the most distinct details in the painting. Everything else around this point is fairly blurred. The two lights behind the car suggest another car’s headlights perhaps, but get swallowed in the darkness.

 

Reflecting on exposure this week after reviewing our exercise two work, and comparing the colour version to the black and white version, the exposures looks quite different. I think in the colour shots it looks brighter overall, especially on background objects, just because we can see how the lighting actually effects the colours in the frame. In the black and white however, I think faces look better exposed, as it is a plainer image – with nothing like pink cheeks showing. This being said, the black and white will look better because we set up the shot in black and white. If I were shooting in colour, I would have to be mindful of the colour in the shot and how exposure can enhance this or take it away, depending on how it is controlled. Control of exposure is still an idea I am getting used to – in terms of identifying it in films – and I hope to learn more about it in the coming weeks.

The work this week has developed my ability to recognise the different lighting elements utilised in films. This includes focal length, and what the implications of it actually are. For example, the A Clockwork Orange display of focal length was a great example of achieving the unnatural-feeling atmosphere. These expressive elements I can now not only be able to distinguish, but also know how it was created – something most important for pursuing my own media projects.

One quote I got down from the class was that the “Variables are infinite, but easy to decide once you know what you are going for.” I think this is really summative of the importance of this class to me personally because I really wanted to learn how I can actually create these looks and be meaningful in my work. I feel like now, only in week three, a camera does not daunt me as much as it used to, and I can actually put some knowledge and skills into practice.

I enjoyed the shooting exercise in Thursday’s class. I took the role of director, which I enjoyed because I was both behind the camera, helping to set up the shot, and also  blocking with the actors and focusing on characters. I used to be pretty big on theatre a few years ago, so I definitely have acting experience, but it was interesting in this case to see how other actors take direction and where I needed to give direction. Overall it was a really fun task where I could work collaboratively, and I was happy with the outcome of the shot. I look forward to reviewing it next week, and also seeing what the other groups came up with.

On another note, I was watching a show this week called Euphoria that has excellent production design and cinematography. I have been thinking about how the stars are the face of the show, and are the ones that gain status from it in the public eye, but the heart of what makes it this good lies in the team behind the camera. It makes me think now, how could anyone watch their favourite movies and television shows and not put thought into what they are seeing beyond the acting! The deeper I analyse and learn about films, the more there is to know. I love that I have this opportunity just in one class in one semester to learn what I am now, and it has grown my appreciation tremendously of what I initially have taken for granted.

 

This week was big for developing my skills with the camera. The lighting terminology and techniques discussed and utilised was vital personally, as I can say before this week I did not have a full understanding of what they meant and how they actually effect the image I am seeing. Learning this, and now knowing that f-stops are the only thing I can really control from the camera, opens up my creativity more than just trying to achieve a “film look” ever did. Now with this control I will strive to actually make the images more meaningful.

Additionally, our work on depth of field has been really insightful. One of my biggest top tips learnt would be that changing the iris can affect depth of field, seemingly small but one of those things that really helps to know on the day. Overall the key skills this week have guided me to be practical and quick thinking while filming, to better achieve what I am going for. However in the exercise this week, I felt I could have had a bit more input and seen firsthand the depth of field changes. If I were to do it differently, I would probably have a better location, with better lighting on the face to really see the depth of field differences clearly. I think the shots were good at practising the particular task but I think they could have looked nicer aesthetically. In future I will try to have more of a go and try to get more out of the task.

One thing confirmed this week is that if there is exposure in the frame, there is lighting. Exposure also affects the lighting that can be ‘done’ – what actions do I take (in lighting) if a shot is under or overexposed?  Through reflecting on all our work in class so far, I have found it important to learn that while we can aim to have correct exposure, it can be made to be an artistic choice, for which I achieve a look I think is suitable to what I am shooting.

After this week I feel I have a good understanding of exposure, learning what I can do to control it and therefore and identify how to achieve my desired shot. I am looking forward to next week to continue developing my knowledge and practical skills.

After the classes this week I have noticed some really dramatic uses of depth of field and exposure in films and television, something I would not have noticed before. What I really like about doing this class is that I have already learnt so much about lighting that when I now watch a movie and really like a shot, I can identify what was done and how I could possibly recreate it. I am excited to watch more films and be able to focus on lighting more carefully.