Lighting type research

Because I am experimenting with light in my minor project, I thought it necessary to do some more research into the different types of lights that I intend to use.

Open ended/Open face lights

Redheads & Blondes

Fresnel lights.

A Fresnel light works in the same way as a Redhead or a Blonde, but with the light being directed through an extra glass lens to help control the direction and intensity of its beam.

According to Kris Malkiewicz’s book Film Lighting, “For years the 1,000 watt Baby, 2,000 watt Junior, 5,000 watt Senior and the 10,000 watt Tener were the workhorses of the film industry.” In CCAD, as far as I can remember, we have 1,000 and 2,000 watt fresnels, but do not have 5,000 and 10,000 watt fresnels. While I was writing this blog Lee, the technician from my course, walked past and had a small conversation with me and a fellow student. He told us that the big 5k and 10k fresnels are too much of a power drain and cost a lot to maintain. I also wonder whether students would actually use such big lights enough to justify their cost.

Taxi Driver Lighting

This a shot of our protagonist Travis Bickle in a cinema watching a dirty movie. I chose this shot to compare the lighting style to the one used in the cinema scene in Vengeance is Mine, which I discussed above. There is less attempt in this shot to make the lighting appear as if it is coming from the cinema screen. You can also see more of the environment around him and there are brighter colours. This may be because the shot is attempting to convey a different thing. In Vengeance is Mine they are in a crowded cinema and Enokizu is attempting to remain incognito in the cinema. Ths needs to seem believable to the audience and therefore it is important to convey the dark environment of the cinema. In this shot however, the cinema is almost empty anyway and Travis is not trying to hide, therefore the cinema environment is slightly brighter and he is more well lit.

For the sake of realism, the cinema environment is dimly lit and shadowy

Vengeance is Mine lighting part 4

This shot is shortly after the character’s leave the cinema. I chose this shot because it depicts the characters in a city street and therefore I can compare it to other city street shots in Taxi Driver. Enokizu in this shot is trying to leave the cinema without being noticed by the other cinema goers. He also seems to be trying to get away without Haru following him, but is caught off guard slightly when she talks to him about his crimes in a way which implies that his lies about his identity and his crimes have not put her off being close to him. The light in this shot changes as they walk down the street. I did wonder whether there was any extra lights used in this scene at all - maybe it just uses light already available in the street - but as the scene goes on there seems to be aspects of the lighting that seem quite deliberate. As the scene comes to an end for example, they walk into a dimly lit area where they are completely in shadow, which helps the narrative of the scene implying that they are successfully managing to slip away into the night. It would also be very difficult to expose film without extra lighting in a city street.

Throughout the scene Enokizu and Haru repeatedly go in and out of shadow as they are walking and talking, but all of the while you can see the city lights quite brightly in the background out of focus. This contrasts with cuts to another shot of a random cinema goer who seems to have recognised Enokizu from the public service announcement and is attempting to follow them in order to see if her suspicion is correct. The shot of the cinema goer following them is quite brightly lit in contrast to this shot. Therefore the brighter background in this shot may be to keep us aware of other members of the public who may recognise Enokizu to imply that this is in the back of the character’s minds as they are walking.

Vengeance is Mine Lighting Part 3

This shot shows Enokizu and Haru in the cinema as a public service announcement plays before the film they’ve went to see informing members of the public about Enokizu and asking them to aid the authorities in his capture. I chose to analyse this shot because there is also a shot of Travis Bickle in the cinema in the film Taxi Driver.

In this shot the light on them is supposed to look like the reflected light from the cinema screen and the key light source is coming from a similar place to where it would be coming from if it were real life people in a cinema. It is a very dull light and very realistic, but upon closer inspection there seems to be more going on with the lighting in this shot than what is first apparent. For example, as in the other shot analysed above, Haru  is more brightly lit than Enokizu. At this intense moment both of the character’s eyes are visible as well, which is very interesting considering how shadowy the light is as a whole. There is just enough light around the rest of the cinema to see the other  people in the Cinema, including the blur of another person’s face in the foreground. You cannot see the room very well as it seems to be in darkness. There is a touch of light on one wall in the cinema.

vengeance is Mine Lighting part 2

I chose to use this shot because it features Enokizu messing around by himself and I thought it was the closest thing thematically to the scene in Taxi Driver where Travis talks to himself in the mirror. This scene is completely different however because of the differences in character between Enokizu and Travis. Travis is intently in his own dark space during that scene, whereas Enokizu is no where near as intense, despite being a much more violent person than Travis. Enokizu often has the personality of a badly behaved child and in this shot can be seen strangling himself the way an upset kid would when being over dramatic about something.

