Thursday, February 8, 2007

Ararat

Ararat is a 2002 film by Atom Egoyan about the Armenian Genocide, an event that is denied to this day by the government of Turkey. Instead of presenting a straightforward narrative account of the genocide, the film examines the nature of truth and how it can be represented on film.

- Taken from Wikipedia

This film is based around an Armenian descendent, Raffi, who grew up in the U. S.. Raffi’s mother is an art historian of sorts who goes around and gives lectures on an Armenian artist, Arshile Gorky. Raffi’s girlfriend/stepsister disagrees with alot of her views on many of gorky’s paintings, especially one called A boy and his mother. This painting actually started out as a photograph taken of of Gorky and his mother before the Armenian genocide occured in his area.
The movie touches on many topics of discussion and importances. One being the director’s(Atom Egoyan) background and why he felt it neccessary to produce this movie. He ends up recruiting Raffi’s mother has a History Consultant because of her vast knowledge of Gorky and the Armenian genocide. Raffi is in turn hired has the driver of a truck. During a scene shooting, Atom is confronted by one of his actors and is told that he does not believe that the genocide really happened. Atom is, in a sense, forced to swallow this information with a smile and pretend to appreciate the mans opinion.
Another, major aspect of the movie would be when Raffi actually goes to Ararat to see for himslef the devastation left behind. When he does he ends up bribing a guard to take him up a military road and in exchange he will bring 4 film cans back into the U.S.. Raffi believes that film is in the cans and can’t even imagine it being anything else. When he gets to customs, however, he is stopped. Raffi ends up giving the customs agent the run around about the movie. How his mother helped produce it and why he was over there and what he did and what it all means to him.
When he gets back around to the cans, he tells the agent that he believes there is film in the cans. The agent, on the other hand, knows that there is no film in the cans and slowly milks Raffi to believe this as well. Raffi, however, won’t believe it, can’t believe it because his conscious will not let him. He can’t let himself belief that such a thing could happen, his mind set can not accept that. He firmly pushes that there is film in the cans and slowly convinces the agent that he has no idea that there is anything other than film in the cans. The agent, finally realizing what is going on, opens the cans to find cocaine in them. He ends up letting Raffi go, not because he pities him, rather because he realizes that Raffi is seriously innocent and was bilked into this because he had to see this place and get this information in order to set everything right with himself. To give himself some ground to settle on, Raffi had to do this and in the end he was bilked into this crime.

Intellectual Angst

“The Royal Tenenbaums”, the third collaboration between Robert Yeoman, ASC and director Wes Anderson, brought Anderson a step further from his first movie. Anderson explains, “Bottle Rocket was very austere in its look. We shot that with spherical lenses and made an effort to make it almost monochromatic, with only a few bursts of primary colors. Rushmore was a widescreen movie that was more lush and used richer colors. The Royal Tenenbaums continues in that direction and goes quite a bit further” (American Cinematographer, January 2002, pg. 51).
Anderson states that the first issue was finding a place to shoot the movie. He wanted the Tenenbaums house to actually exist and not be a soundstage. His prayers were answered when they came across a set of “once-stately mansions” that were due for renovations. They struck a deal and setup in one of the mansion. The next problem was making it look real. Although the movie spans in over 155 places, a significant part of it takes place it the house, therefore they took a lot of time in making it look just right.
Anderson therefore brought in his brother, illustrator Eric Anderson, to make some detailed drawings of what Anderson wanted. Getting the color of paint for the walls had to be right as well and therefore they went through a couple of shades before they find the right one. They also wanted everything to look practical and added a lot of “nightlights” and “sconces” and tons of glowing bulbs in the background.
The next lighting situation came with a special location inside the house. This was a tent set up for Richie as a refuge. Anderson states that he wanted to imbue the enclosure with an almost magical feel. They used a lot of 2K Blondes and really had to blast them because the canvas was pretty thick. In order to get this “magical glow” that Anderson wanted, when you saw the outside of the tent, the lights were in the inside and when you saw the inside, the lights were on the outside.
Anderson also said that he shot the movie in anamorphic, just like Rushmore. He enjoys this type of shooting because it uses the entire negative and he was able to fit more people in the shots with much trouble. It was also easier to cut from a wide view to a close up without much difference showing. The stage work all around with widescreen is just more flexible for the director.
The camera movements were also kept to a minimum. When it did move, however, it was strapped securely to a dolly on a track. Anderson is a huge fan of traditional techniques and prefers this over the new “steadicam”. Yeoman even made a track that went down hill and around a huge boulder for Anderson. They state that to the audience the shot looks relatively straight, which was Yeoman’s exact purpose. However, some old traditions most be laid down.
This came with a shot of the house that went from the roof of the house all the way to the bottom in one shot. This was difficult for Anderson to shoot because of the lighting that changed on the way down and the speed at which the camera had to move down. Anderson settled with putting the camera on a Super Technocrane and that on a lift to get it high enough and then had to run the camera from remote control. The lighting problem was taken care of by Storn Peterson and the audience can’t even realize the difference in aperture.
The overall development of the film only brought the two long time friends closer and helped to bring Anderson closer to his next film. It is not written yet, but the idea is going to be a little bit on the huge side, which will bring with it a whole new set of problems.

