Short Film Analysis: 'Me & You' and Lighting Changes

Me & You from Jack Tew on Vimeo.

In this short film, a single camera angle is used to track the relationship of a young couple, from its beginning through to its end. To convey the passage of time and the emotional arc of the characters it makes effective use of set design and lighting changes.

1. Start of the film is flat and naturalistic, with lighting sources of the two windows - pink/yellow hue

2.  TV effect created by a flickering flagged light at the front, low down to cast shadows against the back wall. Table lights cast warm, peach glow against wall.

3. Morning has a brighter, yellowish glow - representing the energy at the start of their relationship

4. A three-step lighting change from day to night. Light outside is dimmer and moves from white, to dark blue - creates strong shadows on bed. Light from street lamp at the window moves from white to orange then yellow.

5. In-shot lighting change to show move to morning. Moving an orange gel sheet with a light to change the shadows by the window. Rose/orange hue to represent their love, the honeymoon period in their relationship.

6. Warm yellows and oranges even at night - using practical light from laptop to illuminate scene. Yellow symbolic of nostalgia, looking back on this part of the relationship fondly.

7. Move to a colder light to represent the change in their relationship and the start of their decline. Honeymoon period is over, harsh shadows cast across the bed and on the walls during the day.

8. Same low-angle TV light on character exaggerates shadows and depth, conveys emotional vacancy with coldness. Also flashes of blue police lights through the window as couple argue to convey them in a state of emergency.

9. End of the film - return to yellow/orange hue as it is hinted that their relationship may begin again.

Also the changes in the set design work well to reflect the emotional state of the characters at certain points, building from a blank canvas before their relationship to becoming more full of personality and colour. Eventually the scene becomes too cluttered and disorderly mirroring the start of their relationship's decline.

The fairy lights that are put up briefly reflect the girl's attempts to start a new 'spark' in their relationship, and the buckets for the leaky roof are clear indicators that it is in disrepair. Also, the sudden loss of clutter from the girl's side of the room visually suggests her leaving,

Lighting changes are also used in many other films to signify a change in tone or mood, or to mark a key turning point in the story.

In 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' (Wes Anderson, 2014), an exaggerated lighting change happens when one of the characters begins their story about the hotel, with the room shifting from a flat, naturalistic, high key lighting to a more dramatic contrast.

In 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (Michel Gondry, 2004), stylised lighting and lighting changes are used throughout to visualise the erasure of the protagonist's memories. In this particular scene, as he walks out of the library, the strip-lighting of the room shuts off and we move into the front room of his friend's house - creating a surreal, dream-like movement between the different parts of his mind.

In 'Drive' (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011), a dramatic lighting occurs in the elevator scene, when the protagonist attacks another passenger. As he moves the woman back, the naturalistic lighting in the room changes, with the fill light dropping out to create a low-key, high contrast look. Combined with the slow-motion, this change exaggerates the emotion of the scene, moving instantly from a passionate kiss to a brutal attack. We can also infer that the sudden lighting change signifies a change in the character too, as it is the first time Irene sees either of these sides of the driver.

And finally, in 'Raging Bull' (Martin Scorsese, 1980), a dramatic lighting change is used in the fight between Lamotta and Sugar Ray Robinson, combined with a camera movement and change in sound to exaggerate the effect.

                     

The camera gibs down, tracks inwards and zooms out, warping and exaggerating the depth of the scene and immediately putting Sugar Ray in a position of power. As this happens, the fill light in front is turned down and off, exaggerating the shadows on his face and presenting an almost angelic outline around the character - lit only by a strong back-light. 

Pre-Production: Location Recce, Scriptwriting and Casting

Over the past couple of weeks we have been carrying out pre-production tasks for our project: carrying out recces for our locations, casting and auditioning actors, writing and redrafting the script and collecting props to start filming.

Location Recce

After identifying the rough structure of the film and breaking it down into sequences and scenes, we scouted Grindleford to find two areas suitable for filming the two scenes we would be filming there. We managed to find an area of flat land that would be ideal for filming but also dense enough to provide depth for the scene when filming the hoax Bigfoot video.

The second location we found was near the stream which was ideal for a change of environment still within Grindleford. Again, the area had a patch of flat land to film on but crucially it had a large bank behind it, allowing us to look down on the other characters for the POV sequence. This was important as we want to establish the villain as the predator in this scene and make the other characters seem vulnerable. As we will not see the actual kidnap of the characters, it is important that we use as many devices as possible to infer it.

We have also been looking for a suitable house location for the other scenes, as well as a basement for the interrogation. We travelled to Alex's house to do a recce of his basement, scoping out where we would be able to block the scene and also crucially place lights, as the existing light in there was very dim. Due to the small size of the room we anticipate we will have difficulties flagging off the light so that the walls are not lit, as they will be filled with set elements we only want to see after the lighting change.

