[Roger Deakins]

Placing diffusion on the barn doors of a lamp will not really make the source ‘softer’ unless your subject is very close to it. The diffusion will spread the light in a more even wide beam but it won’t actually soften a shadow. A second layer directly on top of the first might spread the light even more but it will still not soften the light. To do that you need to make your source larger, as would be the case if your second layer of diffusion is set a few meters in front of the first. In general terms, the further your diffusion from the lamp the softer the light.

[Roger Deakins]

In early conversations we considered shooting entirely with a hand-held camera as we had done on the earlier film, ‘Jarhead’. But as we developed our storyboards we could see that there were many occasions the camera wanted to be more solid and more observational. To shoot some scenes hand-held may well have worked but what would those scenes be and why those in particular? We were shooting on a reasonably long lens so any hand-held work would have been very ‘active’, which we felt would break the spell of the single shot.
I shall be interested in watching the recent ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ to see their approach.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Roger Deakins.

[Roger Deakins]

I would like an optical viewfinder – but I know that is no longer a possibility!

[Roger Deakins]

If you are close on the actor’s face you might think about cheating the shot in a more controllable situation. Getting a clean reflection on a bright day is quite difficult.

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