From American Cinematographer, Legal Eagle by Eric Rudolph (October 1998)
"I don't like to rim-light. We do it when we need to — for example, if we have [series star] Sam Waterston in a gray suit against a brown wall — but I prefer to separate the actors using the background. I try to light and shadow the background in an interesting way that will contrast with the actors. To me, that approach is more like a feature and less like 80 percent of television, where everyone seems to have a halo."
- Constantine Makris, 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 separation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label separation. Show all posts
13.7.09
Jean Yves Escoffier: Pools of Light & Night Exteriors
From American Cinematographer, Card Sharks by Jean Oppenheimer (October 1998)
For night exteriors, he used a Lee 104 deep amber gel to suggest the warm sodium-vapor lights now being used in the Big Apple (the city formerly used mercury-vapor streetlamps, which weren't as warm). "The night stuff was beautiful," marvels New York-based gaffer Ramsey. "Some of the streets where we shot were very mundane, junky little lower East Side streets. But the way Jean Yves shot them, with the contrasts and pools of light, really brought them to life."
Night street scenes are Escoffier's favorite milieu. "I love to do the city by night," he says in a reverential tone. "It is like a painting." With a laugh, he adds, "I am a happy person by night."
The cinematographer sought to make the film's exterior night scenes more dramatic and expressionistic. "People who are addicted to playing cards are like night birds," he suggests. "They have strange minds. They are alone in the world. I didn't want them to appear in the normal light of the city by night, so I completely changed the light."
Escoffier created his dramatic nighttime exteriors partially through the use of Dino lights, which were aimed through custom-made cookies to create strong pools of light, so that people walking down the streets would travel in and out of the illuminated areas. The characters' faces were almost always highlighted with eyelights, which were either attached to the camera or held by a crew member walking beside the actor.
Jean Yves Escoffier: Dark Walls & Set Lighting
From American Cinematographer, Card Sharks by Jean Oppenheimer (October 1998)
"I like dark walls because film is about people; each time you have a bright wall, the wall is stronger than the character. I like the reverse [situation]. I also like the lighting to be in intimate relationship with the set. I don't like anything artificial. The ideal situation would be if we could shoot the way the light is naturally, but obviously, if you do that, you would have too many cosmetic problems, and it would be impossible to read the subtle expressions in the actors' eyes. However, I like to go as close to natural as possible. I like to design the tension, the darkness and the brightness the way life would give it to you."
- Jean Yves Escoffier
"I like dark walls because film is about people; each time you have a bright wall, the wall is stronger than the character. I like the reverse [situation]. I also like the lighting to be in intimate relationship with the set. I don't like anything artificial. The ideal situation would be if we could shoot the way the light is naturally, but obviously, if you do that, you would have too many cosmetic problems, and it would be impossible to read the subtle expressions in the actors' eyes. However, I like to go as close to natural as possible. I like to design the tension, the darkness and the brightness the way life would give it to you."
- Jean Yves Escoffier
13.5.09
Jeff Cronenweth: Separation and Underexposing Faces
From American Cinematographer, Anarchy in the U.S.A. by Christopher Probst (November 1999)
"The general game plan was to make sure that the actors separated from their environment and then play the actor's edgelight off of the practicals as much as possible without actually 'lighting' them. For this film, we didn't necessarily want to be able to see directly into their faces. It was more interesting and appropriate to the story to force the audience to pay attention. Faces were generally underexposed 1 1/2 to 2 stops, though it depended upon the scene. If the scene called for the audience to really be able to see them, I'd make the faces closer to 1 1/2 stops under. In either case, it was still important to feel the presence of their eyes, so we often played with eyelights-- everything from obie lights to Kino Flos taped to the matte-box-- which we usually kept three stops under."
- Jeff Cronenweth, ASC
"We lit faces mostly with Kino Flos covered with 1/4 CTO and muslin. The angle and direction of that depended on where the practicals were. If it was a door shot, the key may have to come from the top, or if a pillar got in the way, we might bring it in from the side. David and Jeff wanted everything to be as natural as possible and allowed areas to go dark. We then played with creating blacks that you could just read into with hints of reflections for texture."
- Claudio Miranda, Gaffer for Cronenweth on Fight Club
"The general game plan was to make sure that the actors separated from their environment and then play the actor's edgelight off of the practicals as much as possible without actually 'lighting' them. For this film, we didn't necessarily want to be able to see directly into their faces. It was more interesting and appropriate to the story to force the audience to pay attention. Faces were generally underexposed 1 1/2 to 2 stops, though it depended upon the scene. If the scene called for the audience to really be able to see them, I'd make the faces closer to 1 1/2 stops under. In either case, it was still important to feel the presence of their eyes, so we often played with eyelights-- everything from obie lights to Kino Flos taped to the matte-box-- which we usually kept three stops under."
- Jeff Cronenweth, ASC
"We lit faces mostly with Kino Flos covered with 1/4 CTO and muslin. The angle and direction of that depended on where the practicals were. If it was a door shot, the key may have to come from the top, or if a pillar got in the way, we might bring it in from the side. David and Jeff wanted everything to be as natural as possible and allowed areas to go dark. We then played with creating blacks that you could just read into with hints of reflections for texture."
