Desert Chase at Dawn scene in No Country for Old Men

[gabbysp]

Hi Roger,

I am doing some research on Day for Light filming for class, and I was wondering if you could tell me about the filming process for the Desert Chase at Dawn scene in No Country for Old Men? Was this filmed during the day?

Topic

[MNMike]

There’s a whole description and breakdown on your question in the looking at light section- NCFOM. It’s pretty thorough and should answer all you questions for the scene. Cheers.

[dmullenasc]

I typed a long reply and by the time I hit “submit” the website software didn’t accept it I guess! It disappeared!

[dmullenasc]

I tried again — I give up! I guess it doesn’t like me putting images into the text.

[dmullenasc]

Test.

[dmullenasc]

OK, one image works… 

[dmullenasc]

OK, so three images didn’t work, I guess two is the limit.

Anyway, for the third time… I don’t think that chase scene in NCFOM is an example of day for night, it’s a night for night scene that goes into twilight for breaking dawn. The frames I just posted above are from “Yellow Sky” (1948), which has a lot of day for night shot on b&w infrared film by Joseph MacDonald. One artifact is that Gregory Peck’s black shirt goes grey due to IR pollution from the dyes in the fabric.

[bardanmcguire]

Hi David! I’m just wondering do you just have vast libraries of screenshots from movies that you like?

It just seems like that to me from the screenshots you share from films on this forum and your brilliant posts on Instagram!

I’ve actually been going through a lot of movies over the past few years and either screenshotting specific scenes I want to analyse or just every shot in the entire movie and then just going through the whole thing to best understand each shots relation to one another and of course composition, lighting etc. Shot deck just isn’t specific enough for me. I find it very helpful for developing my own ideas.

[Roger Deakins]

The dawn chase was filmed at dawn and dusk depending on the individual set up.

[Esteban Sandoz]

Hello Roger Deakins,

My name is Esteban Sandoz and I am a cinema student at IAD (Belgium) in camera and lightning department.

For my 3rd year of bachelor’s degree I am doing a thesis on lights at dusk and what they imply when it comes to filming them during a shoot.

I am therefore writing to you to know your point of view as a cinematographer, in particular by making a link with this magnificent scene in No Country for Old Men, during dawn. I read your explanations about the 7x18Kw but I was wondering how did you go about shooting all these shots in real dawn?

While waiting for your response, I send you my best regards.

[Author]

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