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The river work was done during the day but with quite dense cloud cover. In that we were lucky as we had one day to shoot and it only clouded up at mid afternoon. If I had thought we could have shot the rest of the transitions between night and dawn during full daylight I would have done that. Trying to shoot complex shots in a window of about 30 minutes is quite stressful.
Yes, there are certainly many things you can achieve in the DI and using effects but, personally, I prefer reality.
Maintaining contrast on a cloudy day? If you want more contrast then, yes, use negative fill or a lamp. But there is no rule and you have to make that judgement from script to script and shot to shot.
That’s hard! I love B&W and it seems to me that color works in a different way. A color image is obviously far more naturalistic and it is hard to use the same kind of expressionistic lighting using color. Maybe, there can be something equivalent as in ‘Seven’, for instance.
I’m not sure what you are referring to specifically. Objective? In what sense do you use the word and can you let me have specific examples.
The night scenes in ‘True Grit’ were lit using HMI l.amps and tungsten balanced film stock. I was using Musco lights for the large night scenes in ‘NCFOM’, which are similarly cool lamps, whilst also HMI lamps for other night scenes.
You should just experiment with the par light as you seem comfortable with it. We all have different ways of working so it is not for me, or anyone else, to say what is ‘best’. I have used par lamps to bounce and as a direct source, whether through diffusion or simply raw so its not that I am against the lamp I just have my own preferences in certain situations.
I carried a couple of Red Heads when I was shooting documentaries but to augment daylight might be a stretch. of course, it all depends on the level of daylight and the width of your shot. By the time you color correct the lamp and push it through diffusion you are not looking at a very powerful source.
They are quite uneven in their beam shape and a single unit is not as efficient as a 650 Red Head or a 2K Blonde. If you use multiple par bulbs in a 6 or 9 light you will struggle for control. Now, a Maxi into a 12′ x 12′ can work but that is when you are working at a larger scale. I have bounced a Dino and a Wendy light on a large set.
If you care and are trying to find something more than just a recording of what is in front of you, whether a film is large or small, there are always ‘obstacles’ and ‘frustrations’. Rarely, if ever, is the result as good as you hoped it would be when you imagined it.
While it may be an interesting idea to study the composition of those three great directors it could only be a very limited and personal ‘practical demonstration’ of what constitutes the greatest shots. I will not start a list of what I would consider the ‘greatest shots’ as it would take me far too much time but Sergio Leone? Tarkovsky? Zvyagintsev? …. And in 10 minutes! I wish it were that easy!
‘Eye candy’. Yes, I think color is often just ‘eye candy’ and both a distraction and an excuse for a lack of something else. On the other hand, there are great photographs as well as films shot in color.
As for the eye line. I can’t imagine there is a single shot in ‘Psycho’ that was not deliberate and also drawn out in advance. I’m sure there is a storyboard somewhere.
I don’t know that there is any right or wrong way to practice cinematography or anything else for that matter. Though, maybe, that is not true of yoga or marathon running etc.. I would say to watch as many films as you have time for, study the work of as many painters and photographers as you can, and just shoot! Edit what you shoot, see what you like and what you feel was a failure and then try again. And again! And again! There are no tricks or easy answers.
It was once suggested to me that if I could light a human face I could light anything. Perhaps that is true in the sense that a film is generally dependent on the characters depicted within it, so it’s not a bad idea to concentrate on the face. But cinematography, visual storytelling, is not only about portraiture.
I find Artemis pretty useful as a conversation starter but it never seems to exactly replicates what a lens will see. As for the idea of taking stills of a location and somehow building a storyboard to that degree of detail? Where does that end? Do you light those images to mimic what you will later shoot? A storyboard should only be the suggestion of an idea and that extra effort should go to shooting.
I don’t think you are overthinking it but only you can say for sure! The lamp you use is preferably one that has a even spread rather than a hot spot and an uneven surround . I would use a Fresnel when in close and required some control of the beam size and intensity but an open face light when I was after something more substantial from further away. Personally, I do not like using a par as a bounce light.
This particular scene was lit by the overhead florescent tubes as you suggest. The idea of this kind of lighting came from a location we scouted before we built the set. I did add an extra 2′ tube to soften the light from these fixtures depending on the camera angle but that was all. In fact, I did use some small squares of black cloth to reduce the natural bounce off the set walls.
The small conical shades, and the paper hanging off them, that are the main source of light when the projectors are in operation, were also a mirror of the way the lighting was rigged in another working location that we scouted.