We also briefly had a look in the other rooms in the house and made rough ground plan for use in blocking and set design. It was important also that we checked where the light fell in the room, as we will use this for lighting plans and also for being efficient with setups and what equipment we will need on the day.

Scriptwriting

As the initial idea was mine, I have been leading script development since finalising a structure for the film. Although this prior planning was useful, the main difficulty in writing the script was trying to get logical movement around and between the scenes, achievable scene transitions and succinct dialogue.

After several drafts and discussions about changes with the group, we settled on the final version. At this stage I can see the most challenging elements of the script being some of the more technically demanding scenes and transitions, such as tracking out of a paused computer screen and assembling the creation montage with what time we have to spare.

I made sure to include the four cinematography elements required by the brief in the script: the POV sequence as the two characters are being stalked in the woods, the sequence shot as the news reporter speaks to them at their home and the lighting change as the antagonist is exposed in the film's conclusion. The colour element will be a key consideration as we begin to gather props to dress the set, particularly in the basement where we are creating the environment of a teenager boy.

Ultimately I wrote the film with the edit in mind, which will be very useful as we create shot lists for production. However, this will require clear communication between me, the director and the cinematographer during production - ensuring full and correct coverage of each scene.

Casting and Auditioning

After outlining the character descriptions we began the casting process for the film. Chris put a casting call on StarNow, the SHU Drama pages and other amateur dramatic sites, and within a week we had a number of applicants. After short-listing our favourites, we arranged a script read-through with the rest of the team. However, I was disappointed that Alex did not make more of the opportunity with the script read-through to explain our ideas for the role and to allow them to discuss it afterwards.

Despite some issues with actors' availability and having to find replacements, we found Lewis and Craig who both looked ideal and also understood the characters and the comic timing - which will hopefully help my role coming to edit dialogue afterwards.

As we were taking influence both in the script and stylistically from the films of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, we also dressed them accordingly, with the brighter Laurence wearing a shirt and suit tie, and Ed wearing loose clothes and a stained T-Shirt.

Next Steps

With these steps completed we will move on to gathering props and creating a detailed shot list from the script, blocking out camera angles and positions as well as character movement before we begin production.

Text: 'Colour: The Film Reader'

As part of my research into colour theory, and following my reading of 'If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die', I have also read 'Colour, The Film Reader' by Angela Dalle Vacche. Whilst covering and validating some of the same colour associations made by Bellantoni, Vacche also gives directions for production design to bring out colours in sets, and cites several other theorists and film-makers in their approach to colour theory. Below I have summarised the main points she raises:

• 'Colour is not simply a choice a filmmaker makes at the level of film stock; rather, having selected colour, it becomes a constructive element of mise-en-scene, one that works alongside lighting, sound, performance, camera movement, framing and editing.' It is important for creating meaning, mood, sensation, or perceptual cues.
• 'Colour, as we have become accustomed to saying of sound, serves a contrapuntal function; the hot, saturated reds rub up against the iciness of the performance and the dialogue.'
• Colour is usually defined with respect to 3 variables. Hue allows one to distinguish classes of colour, lightness represents a hue's relation to black or white and saturation represents a hue's relation to a gray of the same lightness.
• Usual reaction splits into two categories: warm and cool colours. Red, orange and yellow connote excitement, activity and heat. Green, blue and violet are cool and retiring colours, suggesting rest, ease and coolness. 
• Mixing these colours with white conveys youth and informality, with gray, refinement and charm, and with black, strength, seriousness and dignity.
• Each colour has many different associations. Red can mean danger, warning, blood, life, love, stimulation and anger. 'It can be used in a revolution or a church.' Introducing another colour changes its meaning, and different shades of colour or strength suggests type of love.
• Orange - 'bright and enlivening', suggesting energy and action.
• Yellow - wisdom, light, fruition, harvest, riches. Darker shades connote deceit and jealousy.
• Dark green, blue and violet are 'cooling, quiet colours.' They are tranquil and passive, not suggesting activity.
• Blue - truth, calm, serenity, hope and melancholy.
• Purple can be different depending on whether blue or red is dominating - aggressive or dignified. Royalty, pomp and vanity.
• Magenta - materialistic, arrogant and vain.
• White, gray and black stimulate very definite emotional responses. Black, being 'no colour', is distinctly negative and destructive - night, fear, darkness and crime. Gray is gloomy, dreary and mature, its neutrality suggesting vagueness, inaction and mediocrity. The luminosity of white symbolises spirit. It represents purity, cleanliness and peace, uplifting and 'ennobling' a colour, whereas black lowers and evils it.
• 'The modification of a positive colour by the introduction of another hue modifies the mental reaction to the degree of the intensity of that hue which is introduced'
• Speaking on film production: 'In preparation we read a script and prepare a colour chart for the entire production. This chart may be compared to a musical score, amplifying the picture in a similar manner'.
• You must carefully analyse each sequence to ascertain what dominant mood or emotion is to be expressed. 'When this is decided... plan to use the appropriate colour or set of colours which suggest that mood, thus actually fitting the colour and augmenting its dramatic value'.
• Colour separation is the difference between hues of two colours to make them stand out photographically. If using warmer flesh tones in a set, make sure the background behind actor is left in shadow, creating a 'cool contrast to the faces'.
• 'It is important that sets must have interest and variety. They must not be flat. When the sets have depth it is much easier to introduce interesting shadows and coloured lights for special effects'
• 'I should never want to fill the screen with colour; it ought to be used economically - to put new words into the screen's visual language when there's a need for them' - Alfred Hitchcock
• While colours can be 'uniquely discriminated' and can carry symbolic value by virtue of that discrimination, colours also gain significance by their association and contrast with other colours.
• 'Cool colours in Hitchcock's work evoke a sense of emotional detachment or distance'. In contrast to cool colours, warm colours or earth tones such as tan, brown and forest green are widely associated with a sense of emotional warmth and the 'redemptive qualities of the nature world'.
• The 'Warning Series' of colours - bright, saturated and solid yellow, orange and red (either individually, in sequence or combined in the same image to indicate 'progressively greater degrees of danger').
• The opposition between black and white signifies a morality via its association with light and darkness: 'Black suggests villainy and white suggests goodness'. Black and white can also be blurred or combined in elements of set or costume to convey blurring of moral boundaries.
• 'Colour doesn't have an absolute meaning, it depends on relationships and comparisons - and in this regard its closest analogue may be music'
• The combination of colours in to what is called harmony or disharmony is subject to cultural conventions. Using brilliant solid colours is unnatural - 'Generally the colours of nature and everyday life are unsaturated'.

