Vittorio Storaro

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/05/vittorio-storaro-dps-write-with-light/

Vittorio Storaro discusses his film The Last Emperor where he represented different stages of the young Pu Yi's life with different light and colours. Storaro claims to use red at the beginning of his life. Orange is the warm colour of the family which is the same colour as the forbidden city. Yellow is the colour of our identity and Green is the colour of knowledge

For my practical, i'm only looking to use coloured lighting, not create a whole set one colour.


Vision of Light

-       The last emperor (1987)

“there was one idea that came to my mind, that there was a possibility to make an analogy between the life and light. The journey that Pu Yi was doing into himself could be represented with different stage with the different stage of light. Different colors. The first time he was cutting his own vein, and you see for the first time red. Red is the color of the beginning, the color when we’re born. he was, remember, being born as an emperor. We go into the scene when the people with the torches are arriving to pick him up. When we see orange in the picture, it is the warm color of the family. It is the color of the forbidden city. I was using all the lights around the young Pu Yi to get the feeling of family. Of warm, or maternal embrace. Yellow, is the color of our identity. When we come conscious, is the color it represents the emperor, is the color that more leads the light, the more represent the sun itself. Green, is knowledge. We see green the first time only when the tutor is coming. He bring s a green bicycle. It’s the knowledge of something. Up to that moment, Pu Yi was living in the forbidden city, it was kind of the forbidden color for him. He didn’t know anything about one section of the color spectrum, green blue, indigo, violet. He knew only red, orange, and yellow. The emperor shouldn’t know anything, should know only a portion of it because knowledge can hurt him. I export our feeling in his way of seeing, and I re-import once again all the experience back to him.”

Clubbing reference scenes

Looking at various films with clubbing/ house party scenes for inspiration of light.
For my practical i will be conveying emotions through different light set ups.


Rise of the footsoldier
the lighting is very blue dominant with hints of red and purple. The atmosphere is very cold, but is contrasted with the sex scenes that cut up the shots. The music and camera shots represent us as the viewer being on drugs through the distorted camera shots.

The bling ring

my idea for my short film is that the girl manipulates the boy through facial gestures, touching up etc. The lighting is quite natural in this house party 

Human traffic
Everyone in Human Traffic is high off one drug or another. When they party in the club the lighting is quite intensely red that is in conjunction to an awkward romance scene between two characters.

Old school
The house party in old school looks real  due to the practical lights surrounding the room. no fancy colours and soft lighting make the party seem very natural

Project x
Green and blue represent a spooky, eerie atmospheric house party. The colours are representing the feelings of the characters as they know this shouldn't be happening.

dissertation question to tutor!

Writing my dissertation i am wary i need to have a structure as i tend to get a sense of being lost and not knowing what to write down and where, even tho i feel i know what i would like to talk about. To help me move on, I emailed my tutor because i wasn't quite sure as to where i would place some of my knowledge and research.


Hi Mike

I have a question regarding my dissertation which is an investigation into cinematography and lighting in film.

does it make more sense for me to write a chapter on the equipment and techniques (in general) and then use separate chapters to write examples of the cinematographers i.e chapter 1. equipment and techniques, chapter 2. roger deakins, chapter 3. stanley kubrick, chapter 4. orson welles etc.

or....

do i write examples of Deakins kubrick and welles work to explain the equipment used within the equipment and techniques chapter?

I hope this makes some sense to you

Yoni

---


Hi Yoni,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. It's a good question, and yes it made sense. In my experience quite often people find it easier to initially write individual chapters on either the films themselves, or the directors. Then what we find is that once we have that information we can then begin to see if there are any commonalities that may support your discussion, for example did two of the directors work in a particular way to convey a message or use lighting evoke a particular kind of emotional response in the viewer. 

I don't see why you can't mention Kubrik and deakins etc in the equipment or techniques chapters buy you may say that this will be discussed in more depth later.

So, in the first instance keep the directors/films as separate chapters, then as this progresses we may begin to combine them.

Hopefully that makes sense too.

Have a good weekend

Michael

Formalist Film Theory

Formalist film theory is a theory of film study that is focused on the formal, or technical, elements of a film: i.e., the lighting, scoring, sound and set design, use of color, shot composition, and editing. It is a major theory of film study today.

Ideological Formalism

Two examples of ideological interpretations that are related to formalism:

The classical Hollywood cinema has a very distinct style, sometimes called the Institutional Mode of Representation: continuity editing, massive coverage, three-point lighting, "mood" music, dissolves, all designed to make the experience as pleasant as possible. The socio-economic ideological explanation for this is, quite crassly, that Hollywood wants to make as much money and appeal to as many ticket-buyers as possible.

