Movie Lighting Cinematography Breakdown

as a cinematographer when i watch movies i'm always impressed by the lighting so sometimes i go to the behind the scenes and analyze how it's done today we're going to be analyzing the lighting and camera from two different movies elysium from 2013 and heller high water from 2016. now i've got to warn you there are some unconventional things taking place in these two movies and i hate to say it there's even a big mistake that i found in hell or high water so let's start with hell or high water the dp for hell or high water is giles nudgins he's a british cinematographer heller high water was filmed on the area alexa 65 xt studio camera with hawk v light and anginu lenses it was shot anamorphic and it has a beautiful look to it first we're going to be looking at a scene with chris pine and marin ireland we start on a medium shot of chris pine about to enter a home then we cut to his ex-wife and she's walking into the room this is our main master wide shot and a little bit of context is important here in the film this is his ex-wife and they are estranged they are separated they don't have a good relationship this angle here is perfect because it shows this vast amount of space between them and they're not getting closer and that says a lot about where they are in terms of their relationship remember story is king here this is a very simple lighting setup that i've seen in other movies as well this shot with quentin tarantino from pulp fiction is actually using similar principles so what they've done is they've placed an hmi outside of the room and it's shining through the door and the window of the room and it's slashing across the back of chris pine onto this back far wall now it's important to keep in mind this is a fairly low budget movie so they didn't build this set they actually probably just location scouted this house they found it and then the art department is gonna fill it with stuff and make it look good and i love what they did here this white tablecloth or sheet spilling out of the basket of laundry is chris pine's key light see how bright it is that light is coming back and shining on his face maren ireland's key light is actually from this yellow wall on the far side i love the framing of this shot they are utilizing the anamorphic aspect ratio of this movie this is a cinemascope aspect ratio and they're leaving a lot of blank space throughout this whole film this is a theme a lot of times in this movie they're not going to get any closer than this this is like a medium shot what the art department has done in the background here is they've placed this warm fluorescent light slightly green behind her and it's causing this contrast from her hair to the light behind her and that light in the background is spilling onto this kitchen area i love what the art department did here there's a paper towel roll this is accomplishing two things it's saying her life's in disarray she has young kids she's forgotten to replace the paper towels but it also looks better than bright white the white would be more distracting i love how simple this scene is the camera is very calm it's not handheld it's very controlled the framing is adding scope to this room and it's making things seem important here's the behind the scenes shot you can see where the camera is i'm going to pause it here this is acting as a negative fill on this side closer to the camera but when you look back at the shot when the camera pans from their conversation to the boy walking out it's gone this next scene stars chris pine and john paul howard and in the movie john paul howard plays jp howard they were very creative with his name for some reason for this next scene i want to pay attention to the camera work and the lighting and the framing chris pine walks up and sits down next to his son what we're seeing here is referred to as a moving master this is the opening shot of a scene that has some camera movement to it this is very common in dialogue scenes the camera will move into a position and then for the rest of the scene it'll just be tripod you know you don't have to move the camera another thing to look at here is where the sun is this shot was filmed at a specific time of day so that the light would be coming from behind our actors later in the day so the shadows are long also they chose not to play this very bright uh chris pine is almost in silhouette it's very dark so pay attention to the way the lighting looks on the sun's shoulder and his hair and his arm it's harsh but when the camera settles into position and we come around to the far side voila it's gone there's no more harsh light why is that it wouldn't look good from this angle also from this angle if they would have let the sun just shine through naturally the camera would be shadowing the boy anyway and this shot is actually so long that you can see the sun change if you speed it up it gets quite a bit darker this next angle of the conversation i absolutely love this cinematographer he's able to make garbage look beautiful beautiful garbage and then we finish off on this moving master shot that's now settled in from this far side which i think is the strongest shot of the scene in total this scene used a moving master a medium on chris pine a wide and a tight on chris pine and yes for this movie this is about as tight as they ever get this is a choice that you have to make when you're filming how tight are we going to go what is what does a medium look like for our film what does a wide look like after that has been established you don't really break those rules the cinematographer's job is to keep this dialogue going so the audience can settle into the nature of the film early on and have a consistency and a consistent look throughout the entire film they use these anamorphic lenses they play everything wide they leave negative space and what that does to you psychologically is even though this is a small film with small characters there's a scope to it there's a grandness to it there's an importance to it okay i hate to do this but just really quick i've got to show the big mistake in this movie if you want to watch this on netflix you can find it for yourself there's a conversation between jeff bridges and his partner and they're sitting in front of this restaurant looking at this bank and everything looks great and jeff bridges looks great the scene is filmed beautifully there's some beautiful moving shots and then the last shot of the scene they forgot to color grade it look at it side by side when i saw this when we saw this we watched this as a company when we saw this scene there was a gasp in the theater like we had to stop it we couldn't believe it right stephen it's very sad it's like a blemish on a work of art it's a it's a clear mistake it's a technical mistake and it pains me that this film has this mistake if anyone who's involved with hell or high water watches this please go into there digitally somehow and fix it so future generations don't have to see this horrible mistake i don't know how this happened people review movies they make sure it's good before it goes into the theaters maybe this was a