In this scene there are some light sources that are visible in the shot and are therefore part of the character’s world. I’m not sure if this can be referred to as diegetic in the same way as music that the characters can hear is. The most obvious one is the bulb inside a lamp which hangs from the ceiling. The other is a lamp which stands on the table in the background of the shot. Neither of these light sources seem to be casting a great deal of light on Enokizu, as he seems to be mainly lit from the front. There is significant shadow around his edges and he almost seems to be disappearing into it. There is also bright light on his face and the front of his clothing, which is much duller on his legs. This light source is probably shining down on him from quite a close range and seems to be directly in front of him. This may be a studio light such as a fresnel, as it is shining a direct beam and is not really illuminating any other parts of the frame. The background might be lit by the bulb that we can see in the shot. The background in this shot is much more dull than Enokizu.   

Vengeance is mine lighting part 1

This shot is fairly typical of Vengeance is Mine in terms of the type of lighting. The main light in this shot seems to be located almost directly above the actors, judging by the shadows cast on the table by the bowls. Our murderer protagonist Iwao Enokizu has a fair amount of shadow cast over his face, in this frame, by his fringe and brow. These shadows do not stay in the same place for the entire shot length however because his head moves around a bit. His eyes are in shadow at this frame. A character’s eyes being in shadow often makes a character appear menacing in some way, as in many of the scenes in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Here however this is not the case, despite the fact that Enokizu is in fact a serial killer. This is because the light here is not harsh and filled with moody light and shadow, it is quite flat. It does however, have the effect of making him seem distant and untrustworthy. Haru, the woman getting drunk with him, is more well lit. There may be some slight fill lighting on her, but I am not sure. It may be because the light is more directly above her, but it could also be a very modest reflector, like a piece on white foamboard or something, reflecting some light back up onto her face. I think Haru is possibly lit more brightly to reflect the fact that she is a more open character who is in touch with her emotions and therefore more trustworthy, despite having her own faults.

The characters are standing out from the background and have quite defined outlines, so it would seem that there is some form of backlight, but I’m not sure where it is coming from. I think it may be above the green beam behind Enokizu’s head, as this is the brightest part of the background. This light seems to be casting a small shadow below the frame of the screen behind them. There also seems to be some light behind the screen, coming from above.

Introduction to lighting in Vengeance is mine

Vengeance is Mine

Vengeance is Mine has a unique lighting style, which makes it different from many other films. The film seems to sacrifice some of the clarity which comes from being able to see things clearly and brightly on screen in favour of a realistic style. Scenes in Vengeance is mine tend to be lit in a way which echoes the inadequately lit conditions of real life. (This is not to the same extreme as some of his earlier films, such as The Insect Woman, however and is therefore more watchable as a result) Rooms sometimes feel quite dimly lit, many of the scenes take place under sunlight and, when indoors, characters facial features come in and out of light. This is done in a fairly flat way however, not in such an extreme way as to draw attention to itself like it does in Film Noir or expressionism. The acting is left to do most of the work and the audience are left with an emotionless detachment from what is happening. The lighting will often be in the same style for a violent murder scene as it is during a scene of mundane everyday chit chat.

Lighting in Scorsese and Imamura films introduction

New wave Japanese director Shohei Imamura Vs 70s American Brat pack director Martin Scosese.

Background (similarities and differences in style and approach).

In this series of blogs I intend to analyse some different types of films to compare and contrast the lighting styles. In this blog I have chosen to look at shots from the 1979 Japanese film Vengeance is Mine directed by Shohei Imamura and the 1976 american film Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorsese. The reason being that I think these directors during this period have a few things in common in terms of their approach.