Video: Basics of Lighting

In this video, the four basic lighting concepts; direction, intensity, softness and colour (DISC) are explained and applied to a standard interview setup.

                     

• Lights 30-45 degrees to left or right of subject, and 30-45 degrees above.
• Use another light or reflector to bounce light and balance intensity across the face - same lights, fill further away to reduce intensity.
• Add light to the background, and adjust key higher/lower to balance with background.
• Bigger light source = Softer light. Softboxes/umbrellas make the light source bigger. Closer light = softer. Main light close to interview.
• Try to keep one main colour temperature for interview, and remove/change/flag lights to maintain this.

                     

• Hard light created by single light source - creates hard shadow
• Soft light created by diffused light hitting from different angle - shadow falls off at a gradient
• Multiple hard lights causing multiple shadows - diffuser merges them into one

                     

• Negative fill is the opposite of a fill light, used for when turning off a light is not enough.
• Typically a flag placed to stop the light bouncing on the fill side of the shot.
• Every shot adds to ambient light level and fill, unintentionally.
• Increase contrast by adding negative fill.
• Shot size and subject size determines size of negative used from flag to double floppys.
• Use a select paper/foam core bounce to bring up contrast on the face but leave rest in negative.
• Can also help to balance temperature of a fill from a coloured wall.
• Can be used outside as well, but more difficult and need to use larger pieces.

Pre-Production: Story Development and Planning

After deciding our initial storyline last week we have been researching lighting styles, set design, blocking and other elements relevant to the idea and our individual roles. We also met to develop the idea further, changing and revising a number of the plot elements to best fit the pacing and story arc and our incorporation of the four cinematographic elements: POV, lighting change, sequence shot and colour.

We first broke the idea down into sequences and then scenes, condensing as many separate ideas as possible to give us the most time. Following advice we had been given about creating a strong and intriguing opening for short film audiences, we decided to put half of the interrogation scene at the beginning. This immediately establishes the main conflict and tension of the film and establishes a sense of 'How did we get here?' which will keep them interested.

Following this is a scene in the characters' home where we are introduced to them both. The mood here will be casual, everyday and light-hearted, contrasting with the tense scene preceding it and establishing how the characters decide to pursue the idea of creating a hoax Bigfoot video. Our initial thought was to use a TV montage in the style of 'Shaun of the Dead' (Edgar Wright, 2004) to more creatively involve this idea but we've now opted against this due to its complexity.

From here we will use a montage to show the pair designing and creating the monster's costume which, as editor, I suggested should be done in a style similar to the cliché superhero-costume-designing montages seen in films such as 'Spiderman' (Sam Raimi, 2002).

Overlapping and composited images, drawings, colour,  notes and tracking shots are used with music to convey the passage of time as well as Peter's busy mind and a mixture of emotions; concentration, frustration and satisfaction.

