DISCLOSURE DAY PRODUCTION
set. We had to light it to the extent that it of course looks functional and realistic, so we can control the lights within the set to create drama, comedy or whatever.” That method is key to how Kamiński approaches Spielberg productions, and Disclosure Day was no different. “The production designers have a strong early influence on what the movie looks like,” says Kamiński. “They’re the first individuals who look at the locations and present the original sketches and designs to Steven. I come in a bit later and manipulate the existing choices to facilitate the story. I then play around with different lighting styles and with the colour, so that’s my contribution, as well as looking at how the characters interact with each other within the light.” CLOSE ENCOUNTERS The main lighting challenge for Kamiński, however, was in the film’s large-scale action scenes, which included a car chase and a train sequence where the characters experience life-threatening situations. “The train is travelling in one direction while the cars are approaching from the other. I used the light available on location. Then, when we went into the stunt sequences, we needed to recreate that same light.” Kamiński wanted to take a more contemporary lighting approach for the project. “The lighting was not classical, there’s no three-point lighting or anything like that. It is a much stronger soft light with a little bit of punch. I like the sense of light and how the characters are illuminated by light rather than moving through dim, underexposed, bleak environments. Steven and I have a certain look and that look gets altered from story to story, but essentially there are motifs in our language we repeat because we are drawn to them.”
IF IT AIN’T BROKE Kamiński describes how a collaborative community has formed on Spielberg’s sets over the years, with crew spanning Lincoln, ET and Disclosure Day
Despite its grounded aesthetic, Disclosure Day retains the visual gloss associated with Spielberg’s films. “We weren’t trying to reinvent ourselves after working together for the last 35 years. We have worked together long enough that there is an established visual language between us, though I still adapt my style for every film.” Although he naturally has visual panache, Spielberg was focused on performances here. “We also had very little CGI when it came to the action sequences,” explains Kamiński. “In fact, it is mostly practical effects with some removal of wires and increasing the speed of the train, but those guys are actually clinging onto the train. It’s not moving at great speed. For the car chases, we are smashing through structures and windows get blown, cars get flipped.” Maintaining authenticity was also important when depicting the film’s extraterrestrial phenomena. One crucial concern for Kamiński was depicting those phenomena in a way that felt convincing while maintaining the film’s realism. “Of course, we have been prevented from knowing the reality. As we have seen in recent news, those realities are now being slowly revealed. For the film, we are creating these big events where ships interact with present-day life.” To film those sequences, Kamiński wanted to produce a sense of light travelling from a far distance and shadows moving across the ground as if the ships are either descending or ascending. Practically achieving those effects required a combination of drone lighting and digital augmentation. “We utilised drones with mounted lights to create the necessary lighting effects, whether it be flaring the lens or moving the shadows across,” says Kamiński. “Flying Monster’s drone work was spectacular, and we could move around easily and follow the cars. Then Mark Butler, our visual effects supervisor, would create the rest in post with CGI.”
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