Shohei Imamura emerged during the 1960s in Japan, a time when many people working as assistants in the main Japanese film studios began to get more of an opportunity to change companies and move to bigger roles such as directing. This meant that younger directors got more of an opportunity to make creatively ambitious and socially and politically rebellious films. Many Japanese directors in this period also made films outside of the studio system in order to gain more creative freedom. Imamura was one of the biggest names from the Japanese new wave and worked both within the studio system and outside of it. Vengeance is mine was made at a point in his career when he had returned to making features films after a period during the 70s in which he had changed to making documentary films exclusively. Vengeance is Mine however, still has many of the themes that were explored in Imamura’s earlier work exploring Japanese from the point of view of outcasts, criminals and the lower classes.

Martin Scorsese emerged during the 1970s in Hollywood at a time when the Hollywood system was willing to invest more in films that more politically and socially aware. Taxi Driver is one of Scorsese’s most famous films and explores America, and indeed the world as a whole, from the point of view of a Vietnam war veteran who has been disowned by American society.

While there are many similarities between the approaches of the two directors there are also many differences. Both directors use strive to create a level of realism when telling stories visually, but contrast this with heavily stylistic and often almost impressionistic qualities.

Imamura does this in Vengeance is Mine by shooting all on location, having much handheld camera movement and often framing in a detached unemotional way, whilst also toying with crime thriller genre element in the score and in using other conventions such as repeated filler shots of a train moving across the country with details of the killer’s action written in text across the screen. He also adds in strange symbolic imagery, some of it almost unnoticeable (like a cable car filled with nuns passing behind the characters in one shot) and some of it quite blatant (like the film suddenly stopping on a freeze frame as the dead killer’s bones are scattered by his family, leaving the bone suspended in the air before cutting to the family members shocked reactions).

Scorsese has lots of realist conversation in much of Taxi Driver. There is use of improvisation by the actors and much location shooting. However, he uses a highly emotive score, moody lighting, editing techniques and a voice over to involve people in the internal world of the main character Travis Bickle, creating a strong detachment from our own reality and an immersion within his. This is perhaps the biggest difference between the two films, as in Taxi Driver we are immersed inside the head of the protagonist whereas in Vengeance is Mine we observe him from a cold, unemotional external position.

Both films have protagonists who are not good guys in the traditional sense. However, in Taxi Driver Travis Bickle views himself as a good guy and the film makes us understand this from his view point, but in Vengeance is Mine the protagonist is cold and manipulative and does not seem to care much about good and bad, viewing everything in a very matter of fact way, and therefore we as an audience are encouraged by the film’s style to view the films events in a similar fashion. In this respect the two film couldn’t be more different.

Lighting

For this blog I’ve decided to choose similar types of shot in each film to analyse the different lighting approaches in each. This was quite difficult as they are both very different films. Also, Vengeance is Mine tends to mainly be set during the day and Taxi Driver tends to mainly be set during the night.

Kodachrome and other Colour reversal films

Kodachrome vs other types of Colour reversal film.

Ektachrome is a standard style colour reversal film that would be developed in a E6 chemicals. Kodachrome is also a colour reversal film, but it uses a K-14 chemical process which is older. The emulsion layers and structure is also different. Fujichrome also uses the E6 process, but Fuji’s Velvia introduced in the early nineties has much thinner emulsion layers which means that light scatter within the layers is reduced and sharpness is increased; despite Fuji’s Velvia having more layers than older Fujichrome (17 to the older 15) it is actually thinner by 15%.(1)  Kodachrome is quite famous for having more muted colours than E6 films however, but is not produced anymore. Many used to prefer Kodachrome however.

I would say, judging purely by pictures I have seen on Google images, that overall I prefer ordinary reversal film over Kodachrome, but I also think that comparing the two is a little like comparing two completely different things to each other. I think if Kodachrome still existed I can understand that it would have, and probably did have, completely different artistic applications. This is similar in many ways to the way in which Black and White photography has completely different applications creatively than colour film. Black and white photography can give uniformity to colours in an image, which may be useful for situations when there may be clashing colours in the frame in situations where you have less control over what is photographed, as in street photography. I think Kodachrome, due to it muted nature may also produce this effect, but to a lesser extent. This means that I can imagine lots of circumstances in which Kodachrome would be more effective than the more brightly coloured E6 reversal films. It is a shame that it is no longer available.

The following is a selection of Kodachrome images taken from google images:

London in the 1940s.

Colorado in 1957

Chicago 1953

Korea in 1966

Refferences

Popular Photography, May 1990,