During our Camera and Lighting class today, Uncle Bill let us watch The Ninth Gate to look at Darius Khondji's cinematography, directed by Roman Polanski. The story was about a rare-book dealer Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) hired by bibliophile Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) to do some researching on the authenticity of the 3 books of the seventeenth century copies of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, by Aristide Torchia.
Since Corso's glasses were reflective, in some shots we got to study the direction of the lighting given to him; we could spot the Kino Flo's position (for his key and fill light) and see the effect of the lighting on him. Most of the time, Kino Flo were used for interior scenes such as in the libraries, in the offices and in the cafe.
Besides that, we could also see that Corso and the other characters always had a soft kicker on top or behind his head. This was to make sure they didn't stick to the books cabinet and the dark-colored walls behind them and it worked effectively without realizing there were obvious kickers everywhere. (This is what I'm planning to apply in my GP as most of my scenes could be in the interiors)
I remember vividly one of the shots that made an impact at almost the end of the film; Corso thought he was finally safe in the car outside the fort that was on fire, he took a cigarette out and started smoking. Suddenly, a hand came out from the left of the frame to take the cigarette away from him and that scared both him and the audience at the same time because it was unexpected and surprising. (This approach would be useful to my GP if there happens to be such a moment that needs the surprise)
Uncle Bill also told us about the 'Bleach Bypass' technique again. He said that most of the flashback scenes in the CSI drama that were in black and white underwent through this process so that the contrast are made higher to create atmosphere. Here are some photos from the Quantum of Solace (referred from another blogger's website) with the different demonstrations of effects on the image.
Reference materials from:
In the afternoon, we did an exercise by remaking 2 shots from the Dracula into 1 shot where Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) was talking to a woman in front of the projection and dragged her into the dark area to attempt to bite her after that. The shot started with a 3/4 wide shot and then turned into a medium close-up of them both.
I was the D.O.P and Wilson was my gaffer so we both tried to remake the shot by putting in the lights that we thought were same as the shots given. There were difficulties trying to figure out how to combine two shots into one since the lighting are not the same and in the end, we made a few mistakes. Benny and Yang Fan tried to redo the whole thing after that, too, after Uncle Bill corrected our mistakes.
We need to practice with SR3 more often as by doing that, then only do we get to undergo the whole process of lining up shots quicker and giving instructions just like how we're supposed to do during our GP so that the shooting would run smoother and efficiently.