- Claudio Miranda, Gaffer for Cronenweth on Fight Club
12.5.09
Michael Ballhaus: Layered Separation
From American Cinematographer, Sci-Fi Cowboys by David E. Williams (July 1999)
Bo Welch's sets, including Loveless's bordello-style bedroom, the grimy interiors of the Tarantula walking machine, the interior and exterior of Fat Can Candy's Saloon, and James West's railroad car, reflect the film's genre-blending tone, and were alternately fashioned with complex patterns, deep shadows, rich colors and dark-wood textures. To create separation between the actors and their surroundings, Ballhaus kept the backgrounds "light, but not so prominent that they might distract the viewer's eye from the actors and the action. Many of our scenes are set at night, and we kept those backgrounds dark; while you can see detail, it's not jumping out at you. However, the sets sometimes really soaked up all the light-- inside West's train car, for example, which had a lot of dark wood and dark green curtains-- so we had to add much more light that is apparent. We generally staged scenes so they were sidelit, which added separation and added backlight when possible."
- Michael Ballhaus, ASC
Bo Welch's sets, including Loveless's bordello-style bedroom, the grimy interiors of the Tarantula walking machine, the interior and exterior of Fat Can Candy's Saloon, and James West's railroad car, reflect the film's genre-blending tone, and were alternately fashioned with complex patterns, deep shadows, rich colors and dark-wood textures. To create separation between the actors and their surroundings, Ballhaus kept the backgrounds "light, but not so prominent that they might distract the viewer's eye from the actors and the action. Many of our scenes are set at night, and we kept those backgrounds dark; while you can see detail, it's not jumping out at you. However, the sets sometimes really soaked up all the light-- inside West's train car, for example, which had a lot of dark wood and dark green curtains-- so we had to add much more light that is apparent. We generally staged scenes so they were sidelit, which added separation and added backlight when possible."
- Michael Ballhaus, ASC
Karl Struss: B&W Special Effects with Filtration
From American Cinematographer, Two-Faced Treachery by George Turner (March 1999)
"The first time Jekyll changed, we used a technique I had devised years before to show the healing of the lepers in Ben-Hur [1926]. Everybody was using orthochromatic film then, which reproduced reds and yellows as black, and gave blue-eyed actors 'fish-eyes.' I had begun using panchromatic film, which is sensitive to all colors. The leprosy spots were red makeup, which registered when shot through a green filter, but when we gradually moved a red filter over the lens, the makeup disappeared. The Hyde makeup was also in red and didn't show at all when the red filter was on the lens, but when the filter was moved down very slowly to the green, Mr. Hyde appeared."
- Karl Struss, ASC
"The first time Jekyll changed, we used a technique I had devised years before to show the healing of the lepers in Ben-Hur [1926]. Everybody was using orthochromatic film then, which reproduced reds and yellows as black, and gave blue-eyed actors 'fish-eyes.' I had begun using panchromatic film, which is sensitive to all colors. The leprosy spots were red makeup, which registered when shot through a green filter, but when we gradually moved a red filter over the lens, the makeup disappeared. The Hyde makeup was also in red and didn't show at all when the red filter was on the lens, but when the filter was moved down very slowly to the green, Mr. Hyde appeared."
- Karl Struss, ASC
Robert Surtees: Black & White Filtration
From American Cinematographer, Photography for The Last Picture Show interview by Herb A. Lightman (Jan. 1972)
Your exteriors had a dark, brooding quality and very rich skies, which indicates that you must have made extensive use of filtration. Isn't that so?
"Yes. I went back to the old black-and-white Western style of photography, which isn't done anymore, where you have 20 or 30 filters for different types of scenes, as called for. To say how and where you use each filter would be misleading, because you could give the same set of filters to a different cameraman and he would get a different result. In using filters, you sometimes under-expose of overexpose on purpose to get a particular effect. You might use heavy contrast filters-- even as high as a 25 red or a 21 orange-- in your long shots to make the sky darker, but this also corrects everything else in the scene. The whites become whiter; the darks become darker. When you move in for the close-ups, it's a good idea to change to something like the old Aero-2 filter, which gives you more control. Or, if you still have to use the heavy contrast red or orange filter, you balance the lighting by eye through the camera. When you look up, it doesn't look like you have any light on the subject at all, but you're photographing what you see through the filter. If you're stuck using a red filter on a close-up, the face will go chalky where the sun hits it, so, by artificially lighting it, you work it over so the skin doesn't look chalky. You first knock down the sunlight by putting a net up to shade the face, and you then balance your light while looking through the camera. I think that one of the reasons why I was asked to photograph this picture is that not many fellows are shooting in black-and-white anymore, and I'm one of the few left over from the old black-and-white days. You know, what they need now are 21 year old cameramen who have 60 years of experience."
-Robert Surtees, ASC
Your exteriors had a dark, brooding quality and very rich skies, which indicates that you must have made extensive use of filtration. Isn't that so?
