The work of Robert Elswit and in particular his work with Paul Thomas Anderson
The cinematographer I have chosen to base my work about is Robert Elswit. He is a well known American cinematographer who has worked on such films as ‘There Will Be Blood’ (2007) ‘Michael Clayton’ (2007), ‘Boogie Nights’ (1997) and even ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ (1997). ‘There Will Be Blood’ will be my main influence.
His work will influence the style I am working with because many of his films (not including ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’) are slow and tension building with rare but powerful moments of violence. I feel the violence is more effective because of the way the shots are planned. Many of the shots Robert Elswit does are wide shots and there are not many close ups. There is very little shaky camera work, with most of the shots because very still or if on the move they seem to be very smooth. Also the colors in the shots seem to be always washed out. Even in such films as ‘Boogie Nights’ in witch it is set in the porn industry of the 70s and 80s they are still washed out to an extent. But some of the lighting is different. If you look and the camera shots and the way it moves it is very similar to “There Will Be Blood’, the smooth movement and the wide shots.
It is also known That Robert Elswit likes to film onto film and not do it digitally. He feels that without the texture and grain the film looses its emotional attachment with the audience. The piece I am going to film will consist of still and smoothing images washed out colors and they will try to convey a feeling of tension.
Above is a screenshot from the film ‘There Will Be Blood’. It is a helpful shot because it shows many of the things I have talked about, including the washed out colors and the wide shots.
Also looking at his work there are little close ups of the people, only mid shots. The closest the camera seems to get is of the head and shoulders. Also I have noticed that there are many shadows in his work, particularly on the faces of the actors.
Shots from ‘Good Night and Good Luck’, a film that was filmed in color then made into black and white in post production because Elswit felt it would show the shades and textures better.
‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘There Will Be Blood’ showing the shadows on the face as well as the other pictures above.
The idea of this type of lighting is one that I found interesting and one that I hope to use in the final piece.
I have chosen to make the style of ‘There Will Be Blood’ the main theme with the washed out colors and smooth movement. I will hope to achieve this by, for the smooth movements, I will get out a dolly and move it along the carpet and see how it comes out in a test. For the washed out colors I am planning to film in a room where the walls are beige and take out most of the things in it that are bright, for example I have a bright green watch and if that was in the room I would remove it. Final the final style of Robert Elswit I would be trying to do would be the shadows on the face of the characters. I will do this by have the lighting on one side of the face, forming shadows on the other side. When i use the natural light i expect it to be harder as i have no as much control over it but testing will hopefully help me with this.
I did my first test shoot to decided witch type of lighting I were going to use. I had either a normal household lamp or a more powerful spotlight. I was going to shoot someone in a chair turning round; this would test the lighting for composure and to see if it would create the shadows on the face. The second part to the test shoot would be to see if the dolly would work as this is a piece of equipment that I would be using a lot and I needed to see if this worked with the type of lighting, making sure it didn’t change as I moved.
The test shoot turned out to be a success. It was found that, surprising to me, the household lamp was better for what I wanted to film then the spotlight was. The spotlight was much to bright, so bright that there were no shadows. Also everything seem over exposed. I think this was due to the room we were filming in as the wall was quite close to the actor and the light was shinning on the wall. Fortunately the dolly turned out to be a success because it was needed to be used. the link is below:
http://vimeo.com/17417027
The link shows the test footage i took testing a spotlight against a normal house lamp. The first part is the film done with the spotlight. It is clear that it is too bright and no shadows are being created there it is far too bright. The second shot it with the lamp and as you can see it is good with shadows being cast over one half of the face. There is both a long shot and close up with both to see if the type of shot effected the shadows and lighting.
http://vimeo.com/17417027
The link shows the test footage i took testing a spotlight against a normal house lamp. The first part is the film done with the spotlight. It is clear that it is too bright and no shadows are being created there it is far too bright. The second shot it with the lamp and as you can see it is good with shadows being cast over one half of the face. There is both a long shot and close up with both to see if the type of shot effected the shadows and lighting.
There was test shots done using natural light but these were not recorded. It was shown that I could create shadows, mainly around the facial area and I will try and show this off in the final film.
When the film was filmed, it was filmed over two days. On the first day I would film all the scenes where it was night and on the second I filmed all of them at were in the daytime. Firstly I filmed the scene with the dolly going down the corridor and the scene at night when the man is on his computer. Overall I felt this was a success but I will evaluate it properly when it is edited together. I got what I feel is enough footage at night and the lighting was successful due to the lighting.
The second part will be filmed in the daytime showing natural lighting. It will have the same objectives as the first section, they will be shadows on the faces, but this will use natural light with i feel is more unpredictable and if the day is dark then i might not come off as well.
The film will not be based around narrative because there are no marks to be given towards this. Instead it is just shots of a man doing this for example, waking up, going outside,on his computer and picking up his phone. There is no meaning in him doing these things but they are just ways in me showing the lighting off in different ways, Waking up showing natural lighting in being the morning. The other things like being on a computer are things commonly done at night, and therefore i can show of the artificial lighting.