Film noir, which was given its name by Nino Frank, is marked by lower production values, darker images, underlighting, location shooting, and general nihilism: this is because, we are told, during the war and post-war years filmmakers were generally more pessimistic (as well as filmgoers). Also, the German Expressionists (including Fritz Lang, who was not technically an expressionist as popularly believed[citation needed]) emigrated to America and brought their stylized lighting effects (and disillusionment due to the war) to American soil.




http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n9wurgaft


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Formalist-film-theory/138100939544875#

Bordwell, David, "Film Art: An Introduction"; McGraw-Hill; 7th edition (June, 2003).
Braudy, Leo, ed., "Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings"; Oxford University Press; 6th edition (March, 2004).
Gianetti, Louis, "Understanding Movies"; Prentice Hall; 10th edition (March, 2004)

Adolphe Appia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Appia


David Bordwell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bordwell

Aesthetica Film Festival: Sheffield Doc Fest

Sheffield Doc Fest

Hussain Currimbhoy

Festival programming

120 films per year: around 30 short films every year

Student made productions UK and international

From new and established filmmakers

Oscar recognised festival

What do we look for?

Applies for short film, documentaries etc

45 mins short film – too long

15 mins short film usual limit

20 mins short film perfect

Films that appeal to both delegates and public creative films that have a strong aesthetic honest enquires: films that treat their subject with dignity and the audience with intelligence a new look at a know issue films that we can help launch

You are making your film with your subject

Were not idiots were here for a reason

Films should treat you with respect and not dumb things down too much

We prioritise new films

What example do I look for in short films

Films that fit with a strand: Music, art, gay & lesbian, sports, resistance, country themes.

Can pair with feature films

Variety of styles: not just cinema variety, 1^st person, essay style.

Hussain’s tips

Watch lots of documentaries and fiction films, animations anything!

A lot of writers I know read a lot

WATCH AS MUCH AS YOU CAN – be engaged with your art form

Consume consume consume

Be inspired by what you know

Film whats inside you, film whats around you immediately

a)    it comes from you

Understand why you are making it. Do not loose sight of why you are making a doc.

Think about your style BEFORE you start shooting:

To me sound is as important, if not more important!! Sound hits you psychologically more than visuals

Find a natural end to your story, if it’s a competition or someone’s giving birth, try to find a natural way for it to end.

Ask a question regarding cliff hangers

Practice!!

Interviews

Leonard Retel Helmrich – the documentary road AMAZING SHOT

Became famous with his incredible, unique shots with no budget using bamboo sticks n other stuff

Documentary is evolving and developing

Theres a new phase which we’ve embraced since 2008 and its about digital film making where we’ve called them interactive at doc fest. A documentary doesn’t need to be a 1 n half hour film or 15 minute short film.

Digital interaction:

Interaction with the documentary, so there are pages where you can press next to interact with the documentary, for example welcome to the pinepoint. About someone’s life. It Has archived footage, old images, where you can click to the next page, it can be really long if you want it to be. Loads of animated images. These type of new documentaries are shown at the doc fest on computers for the audience to interact with.

Exmaples of documentaries:

Out my window (nfb)

Prison valley (arte) france

Collapsus (submarine/vpro) Holland

Galata bridge (florian thalfor……)

The arbour

Welcome to the pinepoint

New documentary is interactive – you need web designers, code writers, a different team to a normal documentary film.

A lot of festivals have rules

-       I will screen a film that’s played in a film, on TV, in a previous festival or even online but Cannes for example has to have first premiere. At the festival we get Q&As.

-       Films that are more than 18 months years old then I will priorities new films.

Will there be film festivals in the future? Due to films being available so easy online. I believe traditional film will still have a place in the future.

Best example I can think of using new technology – a Swedish film of a gay couple who are married, but both have girlfriends, filmed using a camera but would use his ipad to film these real raw shots of the gay couple arguing.

(you should know mark cousins)

Crowd funding – is the future!! If they like your film they will fund you. You can go online and raise money.

- Indie gogo

- Kickstarter

Aesthetica Film Festival: Film 4 – Film Production

Film 4 – Film Production

Tom Leggett

I am one of 3 development editors – work across the film 4 slate – in the region of 120/130 projects of development. Work very closely with writers and directors, always looking for new filmmakers we can work with. New writers, through novels, theatres, lots of different sources.

Takes risks

Justifying decisions for projects

Always looks for new short film makers, people that they can work with.

We want to be alive and working with new talent – but balances their relationships also with people like Danny Boyal

Part of channel 4

Part of our pressure is to finance films that will generate profit ie. They were apart from the Inbetweeners

Curious to know peoples thoughts on british indie films??

Internship  placements – around june / july – KEEP A LOOK OUT

Budget £15 mil a year on production – starts off with a filmmakers vision

Lots of film makers he comes across will say they can make a film for 200k 300k but its incredibly hard. Looking at a 100 page script its very difficult but Ben May(?) was very good at it

In terms of what we look for in each projects is distinctive stories, which is an incredibly broad and not very helpful idea because everyones is original, but what we are looking for is ideas that we can ask ourselves have I seen this film before? Sometimes theres a good reason if we haven’t seen that type of film before but we tend to get most excited about the ones we haven’t seen before but are exciting!

