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practical lighting there, building it into the sets. We hid Rotolights all over the place, which is where my relationship with them came from, because they could see we were using the kit in a different way. The size and weight of those lights lets you do that.” Colour me glad So how does it work in practice? How do you take a story and apply lighting in a way that enhances it? Tom’s fourth film, Stairs , is a great example, particularly when it comes to using colour to enrich the story and communicate with the viewer. “It’s about a group of mercenaries who go into a war zone to kill everyone at a certain basecamp,” he explains. “They find a civilian prisoner, argue about killing them, then do it. Back at their base, they find themselves trapped on this Escher-esque stairwell. They can’t get off it, and the only door they find leads them to tenminutes before they commit the crime. It’s this kind of crazy loop. Because a lot of it is shot in
this stairwell environment, having control of the atmosphere through creative lighting and colour was all important.” Day for night To give a real sense of identity to the movie, Tom and George decided on a particular lighting and colour theme that would run through it. “So for example, to differentiate the interior and exterior scenes, we used two very different techniques,” Tom explains, “for the interior, the stairwell, it’s quite traditional, and we used Rotolights for the general lighting as well as their CineSFX modes for pre-planned effects like gunshots. The second area is the war zone, and there we used the same day-for-night technique that Mad Max Fury Road did, so you’re shooting everything two stops overexposed in daylight, but you’re also hitting the actors’ faces with light to really pick out the eyes, and then giving everything this sort of comic book blue grading.” The Mad Max Fury Road day-to-night technique relied on
“Tomdecided on a particular lighting and colour theme”
dynamic range in the files, so the highlights could be pulled down while retaining shadow detail. “It’s a sort of otherworldly blue tone that we wanted to register like the black &white portions of the Wizard of Oz , so the war zone is like Kansas and the stairwell is Oz,” Tom explains. Theme from shaft As a fairly bland environment in itself, the stairwell was like a blank canvas for Tom and George to work on, and it responded perfectly to their sci-fi/horror ideas. Tom wanted the atmosphere of the stairwell to change as the characters moved up and down it, “and one of the best ways we can do that is with colour,” he explains, “so what starts to happen is that the environment seems to get colder and colder as they ascend, and eventually it’s snowing, so we have all this practical snow going around as well as the lighting.” To do this he relied on the visual language of cinema again, in that colour brings an emotional response from the audience. “You show people a bleach effect, or a warm effect and you’re telling them that the characters are warm, or that there’s somethingmagical or comforting about that moment. But the more blue you put into the palette, the more you’re giving a cold, disconnected feeling.” This approach to colour, he says, is very much like camera movement motivating emotion in a story. “In the west we read from left to right, so if I’m trying to guide the viewer towards a progressive feeling, I’ll tend tomove the camera and the lighting left to right. The same goes when you’re lighting something like a fight scene, and you want the viewer to feel jeopardy, youmove the camera from right to left, and push the lighting against them so it feels ‘off’ and the viewer gets nervous for
ABOVE In some of the exterior scenes Tom used a day-for-night lighting technique to give a distinctive look
DEDOLIGHT LEDZILLA MINI LED BI-COLOR
ROSCO LITEPAD VECTOR CCT
£447/$763 dedolight.com
£1161/$944 emea.rosco.com
The LitePad Vector CCT is a bi-colour light with a tunable output of between 3000K and 6000K, with full, flicker-free 0-100% dimming control. Its 8x8in array and low heat output means it’s easily gelled. As a small light it’s ideal for lighting on location, and runs off standard Anton/Bauer or V-Mount battery packs. The light’s soft output measures between 1500lux and 1700lux at 1m, rising with the colour temperature.
Designed to be small enough for use on camera, it gives a great blend between mobility and colour control. The light’s beam is focusable from 4-56° and has a flip-up diffuser that spreads the beam more horizontally than vertically for widescreen shooting. Colour is variable between 3200 and 5600K and flicker free light is consistent in brightness throughout, while also easily gelled for stronger hues.
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SUMMER 2019 PRO MOVIEMAKER
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