At this point we have already begun considering shot transitions between sequences, such as the main character pulling an elaborate finished sketch of the monster to reveal their own amateur creation. This will be the first of our two Grindleford sequences, where the pair shoot their fake video. Following this their video is played on TV in a sequence shot, where-after a shadowy figure takes particular interest in their activities. This scene will be shot with low-key lighting in a series of close-ups and carefully framed shots to hide his identity and also set up who might be watching them in the next sequence in Grindleford.

In the next scene, the pair are creating their next video following the successes of the first. Here, the antagonist from the previous scene will be following them, using hand-held POV shots obscured by trees and objects to suggest a threatening human presence. We will infer rather than show one of the characters' kidnap by the villain, using rapid close-ups of the other panicking to create more suspense.

In the final scene the interrogation will play out in full, including the lighting change which reveals the room to be a young conspiracist's hideout, making use of colourful images, toys and other set elements to convey this information without ever seeing the boy himself.

Although some of the details are yet to be specified, the next stage in the project is to write the script and break the idea down into its components; identifying props, locations, characters and beginning the early stages of the casting process. In the meantime we will continue to look for stylistic influence for the four key elements, as well as for my own role as editor - in particular scene transitions, green-screen keying (for the TV) and colour grading.

Interrogation Scene Influences

For the interrogation sequence we have been looking at a number of different similar scenes from films such as 'The Dark Knight' (Christopher Nolan, 2008), 'V for Vendetta' (James McTeigue, 2005) and 'Casino Royale' (Martin Campbell, 2006).

In the interrogation scene from 'The Dark Knight' (below), the scene is initially lit with a single practical desk lamp, creating harsh shadows and exaggerating the creases and contours in the Jokers' freakish make-up. And then, as Nolan describes 'When the lights come on, Batman is revealed, and the rest of the scene plays out with a massive overexposure... like five stops.'

We will be looking to achieve a similar effect when the light is turned on in our interrogation scene, revealing the backdrop covered in colourful posters to indicate the interrogator's age.

The interrogation scene from 'V for Vendetta' is very useful in informing our stylistic approach, particularly to portraying our antagonist - and crucially hiding his true identity until the lighting change. In this scene, a cold frontal light is used to accentuate Evey's sickly pale skin, creating an immediately hostile atmosphere. On the wall behind, a set light is flagged to create harsh shadows mirroring the prison door in front of her, separating the character from the background yet conveying a sense of entrapment in the frame.

However, the most useful device in this sequence is how the identity of her interrogator is hidden. Like in our story, here the audience must not know who Evey's captor is until the very end of the sequence, where it is revealed to be her supposed friend and mentor, V. To do this, a strong back-light is used on its own, with no key or fill on the actor, to create an ominous, shadowy silhouette. In other shots, the same effect is used in conjunction with careful framing, showing only body parts of the man. We will be looking to create a similar effect in our film, and will draw on this approach for reference. 

Also notable is the shot/reverse shot sequence used in the first part of the sequence, having Evey and her captor directly facing the camera in both angles. This adds to the ominous, intimidating atmosphere and sense of mystery as the audience's view mirrors Evey's. Evey's eyeline also appears to be slightly above the camera in the shot, looking very slightly down on her, giving the sense that her captor is taller than her and therefore more imposing.

Using the online virtual lighting studio tool, I tried to create a similar silhouetted effect that hides the face.

As seen in the diagram below, I used two lights behind the subject's head to get a rim of light around them, which we will try and replicate when coming to set up the scene.

This scene from 'Oblivion' (Joseph Kosinski, 2013) utilises a single, practical key light on the character Jack, a convention that immediately identifies an interrogation environment. 

The harsh white light cuts across his face and exaggerates his wounds from the previous scene as well as the dirtiness of his initially pristine clothing, and the camera's angle is again looking slightly down on Jack to establish him as the weaker character. At the start of the scene, as he wakes from being unconscious, a close angle and shallow DOF is used, conveying his wooziness and mental state - a device we will look to replicate in our sequence.

The slow tracking movement towards Jack throughout the scene is effective in conveying the interrogator's pushing for the truth, getting closer as more is revealed. Similar to our film, the antagonist's identity also requires hiding, until an elaborate lighting change which reveals the entire environment. In this case, very low key lighting and reflections in the interrogator's goggles are used to light his character, with a waist-height two-shot again exaggerating the difference in size (and therefore power) between the pair.

In the torture scene from 'Casino Royale', a dingy yellow key light is used to create harsh shadows and highlight his blood and sweat. Bond is also framed off-centre as though looking away from the pain inflicted to him, and also presenting his character as off-balanced at this point in the story. 

We will take reference and stylistic influence from these films when we come to plan and shoot our interrogation scene, which will be made more complicated by having a lighting change and trying to keep the identity of the antagonist hidden until the right moment.