Studio Production #2: Role Research

 As I have never worked on a studio production before and have taken the role of Director of Photography (DP),  I knew the basics of what it was but I thought it was would be beneficial to do a little research in to it all the responsibilities that comes under this role:

Role of a DP:

- DP's help decide the look of the film but directors have last say on this.

- helps the director to capture their vision of the story in terms of the looks of the film, so they overlook everything that affects the cameras (framing, exposure, lighting, types of camera used, colour palette) 

- Works closely to set designers as we all have to figure out how practical lights will work with the actual set.

The producers have also put Lili, Andrea and I in charge of doing the story board as we are all in the camera crew. 

After researching the main things a DP does, I began to look at individual different DP's and films they worked. I wanted to find some inspirational work and really look at some examples of films i really liked such as:

Luciano Tovoli  (Suspiria, 1977) 

 Vittorio Stararo (Apocalypse Now, 1979)

Mathew Libatique (Pi, 1998 and Black Swan, 2010). 

 Lawerence Sher (Joker, 2019) 

    

 I looked at Stararo's colour Wonder Wheel theory: https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/ which was really interesting as he studied "great Italian masters such as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Caravaggio." He had some very definitive ideas on how colours should be used but also how the primary colours in film (red, blue and green) and their complimentary colours (cyan, magenta and yellow) could create conflicting or harmonious visual emotion to the audience. 

Whilst researching my role I came across these videos which I thought could be super useful, Links which were really helpful in terms of how as a department we could look at lighting, framing and colour:

‘JOKER’ - There are really interesting framing and lighting points on how they filmed the joker which we could think about incorporating  https://www.cined.com/inside-the-look-of-joker/

Key Points from this:

• Long and static shots are slowly replaced with handheld wide-angle shots.

• Camera movement starts slow and tedious and becomes energetic, and Arthur becomes the Joker

• Visually, the film becomes darker as Arthur changes, and mirrors illustrate his two different selves.

• The editing and sound (music, sound design) reinforce the dark and gritty vibe that the story and visuals establish

‘JOKER’ - Colouring in the film: https://nofilmschool.com/Joker-Cinematographer-color

Key Points from this:

• The idea of bathing the frame in blue light to show the dull world but having the contrasting warm light to highlight certain

• ideas depending on the scene.

Colour Theory link: https://nofilmschool.com/Film-color-theory-and-color-schemes

However, because we don't have a firm story yet, I can't begin to make a firm story board of lighting ideas yet. So I am just gathering ideas and inspiration from other cinematographers and seeing why they made certain decisions and how they achieved it.