Beijing Bicycle

From a cinematographors point of view this movie is a little confusing to me. However there are many themes that play into the movie. The movie itself has as many twists in it as the cinematography. Starting with the lighting.
Most of the lighting for this movie was natural. All shots were made in busy streets or side streets during the day. He did use dark lighting once to show a poor house that the school boy lived in and also to show how badly the boys fought over the bike in a tunnel.
The lighting helps to bring about a happy start of a new live in the beginning of the movie. Yet as the movie progresses you see the light turn harsh and you feel the heat and the stuffiness of the crowded city start to beat upon you.
Another theme would be the lying. The director uses the shots of the school boy on the roof and the crowded poorly kept apartment his family lives in to show the lies that have been passed from family member to family member. Specificially from the father to the son concerning the bicycle. He uses the shot of the school boy on the roof to show the isolation that the boy has been placed in. Lying also ocurrs to the delivery boy during the course of his job. A great example of this would be all the running he has to do to catch up with his deliveries. The director usually shows shots of him running through crowds that treat him as if he is either not there or as if he is some sort of alien totally out of place from the regular role of things. Something else would be when he goes to pick up one of his first deliveries. He shows up at this dayspa and asks to see a certain person and the lady sends him through the whole spa without even thinking to actualy help him. She even tries to make him pay for the show he didnt even want to begin with.
love is also a theme, although a minor one. It is incorporated into the buying of the bike to impress a girl. The school boy buys a stolen bike to impress her and it just so happens to be the same bike that was stolen from the delivery boy. In his haste to impress the girl he literally fights the delivery boy over the bike without even thinking that maybe it is his and maybe it was stolen. The secret of the bike itslef from his family is a major contribution to prove that there are plenty of lies floating around the city. He shows this by showing shots of the school boy with his friends playing in an empty parking lot to prove also the theme of separation and isolation.
He shows the theme of separation and isolation at the end of the show when he shows the long shot of the delivery boy carrying his bike across the street with everyone staring at him as if he was foriegn. Its also pulled into the story with the shots of the lonely maid up in the apartment always walking around with nothing to do in a crowded city.

Family Values

One theme that is displayed throughtout “Family Values” would be love. Love is dominate because of many factors, two are most prominent. The first would be the fact that they are gay and married. They are automatically put at the lower end of the society. The love bond that had to be kept also because one was a cop and the other a trauma scene restoration worker. Another reason would be the arguments they had about wearing a bullet proof vest to work and having to trust each other to come home every night. The affection that is shown towards each of them is a factor that is also focused upon to bring out the theme of love. This theme is supported by the black and white filming technique used. The music that is also played along with the filming makes the movie feel very inviting and loving. Makes the whole setting of the selection more warm compared to the danger that is present.
This theme also ties in with the another one and that would be the theme of danger. Danger is present throughout the selection as a backburner. Its not a life -threating type of danger. More along the lines of what did happen or what is going to happen. The danger for the cop is present in the fact of them arguing about of the vest she is supposed to wear. They use shots of blooded stained objects and the long shot of them driving past the cemetary to simulate death. Death that is tied into this theme is usually gory and they bring that out with the shots of the bathtub and toilet. They also present a joke or a jest about the danger to try and lighten up the scene.
If I were to direct this film, the only major difference that I would put in would be more shots of the cop and her everyday duties on the job. I would also bring out more shots of different scenes of the blood stained objects. Then use the scenes of love to contrast them. The wanted affect would be to blend this two themes together to show regular life in their shows.

