From American Cinematographer, A Transcendent Career Foretold by Bob Fisher (February '99)
"I think the most important thing about cinematography is lighting. That's how you create the mood that matches the story. The ability to light artistically is a gift from the gods. If you have the ability, you shouldn't waste it. You should be looking for ways to improve and grow."
- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
I read, discuss, and discover new things about cinematography everyday. Most of it, I consider incredibly interesting. Everyday I will share one of those things, maybe more if I have time.
Showing posts with label Lighting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lighting. Show all posts
28.5.09
Conrad Hall: Tech. Names & Approach to Set Lighting
From American Cinematographer, Leader of the Pack interview by Caleb Deschanel, ASC & edited by David E. Williams (September 1998)
Deschanel: Having watched you work a number of times, I know you have a tendency to ignore certain technical aspects of the craft. I’ve heard you say, ’Oh, bring me a light that’s about this big.’ [Both laugh.] Now, I know you’re talking about a 10K, but do you deliberately just want to free your mind of all of those details?
Hall: Should I know all the names of all the lights? There’s just so much new equipment coming out all the time. In terms of lights, I basically work with big lights and tiny lights. I simplify. I’m loathe to take walls out to shoot a scene. A production designer I recently worked with said to me, ’Conrad, when you shoot, you have a circle around your subject and you work within that circle. When Piotr Sobocinski shoots, he peels the circle back, leaving just a wall here behind his subject. When Emmanuel Lubezki [ASC, AMC] shoots, he does the same thing, but then he kicks a hole in the wall to make space for a backlight.’ Well, I like the reality of shooting in a room with set dimensions. I’m not used to tearing out a wall and pushing back 40 feet so I can use long lenses. I’ve just never thought about working that way. I like to live in this kind of formal reality, in the same way that a painter lives with a canvas of a certain size. That sets up certain rules and suggests an approach without creating the possibility of the viewer being somewhere he or she cannot be.
25.5.09
Vilmos Zsigmond: Improv Lighting
From American Cinematographer, Learning to See by Bill Linsman (March 1998)
"August of 1976 was the first time I taught in Rockport. Rob Draper was my assistant. Those first few sessions were a bit haphazard; we were just feeling our way. For example, one time we were lighting a parking lot, and suddenly we had a blackout. The whole town went dark. There we were with the camera and lights, and the lights wouldn't work. I said, 'Wait a second. We can do something while we're waiting for the lights to come back on.' We had a lot of students who had their cars there, so we actually staged the scene by the headlights of the cars. People were crossing in front of the headlights, and their silhouettes were going in front of those lights, and the images were just beautiful. We came up with something out of nothing to show that in a desperate situation, you can use anything for a key light."
- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
"August of 1976 was the first time I taught in Rockport. Rob Draper was my assistant. Those first few sessions were a bit haphazard; we were just feeling our way. For example, one time we were lighting a parking lot, and suddenly we had a blackout. The whole town went dark. There we were with the camera and lights, and the lights wouldn't work. I said, 'Wait a second. We can do something while we're waiting for the lights to come back on.' We had a lot of students who had their cars there, so we actually staged the scene by the headlights of the cars. People were crossing in front of the headlights, and their silhouettes were going in front of those lights, and the images were just beautiful. We came up with something out of nothing to show that in a desperate situation, you can use anything for a key light."
- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
Gabriel Beristain: Mood Lighting for Locations
From American Cinematographer, Paging Machiavelli by Eric Rudolph (March 1998)
"The scene where Ross actually gets on the moving carousel's enclosure, which helped us to create a feeling of confusion. We could not get any lighting direction that way, because it was all crosslight and flare and backlight, then darkness and strong frontlight, then sidelight. It helped to communicate the utter confusion in the mind of the character about just what is what and who is who in this nightmare."
- Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC
Creating the provocative lighting for the various rooms and corridors of the police station, Beristain says, was...
"...like being in a playground. We wanted a intensely hostile and scary environment, but we didn't want to go with the typical fluorescent lighting and Steadicam approach that is so often used in that type of setting. We decided to make each room in the police station look worse than the previous one. It's like Dante's Inferno; each place seems like it must be the worst, but it turns out to only be purgatory, and you keep going deeper and deeper into the gloom."
- Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC
"The scene where Ross actually gets on the moving carousel's enclosure, which helped us to create a feeling of confusion. We could not get any lighting direction that way, because it was all crosslight and flare and backlight, then darkness and strong frontlight, then sidelight. It helped to communicate the utter confusion in the mind of the character about just what is what and who is who in this nightmare."
- Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC
Creating the provocative lighting for the various rooms and corridors of the police station, Beristain says, was...
"...like being in a playground. We wanted a intensely hostile and scary environment, but we didn't want to go with the typical fluorescent lighting and Steadicam approach that is so often used in that type of setting. We decided to make each room in the police station look worse than the previous one. It's like Dante's Inferno; each place seems like it must be the worst, but it turns out to only be purgatory, and you keep going deeper and deeper into the gloom."
- Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC
Gabriel Beristain: One Light Source Lighting
From American Cinematographer, Paging Machiavelli by Eric Rudolph (March 1998)
"I try to use the greatest economy of lights and flags. I like to use one light source through a window or door, supplemented with a tiny bit of fill indoors, and then try to choreography the scene with the director so that we play the light. Ironically, my most complicated lighting has been in comedies. In comedy, you have to be very careful not to do a very flat looking film, yet you don't want to lose the nice moments with the eyes on the jokes. You set one light and that leads to another and another, and suddenly you have a tree of lights and flags. When you are doing a film with a personal artistic look, like The Spanish Prisoner, it is easier to use one light source. It's riskier, but if you have the director's cooperation, such an approach can be very rewarding."
- Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC
"I try to use the greatest economy of lights and flags. I like to use one light source through a window or door, supplemented with a tiny bit of fill indoors, and then try to choreography the scene with the director so that we play the light. Ironically, my most complicated lighting has been in comedies. In comedy, you have to be very careful not to do a very flat looking film, yet you don't want to lose the nice moments with the eyes on the jokes. You set one light and that leads to another and another, and suddenly you have a tree of lights and flags. When you are doing a film with a personal artistic look, like The Spanish Prisoner, it is easier to use one light source. It's riskier, but if you have the director's cooperation, such an approach can be very rewarding."
- Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC
Freddie Francis: Cinematography & Technology
From American Cinematographer, Cinematic Glory by David E. Williams (March 1998)
Looking back on his career, Francis ponders the technological changes that have been made since his start in the 1930's. Scoffing at the notion that cinematography is an inherently technical field, he offers,
"If someone says to me, 'I loved that shot, how did you light it?', I'll think they've lost the point. My explanation doesn't mean a thing because there are 20 ways to light a shot and get the same result. Why you do something is far more important than how."
- Freddie Francis, BSC
"The cinematographer is a storyteller, and his main job is to communicate with the director and get his ideas on screen. I just always insist on having a wonderful operator and wonderful gaffer. I can tell them what I have in my mind and they'll know what to do, with me just adding a few touches later."
- Freddie Francis, BSC
Looking back on his career, Francis ponders the technological changes that have been made since his start in the 1930's. Scoffing at the notion that cinematography is an inherently technical field, he offers,
"If someone says to me, 'I loved that shot, how did you light it?', I'll think they've lost the point. My explanation doesn't mean a thing because there are 20 ways to light a shot and get the same result. Why you do something is far more important than how."
- Freddie Francis, BSC
"The cinematographer is a storyteller, and his main job is to communicate with the director and get his ideas on screen. I just always insist on having a wonderful operator and wonderful gaffer. I can tell them what I have in my mind and they'll know what to do, with me just adding a few touches later."
- Freddie Francis, BSC
11.5.09
Giuseppe Rotunno: Cinematography Analogy
From American Cinematographer, Renaissance Man by Ron Magid (March 1999)
Rotunno likes to say that he has created a great deal out of very little; he points out that just as music only has seven basic notes, cinematography has only three lights:
"You've got the key light, fill light, and back light, out of which comes an infinity of results. The light is like a kaleidoscope, but those three lights mixed together are more touchy than the kaleidoscope. It's difficult to ask a painter, 'How did you paint the picture?' I go with my eyes and intuition. I like so much to light, and I cannot stop. When I was shooting with Fellini, I was always lighting the next shot, because I was afraid to lose the idea of the light. My love for this work made it really easy. I work very hard, but the days seem only five minutes long. It's a business I'm very, very proud of, because I was able to crate wonderful harmony with my directors, and to release their fantasies."
-Giuseppe Rotunno, ASC, AIC
Rotunno likes to say that he has created a great deal out of very little; he points out that just as music only has seven basic notes, cinematography has only three lights:
"You've got the key light, fill light, and back light, out of which comes an infinity of results. The light is like a kaleidoscope, but those three lights mixed together are more touchy than the kaleidoscope. It's difficult to ask a painter, 'How did you paint the picture?' I go with my eyes and intuition. I like so much to light, and I cannot stop. When I was shooting with Fellini, I was always lighting the next shot, because I was afraid to lose the idea of the light. My love for this work made it really easy. I work very hard, but the days seem only five minutes long. It's a business I'm very, very proud of, because I was able to crate wonderful harmony with my directors, and to release their fantasies."