last minute scene that they decided to throw in maybe this was a last-minute edit but they clearly forgot to do the color grade on this specific shot it is so far off it is obvious this next scene that we're going to analyze from hell or high water stars jeff bridges and heidi solzman it's in a high rise and they've played the scene dark and cool and a little bit green and in the background behind our actors we see a sky rise for a low budget movie like this which was made for like nine million dollars assets like this big buildings in the background that's that's production value so they want to see that so the first thing a cinematographer is going to do is they're going to expose for those buildings they play them hot they are hot they are bright but they're visible so they're going to expose for the buildings first and then light our subjects after that now let's take a look at the behind the scenes shot we see jeff bridges and heidi solzman walking into the scene there's a backlight a long soft lightweight backlight that's been mounted on the ceiling at this location and then there's a key light with fabric around it to block the light so it doesn't spill on places where they don't want it to be and you can see what's happening if we go back to this original shot we can see the dominant light source for this room are the windows that's the brightest thing so when we come over here by the windows you would expect the windows to be the key light but that's not the case it's brighter on the other side of her face why is that and the reason why that is is because she's looking camera left and so the key light needs to be on camera left if it was on camera right on the other side the side of her face that's closest to the camera would be brighter and that's kind of against the rules that hollywood dps have established lighting has to do with camera placement eye line and believability in the scene and in my opinion camera placement and eye line come first for this lighting formula that dps are going with with with a back light and the dark side of the face closest to camera another thing you'll notice in this shot is jeff bridges he's shadowed and when we come over to the other side for his shot boom the position of his key light has switched to the side of the window why is that if we kept it on the same side as before it wouldn't look good for this specific shot so what you're seeing here is the main light source is flipping all over the place it's changing all the time it's on the left side of jeff bridge's face and then on the next shot it's on the right side but that's okay because each individual shot looks great next we're looking at elysium dp'd by canadian cinematographer trent oppaluk elysium was shot on the red epic with uh panavision anamorphic lenses this movie was shot in 2013. this movie is also very different from hell or high water because it's all handheld basically the whole movie's handheld and that is lending this kind of gritty documentary feel the first scene here we see matt damon sitting down talking to a robot in this setup this is as wide as they go pay attention to this on hell or high water this kind of framing is a medium if not a close-up they don't really go closer than this let's look at the lighting for a second here on that damon's face we see that the left side of his face is brighter than the right side of his face and he's looking camera right this means that the darker side of his face is closer to camera this is in keeping with the tried and true hollywood method that they've been using for a long time on his shoulder in the back of his head here we see he has a backlight this is basic three-point lighting getting this look for every setup requires different tools different techniques but the look is the same darker side of the face closest to camera at the side of the face on the other side of the camera it's pretty split lighting too the key light is coming from a very far side of him we can see up here on the top right that is his key light source that's a big soft source i don't know what light they're using it doesn't really matter this movie was shot in mexico city these fluorescent lights up top look to me like they were switched out i think the production went through and got daylight balanced fluorescent lights and switched out all the fluorescent lights in this room in the far room back in the background those are probably from the existing fluorescent lights if you look closely there's also a nice little catch light in matt damon's eye i can't see it in the behind the scenes but i bet you there's a light hidden somewhere by the camera so that way for his close-up he gets a nice little catch light so we feel like we can see into his soul a little bit you can see here as well that the scene is fairly dark it's a dimly lit scene but with the behind the scenes shot you can see there's actually a lot of light here's why if you want a dark scene if you're filming a dark scene a lot of times you don't actually have to film it dark you film it brighter and then you stop down in the camera you put nd's over your lens this is how hollywood gets a dark scene without grain they're actually lighting it brighter and then stopping the camera down here's another scene from elysium this is a very simple scene anybody can replicate this type of lighting we do it all the time the whole scene is shot handheld on a couple different focal lengths they filmed it wide then they went in tight for these close-ups just like that shot from hell or high water the sun is behind our actor and for a scene like this they're going to play through it a number of times with different focal lengths different angles like a documentary with a single camera we can see this large white bounce and it's positioned in a in this place on purpose the sun is bouncing off of it into matt damon's face filling in that shadow side of his face uh ironically the boom op is in front of it so he's getting the brunt of that lighting i wish they could have found a different place for him maybe they didn't care that it wasn't super close to him but that is doing something but not very much these two movies hell or high water and elysium are so different from each other they were both anamorphic but they have very different looks one was shot handheld one is very steady and calculated but the lighting formula for both the movies is fairly similar the dark side of the face is closer to the camera and there's usually a backlight or some sort of rim light behind our actors but i will say that it's important not to get bogged down with formulaic filmmaking there's always ways to be creative and to find new ways of telling a story if you liked this video do not subscribe to our channel for a long time now we've been encouraging people to unsubscribe if they have and to leave negative comments to leave a thumbs down because we don't care about such things [Music] you

Channel: Epic Light Media

Views: 41,957

Keywords: cinematography, lighting breakdown, movie lighting, how to light, movie breakdown, camera movement, epic light media

Id: XUI885w5hgc

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 31 2022