"Yes. I went back to the old black-and-white Western style of photography, which isn't done anymore, where you have 20 or 30 filters for different types of scenes, as called for. To say how and where you use each filter would be misleading, because you could give the same set of filters to a different cameraman and he would get a different result. In using filters, you sometimes under-expose of overexpose on purpose to get a particular effect. You might use heavy contrast filters-- even as high as a 25 red or a 21 orange-- in your long shots to make the sky darker, but this also corrects everything else in the scene. The whites become whiter; the darks become darker. When you move in for the close-ups, it's a good idea to change to something like the old Aero-2 filter, which gives you more control. Or, if you still have to use the heavy contrast red or orange filter, you balance the lighting by eye through the camera. When you look up, it doesn't look like you have any light on the subject at all, but you're photographing what you see through the filter. If you're stuck using a red filter on a close-up, the face will go chalky where the sun hits it, so, by artificially lighting it, you work it over so the skin doesn't look chalky. You first knock down the sunlight by putting a net up to shade the face, and you then balance your light while looking through the camera. I think that one of the reasons why I was asked to photograph this picture is that not many fellows are shooting in black-and-white anymore, and I'm one of the few left over from the old black-and-white days. You know, what they need now are 21 year old cameramen who have 60 years of experience."
-Robert Surtees, ASC
11.5.09
Robert Surtees: Color vs. Black & White
From American Cinematographer, Photography for The Last Picture Show interview by Herb A. Lightman (Jan. 1972)
From the cinematographer's standpoint, which do you think is more difficult to shoot, black-and-white or color?
"From a technical standpoint, I still insist that black and-white is more difficult. For example, while shooting an actual interior in color, if you pan from a well-lighted figure to an area that is dark but too cramped to place lights where you really like them, you can just flatten that area out and get by. But in black-and-white, if you want shadow, you've got to put it in there, man. You can't depend on fill light to take care of it. You really have to model the subject with light instead of counting on the colors for separation. Of course, the right makeup, wardrobe and sets become more important in color photography. You can sometimes get by with the wrong makeup in black-and-white, and you can help a bad set. You can use smaller lamps, get in behind chairs, and break up walls by putting shadows on them. But on the other hand, in shooting black-and-white, you have to do it. You can't count on the process you're using to do it for you."
- Robert Surtees, ASC
From the cinematographer's standpoint, which do you think is more difficult to shoot, black-and-white or color?
"From a technical standpoint, I still insist that black and-white is more difficult. For example, while shooting an actual interior in color, if you pan from a well-lighted figure to an area that is dark but too cramped to place lights where you really like them, you can just flatten that area out and get by. But in black-and-white, if you want shadow, you've got to put it in there, man. You can't depend on fill light to take care of it. You really have to model the subject with light instead of counting on the colors for separation. Of course, the right makeup, wardrobe and sets become more important in color photography. You can sometimes get by with the wrong makeup in black-and-white, and you can help a bad set. You can use smaller lamps, get in behind chairs, and break up walls by putting shadows on them. But on the other hand, in shooting black-and-white, you have to do it. You can't count on the process you're using to do it for you."
- Robert Surtees, ASC
9.5.09
Conrad Hall & Randy Woodside: Pointillistic Reflections
Randy Woodside was Conrad Hall's gaffer on A Civil Action.
"If there's, say, a group of pictures on a wall in the shot, Connie will often say, 'Give me dot-dot-dot.' In order to provide separation between the picture frames and the wall, rather than lighting the wall up, we'll take a small unit like a pepper and come around to the most radical rake on the wall so that the light is only hitting the picture frames. That way, you provide vertical highlights on the frames in the background in order to get more separation. Basically, we're playing with reflective angles. We will also do that same technique from the front. If you're in church on a wide angle lens that reveals the whole church and all the pews, you want something on the reflective angle to bring out highlights. Everybody's first instinct is usually to use a backlight to find that reflective angle. However, people seem to forget that 180* degrees to that, there is also the same reflective angle which is coming from the camera. The courtroom in A Civil Action, had seats that were very much like church pews, so we took a light on the pin and raised it up so that it would just nick the edges. We came in from the front to define those areas against the darker background."
-Randy Woodside
"If there's, say, a group of pictures on a wall in the shot, Connie will often say, 'Give me dot-dot-dot.' In order to provide separation between the picture frames and the wall, rather than lighting the wall up, we'll take a small unit like a pepper and come around to the most radical rake on the wall so that the light is only hitting the picture frames. That way, you provide vertical highlights on the frames in the background in order to get more separation. Basically, we're playing with reflective angles. We will also do that same technique from the front. If you're in church on a wide angle lens that reveals the whole church and all the pews, you want something on the reflective angle to bring out highlights. Everybody's first instinct is usually to use a backlight to find that reflective angle. However, people seem to forget that 180* degrees to that, there is also the same reflective angle which is coming from the camera. The courtroom in A Civil Action, had seats that were very much like church pews, so we took a light on the pin and raised it up so that it would just nick the edges. We came in from the front to define those areas against the darker background."
-Randy Woodside
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