Scene Analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPUKMJtrGio
I will be analysing the train fighting scene from ‘Train to Busan’ directed by Yeon Sang-Ho. I would like to apologize if the scene is too graphic and violent, but I chose this clip specifically because I like how the train was lit, the lighting in the train is very different and provides a very suspenseful and ominous vibe, which what makes the movie so great! ‘Train to Busan’ is an amazing movie about a zombie outbreak, a father and daughter take a speeding train to travel to a safe city but become trapped with zombies (Life and death situation, action packed). The movie was released in 2016, but till this day it is still one of the most globally recognised films produced from South Korea.
The scene starts off with panning towards the protagonists and they are somewhat well lit from the side along with some cool back lighting, the key light seems to from the side and is filled. This is to demonstrate to the audience a heroic moment as the protagonists are sa
crificing their lives to go to the other end of the train to save some people.
On the other hand, the zombies are lit with low key lighting from a certain corner which provides minimal light and cast hard shadows on the zombies, the purpose of this is to contrast the difference between the bad and good. While the three men dive in and start fighting the zo
mbie, fill light is used to highlight the actor’s faces. Throughout the scene, there are cuts to lighting of fill light to un-filled (kind of unexposed light).
What I found so interesting about the whole movie is that its filmed in a quite small space so the lighting was probably quite hard to grasp. They had to mix the train lighting (cool,blue tone) along with the naturalistic lighting coming from the windows. It was a contrast between artificial light and ‘natural’ light.
I feel like there was a lot of fill light used to highlight (they must have used a board somewhere to bounce the light) the actors faces and i felt like the director used lighting very well to communicate its motives and add suspense in the movie.
The whole scene is lit with low key lighting, its light enough to highlight the protagonists’ faces, but it should still be considered dark, along with the make-up and costumes, it may communicate to the audience the theme of survival, no matter who you are a student, father, worker when it comes to life and death, you have to sacrifice, the whole movie is just so amazing and full of surprises.
Week 6
Something that we do not pay attention until now is… paying attention to the microphone! Through past exercises i have noticed something we all need to improve on, is the audio because it picks up on so much background noise, you can’t even hear what the actors in the videos are saying sometimes!
Filming exercise 6 was probably my favorite out of all exercises! We had to shoot a two shots (Wide, Mid-Close up) in the same location and the third one (another mid close up) in another location, but we had to try to manipulate the same kind of lighting (very interesting).
Finding a location was probably the hardest and the most time consuming part of the exercise, because we had to try to find the second location and make it seem like we were in the first. We always film our exercises around RMIT building 10, so location choices were pretty limited, but we eventually found a location of course. The location for the wide shot was pretty bright and well lit. Again we had trouble trying to find a location for the second shot, but we overcame that issue by using boards to bounce off the light and create the same effect, it’s not 100% the same, but I’m amazed by how similar it looks. Pretty proud of my group, at this point I would not try to reproduce it in a different way because we put a lot of thought through this process. I just wish the groups were smaller, because it allows for each member to actually contribute.
I feel like this kind of exercise would benefit for filming at night time or in doors where there’s not much natural lighting. I could really picture a short film between a couple, with the lovely acting from Teresa and Joseph, it would be a great short film about a couple.
Week 5
This week we had to think about the locations and how different locations would bring different aspects/visions to the situations. And how each location provides their own authenticity along with their pros and cons. For week 5 i was not able to attend the class, but I looked through the class’s footage. And found that the class has been experimenting with various sources of soft light in our normal classroom.
Lighting Comparison 1 – Daylight available from one window
The lighting on Tash’s face is soft, but only half of her face is well lit.
2K Fresnel wit Full Blue Gel bounced off core boarding No Fill
Lighting is even more softer, lighting compliments her skin tone well too.
With Fill
Much more warmer tone.
I feel like if I had to do the exercise again, I would rearrange Tash to another position to see how natural window lighting would fully light her face, and make a comparison with that with the studio lighting because her face is well lit with the lighting.
Something I noticed that was pretty cool was that every single shot looked so natural, even against the one window lighting. This makes me think i could easily manipulate natural soft lighting at any time of the day (in the day time of course in doors). This application provides a very soft look, i think it would be ideal to use in interviewing subjects in documentaries, because its very natural look and not dramatic.
Something i would think about before shooting, would be the inspirations I could draw from lighting. I must think about the location, the time during the light, whether it is in the afternoon with hard light or night/evening with limited light. Also i think it would be great for me to list the advantages and disadvantages of a location, therefore i would go through a process of elimination and choose the best location that will represent my vision well.
Week 4
The film ‘Emmaline Dreams of Playtime’ executed out, a comparison of window light and artificial light. The first group framed their subjects well, but i would have showed less head space. I feel like the window light, provides a soft look on the subjects, but their faces are a bit dull because they are faced against the window. If we could film the exercise again, maybe I would rearrange them so the window light will effectively light up their faces. The first time lighting equipment was used, it was actually too exposed, the second time the lighting was well lit on the model’s faces, but did produce some hard shadows.
The solo shot of Delores provides a nice example of a shallower depth of field because she is in focus while the male in the back is somewhat blurry. I thought this was a good example of depth of field. Along with the good framing of Delore, her face is softly lit with no hard shadows, the lighting also looks very natural like it came from the window which is a bonus!
One of the cons of using artificial lighting is that overall the lights looks hard and not appealing. It does not look very natural at, it looked like somebody flashed their car headlights on.
I think we would use this type of lighting in the morning when we want to go for a fluorescent, soft glow. I would imagine using this type of lighting for a short film of someone getting ready in the morning, while getting ready, the light could be used to slowly prevail the morning glow while getting ready to signify a happy start to a day.