Best advice is to try get your work seen as much as possible, email me(him) or one of my colleges to get people in the industry engaged with you. An agent is always helpful. Starting that conversation, that dialogue is really helpful, because in a couple of years

While we are committed to taking risks, we are also looking for those films that do resonate with audiences. British social realism is a big part of cinema since the first world war.  We are looking for films that generally connect with people that have a relationship with an audience that would want to go and see on a Friday or sat night.

How did you get into the position of the comp

Went to national film television school in production – naturally led after there to work in a university and then worked for Harvey (Weinstein??)

Distribution:

Film 4.0 – getting people to tweet about our films, get blogs going, so theres awareness of a film before it goes into the cinema – people usually get aware of the cinema once reviews have come out.

Scene heading for script writing

http://www.scriptwritingsecrets.com/Scene_Headings.htm

A Scene Heading tells the reader where a scene takes place. In other words, where are we standing? Where do we put the camera? Look at some of the examples below:

The Scene Headings start with an indication of whether you're inside or outside. INT. means "interior." EXT. means "exterior." Sometimes you might want to use EXT./INT. if, for example, a scene starts outside and moves inside, or INT./EXT. if it moves the other way.

The next part of the Scene Heading tells where you are, generally. In other words, at a house, in a building, at a park, etc. The key here is the generality. You want to keep this consistent so the reader can easily know where you are in general terms. If your script is in production, you want these to be consistent so the production manager can easily find and schedule all the scenes that take place at that location.

The next part of the Scene Heading is the specific description of where you are. If you're at a house, where in the house? If you're in a space ship, which compartment of the ship?


Another thing that you might put in the "specific" section is ESTABLISHING, like: EXT. EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, ESTABLISHING - DAY. This says that we just need a shot of the location so we can "establish" that this is where we are. Typically, after an establishing shot, the next scene takes place in a specific location at the same place. So, after establishing that we're at the Empire State Building, the next scene might be INT. EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, OBSERVATION DECK - DAY.

The last piece of a Scene Heading is the timing section. DAY and NIGHT are the most common ones you'll use. If you need to get more specific, do it. If the scene needs to happen as the sun sets, say SUNSET.

The whole point of a Scene Heading is simply to tell the reader quickly, easily and efficiently, where the scene takes place.

Formatting

The first thing you may have noticed is that Scene Headings are uppercase... ALWAYS.

Next, you may have noticed that the INT or EXT is followed by a period.

The spacing after the period is also up for debate. Two spaces after the period is common and accepted. One space is also okay. This one's more up to your aesthetic sense than industry rules.

The general description is usually separated from the specific location description by a comma.

Similarly, the punctuation before the time indicator is most often a space, a dash and another space.

The margin settings are 1.5" from the left edge of the page to 1" from the right edge.

You want to keep your Scene Headings to one line, if possible. If you need a Scene Heading that takes two lines, try to break up the text at one of the natural break points.

Finally, you would like to have 2 blank lines before each Scene Heading.

Steady Cam - Written Tutorial

http://www.dslrfilmmaking.in/2013/11/study-steadicam-tutorial-english.html

Theory and Psychology behind Lighting

Lighting: It's Effect on People and Spaces

http://www.informedesign.org/_news/feb_v02-p.pdf

Lighting designers think about how behavior is affected by lighting. Here are a few interesting examples in terms of how lighting shapes behavior:

• -       Visibility of vertical and horizontal junctions aid orientation
• -       People follow the brightest path
• -       Brightness can focus attention
• -       Facing wall luminance is a preference
• -       Lighting can affect body position

Years ago, Dr John Flynn developed a criteria evaluating the lighting of spaces. His work is considered seminal to this day. Flynn’s conceptual framework used the following cues to determine the users subjective responsive to the lighting of the space

• -       uniform/non uniform distribution of lioght
• -       bright/dim levels of illumination
• -       overhead/peripheral (or wall) lighting

Using a semantic deferential scale (using opposite terms to determine the subjects attitudes or opinions along a contunumm) and large numbers of subjects, he concluded that lighting could create a space that would make users say it was

• -       pleasant vs unpleasant
• -       public vs private
• -       spacious vs confined
• -       relaxed vs tense
• -       visually clear vs hazy

Public: rely on higher levels of illumination with a more uniform distribution of light from overhead sources, predominantly

Spacious: provide overall high levels of illumination with even distribution of light on the walls and uniform lighting on all surfaces

Relaxed: use non uniform distribution, wall lighting, and lower light levels typically

Visually clear: provide higher luminance on the activity/task plane, with peripheral luminance.