In searching for a location to shoot at I have focused on area, which have a symmetrical composition with the ability to frame shots in parallels. I have looked hotel as well as supermarkets but the best location I have found is a church. The location has a long aisle’s, tall walls, pillars and big long windows. The location is perfectly symmetrical and prefect to replicate composition of stills seen in the work of John Alcott.
One concern is that of the amount of light inside the building. The church is surrounded by tree’s so much of the light hitting the windows is filtered. This means artificial light will be required to get the right exposure of light aimed at points of interest in the film.
I find the lighting in this scene from 2001 very captivating, backlight is used as the main source of lighting and I really like the way the characters crossover with the lights when they study the Monolith.
This something I wish to emulate in one of the shots in my film. The key is to have a very strong source of backlight that could either be crossed over blocked out by the character in the foreground.
Though from my previous research I have stated that the majority of Alcott’s cinematography is well lighted, there are also many examples of darker and shadowy bits of composition seen throughout his work.
Barry Lyndon in particular uses candlelight’s as a fill light on characters faces. This is a very soft tone of light used to draw interest to the character whilst the background is dark and shadowy resulting in a strong contrast between background and foreground, easily drawing the eye to the point of interest.
An element of lighting that I’m really keen of Alcott’s is that of a leaking glow of light from the background, which lights the lining of characters faces.
The lighting is not just visually attractive but also very symbolic, almost a metaphor to the slogan “every cloud has a silver lining”. In keeping with the story of Alex in “A Clockwork Orange” as well as in the film “Barry Lyndon”.
With a visual style to replicate I must find a location that can cater for the look I wish to achieve. Composition wise, I need a location with parallel walls, and lighting wise I want somewhere with a diffused white light look to it. Therefore I need a location with light scattered evenly. From watching the Big Lebowksi I was drawn to a still in where “the dude” is at the supermarket buying milk.
A location like this would be ideal. Supermarkets have evenly lengthened long aisles with parallel’s looking down the length of the depth of field. Lighting wise, supermarkets have evenly spread light and some also have the tone of colour seen in this still, almost a neon white, florescent, cold look, a look I wish to replicate in my piece. Rather than just relying on practical light there also seems to be a little fill on the character too.
With hopefully filming my cinematography assignment within the next couple of weeks its time I started getting some test footage. This test footage below is using the Canon 550d, a camera I have purchased, which I plan to use for my assignment. The camera is a DSLR and is said to not work well in low light condition with the standard 18-55mm lens it comes with however I went out into the night I got some really attractive looking bokeh lighting. This is contrary to the light conditions in which I will be filming in but camera practice is good and will help be acclimatise from shooting with a conventional camcorder like the Panasonic 151 to a DSLR camera, the 550d.
In the day I also filmed some close-up footage, something I will be doing for my film assignment, especially up close and personal in the faces of any characters in my film. This is another test footage task I wish to complete in the near future, so I can get used to using the focus ring whilst moving in, out and around the face of any characters I use.
As you can see from the above footage, the 1080p pictures from the 550d are of incredible quality and detail.
For this blog entry I wanted to take a brief look on some of the lighting seen in the cinematography of John Alcott. Although in my assignment, I wish to emulate some of the diffused white practical light seen in Alcott’s films, I wanted to use some examples of films in where lighting has been used in different ways to express a certain mood in which the scenes take place.
An example of this is seen in “A Clockwork Orange”. One piece of lighting really appeals to me in this film in where Alex and the “droogs” come across a drunken elderly tramp on their way back from some mischief caused earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPu83WMl92Y
In the shots taken there is a large powerful backlight behind the “droogs” as they stroll towards their next victim. The shadows projected on to the floor in front of them are long and block the former well light pathway in the subway, symbolic of the moment; as the darkness prevails over the light.
Another great use of light and shadows can be seen in “The Shining”. In the scene where Wendy is on the run from Jack Torrance. She meanders he way up the stairs and reaches the caretaker’s headquarters in the Overlook where she see’s a manifestation of a bear and gentleman in a suit.
An interesting use of light is the way it creates a shadow of the railings in the banister of the stairs, which is projected on to the walls. This might be a metaphor to create a feeling of imprisonment. The bars look like those of a jail cell in where the dead souls of the Overlook are trapped in, and never can escape. Although the doorway itself is open and lit with practical light to possibly symbolize the open passage in which the manifestations of the dead are crossing into the real world.
In terms of continuity the only way the light could be casting shadows is in the middle of the scene which is open space, nowhere, where a light good be positioned naturally, so studio light must have been used to create the shadows of the banisters on all four sides of the walls; adding to the subliminal psychological disturbance of the films purpose.