When i edited it it together i found out that i had only about 2 minutes of footages, this could have been due to lack of planning. this was unfortunate because all the cameras were booked out when i were available until the start of the last week so i have been forced to leave the last bit of filming to then.
I have just filmed the last bit of the film and i took place outside in the dark. there is a glare of the streetlight giving a reddish effect which worked out quite nicely because the final version of that shot the light falls on the actors face in a way which looks good. The reason i Chose to film at night time is because in the footage that i already had there was more in the day using sun light then there was at night. I filmed a shot outside using a bin witch is similar to a shot in the sunlight where there is a chair close to the camera instead of a bin, this shot was created because it shows some depth of field knowledge, and in the scene where he is outside, he is out of focus in the background with a red light on him and this really shows him out to be alone and unimportant.
Overal the edited copy comes to the 3 minute minimum. I feel it was successful and it shows the different types of lighting and techniques i want to put in. but there are some things that i think i could have improved on.
I feel the test shoots were a great success and this showed off in the scene in witch that lighting was in, but there are scenes where i didn't not test the lighting of. these scenes were the ones i film last minute at the start of the film. Luckily this scene went well and fortunately there was a streetlight that cause a reddish glow witch went well with the coldness of the scene and therefore i feel it was fairly successful.
The things i feel that could have been improved the most was the post production. I had filmed on two different cameras and due to lack of planning the settings on them were different so half way through the film the ratio changes from 16:9 to 4:3, this does not make the film look as good as it could do because it changes the quality and therefore the film is not as visually pleasing. If i found a way to export it into a copy that was high quality then the film would be to large for vimeo to handle and there it had to be compress and therefore looses quality.
In conclusion i feel my project went well. There were some strong points and other weaknesses. The main strong point in my eyes would have been the night ime scenes. in these i feel i captured the lighting of Robert Elswit well and the shots were well composed. the daytime shots were good but i feel they did not capture his work to the same extent as the night ones did, this include both colors and lighting. The weakness, and something i will hope to work on more as to improve it, is the post production, mainly the file types and rendering. overall it was a success and the final copy shows off the work of Robert Elswit to the best of my ability and the time it was filmed.
The second part will be filmed in the daytime showing natural lighting. It will have the same objectives as the first section, they will be shadows on the faces, but this will use natural light with i feel is more unpredictable and if the day is dark then i might not come off as well.
The film will not be based around narrative because there are no marks to be given towards this. Instead it is just shots of a man doing this for example, waking up, going outside,on his computer and picking up his phone. There is no meaning in him doing these things but they are just ways in me showing the lighting off in different ways, Waking up showing natural lighting in being the morning. The other things like being on a computer are things commonly done at night, and therefore i can show of the artificial lighting.
When i edited it it together i found out that i had only about 2 minutes of footages, this could have been due to lack of planning. this was unfortunate because all the cameras were booked out when i were available until the start of the last week so i have been forced to leave the last bit of filming to then.
I have just filmed the last bit of the film and i took place outside in the dark. there is a glare of the streetlight giving a reddish effect which worked out quite nicely because the final version of that shot the light falls on the actors face in a way which looks good. The reason i Chose to film at night time is because in the footage that i already had there was more in the day using sun light then there was at night. I filmed a shot outside using a bin witch is similar to a shot in the sunlight where there is a chair close to the camera instead of a bin, this shot was created because it shows some depth of field knowledge, and in the scene where he is outside, he is out of focus in the background with a red light on him and this really shows him out to be alone and unimportant.
Overal the edited copy comes to the 3 minute minimum. I feel it was successful and it shows the different types of lighting and techniques i want to put in. but there are some things that i think i could have improved on.
I feel the test shoots were a great success and this showed off in the scene in witch that lighting was in, but there are scenes where i didn't not test the lighting of. these scenes were the ones i film last minute at the start of the film. Luckily this scene went well and fortunately there was a streetlight that cause a reddish glow witch went well with the coldness of the scene and therefore i feel it was fairly successful.
The things i feel that could have been improved the most was the post production. I had filmed on two different cameras and due to lack of planning the settings on them were different so half way through the film the ratio changes from 16:9 to 4:3, this does not make the film look as good as it could do because it changes the quality and therefore the film is not as visually pleasing. If i found a way to export it into a copy that was high quality then the film would be to large for vimeo to handle and there it had to be compress and therefore looses quality.
In conclusion i feel my project went well. There were some strong points and other weaknesses. The main strong point in my eyes would have been the night ime scenes. in these i feel i captured the lighting of Robert Elswit well and the shots were well composed. the daytime shots were good but i feel they did not capture his work to the same extent as the night ones did, this include both colors and lighting. The weakness, and something i will hope to work on more as to improve it, is the post production, mainly the file types and rendering. overall it was a success and the final copy shows off the work of Robert Elswit to the best of my ability and the time it was filmed.