-Giuseppe Rotunno, ASC, AIC
9.5.09
Conrad Hall: "Highly Pointillistic" Approach
Over the past few years, Hall has been developing what he calls a "Highly Pointillistic" style of lighting, culminating with his work on Searching for Bobby Fischer, in which he employed this technique to its greatest degree. He again utilized this approach for A Civil Action. -AC Mag
"Early in my career, I started to use spotted-down Fresnel lamps for scenes in hallways where it was hard to hide lights. I would put a light 'on the pin'-- which means fully spotted-in-- and then raise it up behind the camera, shooting it over the heads of the characters down the corridor. I'd then just tip it down so that the hot spot wasn't really hitting anything except the far end of the hallway. The light was at a great distance, so it wasn't very bright at the end of the hallway, but I could then bring just the edge of the light down to subtly illuminate the heads of the people walking. Since that light was from the camera, the shadows wouldn't be apparent and I'd get this nice falloff on their bodies.
From there, I started to develop this sort of pointillistic sense of using light by focusing it rather then cutting it. If you hit a wall with a light and then start gradating it by cutting light off certain parts of the wall, you end up with a lot of flags. A light spotted in on the pin is like working with a finer brush, painting a certain area the way you want it to appear with the contrast you want it to have. I can't recall which film this idea started with, but I began using all of my lamps at full focus. Obviously, to create a soft light you don't focus a lamp on a 12' by 12' or 20' by 20' muslin-- you fill the muslin completely and then cut the light from there. But if you're using the raw light at full focus, it doesn't create shadows that are so sharp. If the character happens to run into the light, it creates sort of blurred shadows on the wall. The edge of the light falls off softly, but there's a hot spot in the center. I love to have people walk through too bright an area, for instance. I don't want them to stand there [in the hot spot] and deliver a page and a half of dialogue, but if they pass through something very bright for a moment it creates a good feeling of movement."
-Conrad Hall, ASC
"Early in my career, I started to use spotted-down Fresnel lamps for scenes in hallways where it was hard to hide lights. I would put a light 'on the pin'-- which means fully spotted-in-- and then raise it up behind the camera, shooting it over the heads of the characters down the corridor. I'd then just tip it down so that the hot spot wasn't really hitting anything except the far end of the hallway. The light was at a great distance, so it wasn't very bright at the end of the hallway, but I could then bring just the edge of the light down to subtly illuminate the heads of the people walking. Since that light was from the camera, the shadows wouldn't be apparent and I'd get this nice falloff on their bodies.
From there, I started to develop this sort of pointillistic sense of using light by focusing it rather then cutting it. If you hit a wall with a light and then start gradating it by cutting light off certain parts of the wall, you end up with a lot of flags. A light spotted in on the pin is like working with a finer brush, painting a certain area the way you want it to appear with the contrast you want it to have. I can't recall which film this idea started with, but I began using all of my lamps at full focus. Obviously, to create a soft light you don't focus a lamp on a 12' by 12' or 20' by 20' muslin-- you fill the muslin completely and then cut the light from there. But if you're using the raw light at full focus, it doesn't create shadows that are so sharp. If the character happens to run into the light, it creates sort of blurred shadows on the wall. The edge of the light falls off softly, but there's a hot spot in the center. I love to have people walk through too bright an area, for instance. I don't want them to stand there [in the hot spot] and deliver a page and a half of dialogue, but if they pass through something very bright for a moment it creates a good feeling of movement."
-Conrad Hall, ASC
Conrad Hall: Approach to Lighting
"I'm not like a lighting cameraman, who can light without looking through the camera. I cannot light if I can't see the movie that I'm dealing with. I've always imagined that cinematography is like a writer with a blank, white paper in front of him. Cinematographers have a blank screen that has to be filled with the story. I don't necessarily have one mental checklist of how I approach the lighting on a film, but I do have a frame. And in that frame, you have a subject to deal with that's involved with a story. You have to create visualizations that suit the theme and utilize all of the techniques at your fingertips to enhance the right mood. Being a visualist , I often absorb the environment around me and make mental notes. I don't even do it consciously, but I'm always noting how someone looks in a certain scenario. That impression gets stored away in my mental computer. When you're working on a film, all of your past comes with you, with all of the observations you've stored away; you bring forth the observations that apply to the particular story at hand."
-Conrad Hall, ASC
-Conrad Hall, ASC
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)