By
David E. Williams
Roger
Deakins, ASC, BSC details his lighting approach to Prisoners, a police procedural with compelling plot twists
p.55
Deakins says “For a while, we considered
shooting the whole film handheld to give a slightly raw feel, but that didn’t
feel right. It’s a dramatic story, not a documentary realism.”
“In the end, we chose a very restrained,
matter-of-fact style camerawork.”
Prisoners was shot on location in the suburbs of Atlanta, Ga., Deakins says
his lighting approach was determined as much by the available locations and the
blocking of action as it was by the story itself. “Deciding on the lighting is
always difficult,” he says. “So often you might have an idea going in, but you
cant get trapped by that because so much depends on the reality of the shooting
day.”
p.56
Deakins shot the picture digitally using an
Arri Alexa Studio, an Alexa Plus and Arri Master Prime Lenses, capturing in
ArriRaw.
“I usually rated at 1,250 ASA. Everything
else, apart from a few day exteriors, was rated night at 800 ASA. I like to
shoot right in the middle because the image will have more latitude and more
dynamic range.”
Basic source lighting was the rule through
much of the production. As an example, Deakins points to a rainy night sequence
in which Loki and other police officers converge on Jones’ dilapidated RV,
surrounding the vehicle in an isolated parking lot. “Originally we looked for a
highway rest stop for this scene but as we discussed it, I realized that the
sort of location probably wouldn’t have any sources to work from, and I didn’t
want to create a moonlight look because that would’ve looked artificial.”
p.57
“I suggested we have the RV park by a gas
station that had a big parking lot, which would allow some light sources and
add depth to the landscape.
“Our lighting approach helped dictate the
location, which then helped dictate the staging of the scene, which led to the
actual lighting – it was an evolution. Basically, we lit the film by choosing
the right places to shoot it.”
p.58
Location also dictated lighting in a unique
reveal sequence that introduces Loki on that Thanksgiving evening. He is eating
dinner alone in a near-empty Chinese restaurant that has large glass windows
allowing the camera to easily pick Loki up even in relatively long shots from
outside.
The Solution to lighting the interior of
the restaurant was China balls, “but that had nothing to do with it being a Chinese
restaurant,” Chris Napolitano (one of Deakins regular collaborators) says with
a laugh.
Napolitano used 19” China balls fitted with
sockets and 100 watt household bulbs, which were dimmed down to add warmth. No
fill was used, as the fixtures cast such a soft, realistic top-light on
Gyllenhaal.
p.60
Again, Deakins’ Lighting strategy was to
rely mostly on practical’s. “I didn’t want to put any extraneous light on the
scene by using overheads on towers or condors. I wanted the candles to be our
main source, so we got a lot of double wick candles and then dummied a number
of them with electric versions for the background; we concealed the bare bulbs
with those same little plastic cups people generally use on candles to protect
them from the wind.”
p.62
For this scene, Deakins rated the Alexa at
1,600 ASA “because it was very minimal lighting, and I wanted to push (the
candlelight feel) as far as I could. I could have probably shot the whole scene
just with triple wick candles, but the flames would have been too large.”
“One of the pluses of working in the same
neighborhood for weeks was that I could come out at the end of a days shoot in
one place and start doing a little bit of lighting elsewhere. The rigging crew
put all these gags using little mushroom bulbs on the houses and in the
backyards, and then they added Redheads behind each streetlight to augment the
light a bit. We also set up the streetlights themselves, as none existed at the
location; basically, we started with nothing. By the time we came in to shoot,
the backgrounds were done, and we could shoot from virtually any angle.”
p.63
“Inside some of the houses and garages we’d
drop a batten strip of 150-watt RFL globes to create a soft push of light
coming out of, say, a kitchen window into the back yard,” says Napolitano. “We
also placed lights off in the distance, at different levels, to add something
in the background for depth.”
“We used a lot of gold bounce cards to give
a nice, soft push of light coming from the corner to enhance whatever fixture
was working off the house.”
“We also installed a lot of dimmers in
walls on our locations, wherever we needed a dimmer on a practical, and then
wired another light with it. So, if there was a bedroom light on a switch, we
would wire into it another light, so that when the actor came in, he’d just hit
that switch on the wall, and it would light the practical and our light with
it.”
p.64
The exterior sequence was staged in the
front yard of a ramshackle house, and largely lit by boosted household practical’s
and a series of police work lights illuminating the outer area. “I struggled
with those last few shots of the film because I was working with the idea of
how to light that house but also add some tension,” Deakins recalls. “Then we
decided it would make sense for the police to have rigged work lights, and they
could turn them off one by one as they prepare to leave”
I’m essence, the trapped characters chance
of living dims as each of those lights Is extinguished.
“But justifying having enough light to get
out there from the house was tricky.” The work light practical’s then completed
the effects.
p.65
“I like character films. I like
photographing a human face. I find that more interesting than anything else,
and that’s what I will continue to do.”
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