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I’m pretty sure I shot that scene on 500T stock. I only use a meter to check the level of light at a point in the frame where I want a mid exposure. Otherwise I light by eye. I have no idea what teh contrast ratio read on the meter, for instance.
The ‘eyelight’ was coming from a soft cove of bounce light I was using to wrap Javier’s face. The practical itself was not at the right angle to reach around his face.
I prefer tungsten balanced stock as I feel it has less contrast and saturation. I also like to manage the shift in color as the sun sets on a tungsten stock rather than a daylight one. I probably got used to this way of working before daylight balanced stock were introduced and I am comfortable with it.
I see no definitive reason to shoot with one or with multiple stocks. That’s purely a choice based on the project and locations involved. As for the use of a correction filter, I would shoot on tungsten stock with no 85 or 85B when I wanted the shadows to feel cooler, such as on Shawshank. Even when the overall image was ‘corrected’ in the lab it felt to me the shadows stayed colder.
There was another building close to the window so I used a mirror to double the distance. It also served as a cut to shape the light.
My main set of lenses were the Arri Signature primes on Empire. Cooke are superb lenses. Sure I would use them in the right situation and I often do if I need a zoom, for instance.
I learnt through shooting documentaries and from watching films. I would suggest watching the masters of camera blocking: Melville, Tarkovsky, Bresson, Goddard, Huston, Wilder, Kirosawa ….. Study a film, a good example would be Army of Shadows, and try to understand why Melville moves the camera in one scene and shoots with a locked off camera for another. When and why he crosses the line. Why he uses a long series of seemingly simple shots to build up an event or simply cuts from one event to another with no connecting tissue. Why he holds a shot for an extended length of time or uses a rapid montage – etc.
I will always get a visual in my head when I read a script, just as if I were reading a novel or a history book. The trick is not to lock onto one perspective and to understand where the director is coming form before you settle on anything. That said, there are a number of images that came to my mind at first reading of a script that appear in films I have worked on. The look of that scene in Jarhead being an example. But every image is the result of a long process of discussion and collaboration. Even an image ‘found on the day’ can only be ‘found’ when everyone is in sync as to what the aim of the story, the scene or the shot is.
I have never been attracted to a film because of its visual opportunities. I love stories rather than pictures for their own sake.
Yes, when dealing with front light it is crucial top consider what fall-off you are looking for. Do you want the background to fall into shadow or for teh shot to be evenly lit from front to back?
That was a location that had to be lit as we shot all the scenes in one day. Naturally, the daylight would not have been sufficient for nor would it have been reliable. I remember we used a line of 12K HMIs on one side but I’m not sure what the overhead source was. I suspect we used a lighting balloon. I have rarely used balloons but I think I did in this church as there was no possibility of rigging inside or accessing the roof.
This scene in Sicario was shot on location and I wanted to maintain the sense of the outside, if leaving it intensely bright. The Sapper Morton farm interior was a stage set and I had a wire mesh added to the windows so that they maintained some texture rather than being white squares. In both cases the main source of the light was coming from outside and was artificial. The sunlight was a PAR lamp bounced off a mirror.
Exactly!
The shots in Rev Road were always worked out between Sam and I after a blocking rehearsal. Always after Sam had finished his morning rehearsal.
The line cross made sense for the composition but the reflection shot of Leo led to the character’s eye lines being ‘correct’.
As I remember it, we lit the set and little changed shot to shot. As you say, sometimes expediency is the best policy.
Yes, that was definitely true. The whole history was so traumatic and I understood that there were bodies hung from that same overpass.
Interesting, the discrepancy between the wide and the mid shot. I remember this as a very difficult second floor location and that we rigged large reflectors outside the windows on scissors lifts or cranes – I can’t remember which. I was trying to minimize the risk of sunlight hitting the windows, or the natural daylight changing during our shoot, so that is why I went for bounce sources. I remember I used no additional lighting inside the room so the variation between the two shots is because I must have asked Leo to stand a little further away from the mirror.
I love that we crossed the line between the shots. Another thing I remember doing quite consciously.
