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Larger and/or closer is softer, though too close and the rapid fall-off is noticeable, so just larger for softer is better. If the bounce amount is too much, you can either dim it by stretching a single net scrim over it (so you don’t have to back it up), or you can use a less white material such as Day Blue Muslin (or Day Grey), even a dirty unbleached muslin would be less bright if you also want some warmth.
I find that large Day Blue Muslins add subtle cool fill without looking obvious.
I would say because it’s not a scene about intimacy, it’s about an imbalance of power — he’s in a single chair, she’s alone on a love seat.
At least with 4-perf 35mm film, there was the advantage that anamorphic had over Super 35 cropped to 2.39 — the larger negative area used, resulting in a finer-grained image.
With digital, that advantage doesn’t really exist — with 2X anamorphic you aren’t using more of the sensor for 2.39 since most sensors are at least 1.5 : 1 in shape, plus there isn’t grain in digital anyway.
So that pretty much leaves using anamorphic in digital for the anamorphic artifacts, the squeezed bokeh, the soft edges, the flares… if you minimize or elimate all of that then what are you really getting out of anamorphic?
I think it makes sense (Lumet’s method of working on taped-out empty rehearsal rooms like stage plays do) because 80% of the time ends up being taken up of discussions with actors over meaning and motivations, not the blocking. So it’s good to get that out of way in prep.
Something like Half Soft Frost or Silent Frost should work but it will have a seam in a 12×12 I think. You can rent a rear projection screen from some video projector companies.
I don’t think it exists in the way you describe in the original post – lighting today is more based on emulating a source so if the men and women are lit by the same source then they get the same lighting more or less. The differences I was referring to is more subtle in terms of adjusting the light in a close-up for cosmetic reasons.
It’s a bit of an outdated view on lighting. Back in the 1940s-60s, you read interviews with some cinematographers who sometimes suggested that “realism” in lighting meant lighting men to look rugged and tough (more use of sculptural hard cross-lighting, no diffusion on the lens) and women to look beautiful (more use of a soft frontal key light and diffusion on the lens) — which is not how we define realism today.
Practically speaking, beyond lighting a space naturally with the impression of using only practical sources (whether true or not), we sometimes do “cosmetic” lighting adjustments for an actor if they need to be flattered visually in the scene, but that might hold true for a male or female character depending on the scene.
It’s true that more often, we are asked to light the female actor in the scene a bit more flatteringly, more glamorously, than the male actor, sometimes for a good story reason… but other times there are other external pressures to do so, or it is just expectation on the part of someone in charge. One could complain that it relates to the “male gaze” and the objectification of women in media, and that’s true sometimes, but there are other factors too.
Cinematographers often repeat certain tools and techniques to achieve the intended look of the project. And of course, they apply their personal taste on their work.
But personal style, outside of the project’s style itself, is not something one should try and develop self-consciously. That tends to look inorganic. Just tell the story visually in the way you think is most appropriate and effective.
Same thing could be said about frontal shots versus shots on the character’s back — sometimes it is more effective emotionally to play the scene with the character’s back to camera or have the character be in darkness and hard to see. Or shot size, tighter is not always better.
There is no formula that you can apply, this is where understanding the text and the actor’s performance informs you as to the approach based on your taste and experience, and there is no single “correct” decision (of course, it is possible to make some bad decisions as well.)
Like I said, Gordon Willis movies — look at “The Parallax View” or “Godfather Part 2” or “Klute”. They are observational and yet have emotional weight.
Kurosawa’s 1960s movies like “Red Beard”, “The Bad Sleep Well”, and “High and Low” use longer anamorphic lenses stopped down for deeper focus.
The problem is that “emotional weight” is context-oriented more than technique-oriented. If the scene is about a lonely person getting bad news like the death of a loved one, perhaps the most effective shot emotionally is a wide observational one where the character is seen sitting alone in the next room framed by a doorway. It could even be longer-lensed, if there is room to back up the camera, in order to create flatter planes of depth. Yes, being up close and wide-angle might give the feeling of experiencing the moment with the character and yet the wider, farther shot might suggest their isolation and could be the more emotionally “weighty” shot.
You could say the having the camera closer with a shorter lens gives the character more “presence” or makes the shot feel more “intimate” compared to shooting from farther back, but whether that always adds more emotional weight is not clear. A lot of Gordon Willis “weighty” shots in “The Godfather Part 2” involved a 40mm lens, which is not particularly wide-angle, but the lighting/exposure and framing create a certain heavy mood that matches the content.
There’s no formula for this. You can’t say that, for example, “25mm at 3’ has more emotional weight than 50mm at 6’.”
You have to watch movies (or look at art & photography) and see what moves you. I think Gordon Willis’ 1970s work often has emotional weight though often shot in wider frames due partially to the somber light and how the framing works with that — but really, ultimately the weight of the scene comes from the content.