Throne of Blood

The theme of “Throne of Blood”, by Akira Kurosawa, was derived from Macbeth, written and played by William Shakespeare. Most, if not all of Kurosawa’s moral theme’s are pulled from American plays and put into Japanese milieu. Thus bringing the depth of the theme to a new level. When Kurosawa does this transformation from western civilization to Japanese culture, he emphasises on every single thought that passes through the actors mind during the shooting.
The theme of both play’s are the same, but the way they are presented are totally different. Both main character’s go through the same steps of emotion and struggles, however, the representation of them are different. Take the prophecy teller’s. Macbeth meets three witches after a huge truimphet battle. They tell him that he will become a general and then upgraded to king soon. Washizu meets only one witch who tells him of his prophecy. Now, the difference between these two scenes are major. Macbeth’s character takes it as untrue tellings and brushes it off. He keeps it in the back of his mind and hopes it is reality. Washizu, on the other hand, takes this woman very serious when he meets her and in a way treats her with respect and fear. Deeply rooting the meaning of this scene in the japanese culture.
The middle of both plays are close to being identical except in the way they are represented. The meaning behind each scene in “Throne of Blood “ is hidden behind facial expressions, body language, and reactions to certian things and events.Macbeth, however, is put out there for all to catch, there is no true depth in what each person is doing, its all in what they say and getting the point across verbally. The separation of the theme between each play lies within the depth that Kurosawa puts into every detail of emotion, movement, and environment.
Another wonderful example would be when the prophecy tellers inform both characters about not being defeated in battle until the trees move to attack. Both characters laugh this off becaase they know for a fact that trees cannot move, much less do battle. Yet, it is in there reactions to what happens that gives each one a different spin on the theme. For Macbeth, the rest of the prophecy tells that he will only die from a man “not born of a woman”. Therefore when Macbeth learns that the rising army of the enemy is using these trees has shield’s for protection, he doesn’t totally flip out. IT is when he learns that the rest of the prophecy is fulfilled that he realizes he is going to die no matter what.
For Washizu, he only knows that he will be defeated in battle when the trees move. He more than happily laughs this off and gains his confidence back. Yet when he sees the trees moving in around his castle his attiude changes and he realizes that he is going to be defeated. However, he still believes that he can win and survive. His men take the tress as defeat and realize that there is no way out and decide to take matters into their own hands. They decide to kill Washizu and give his head to his enemy.
The difference between these two wonderful works are not in the plot or script. Yet more along the lines of the depth and importants of emotion, imagery, facial expression, and movement.

One Nation, Under Siege

“Can it be made into reality?”. “Can it be made to look real?”. These were the major questions that went through director Michael Bay’s mind when he was offered up the job to direct “Pearl Harbor”. These questions, however, were soon answered when he went to Hawaii and found that many of the military bases that were there were still old-fashioned. Many still had bullet holes in them. The military also had old warships sitting in the harbors not being used that he was told he could borrow for the movie. This was exactly what he needed to say yes.
He immediately enlisted his long-time director of photography, John Schwartzman, ASC. The two immediately sat down together and started to flip through still photographs and discuss 1940s films. They wanted to begin with the idea that they were making a modern film in the 1941. This brought about a question of lighting and color palettes. Schwartzman decided to use alot of hard light in the movie so that you could get the feeling of the atmosphere that went alot with a war back in the 1940s. During the scene with where the couple kisses in front of this huge metal built plane. Schwartzman used two Maxibrutes on the plane to help separate the actors from all the flat blue ambience. Unfortunately Schwartzman was unable to control the lighting for the bombing and had to wait until the light was the way they wanted it and then shoot as much as they could while it was there.
Trying to prove to the audience that the ships were actually being bombed and shinking was a task in itself. The ships that the army just so willingly gave them could not be shunk in any way. Therefore every shot and to be in place for the bombing and shooting to look right. For the ships that you saw actually get hit by a bomb, the timeing between the bomb hitting the ship and the squibs exploding had to be perfect in order for the audience to believe the ship was actualy hit. These shots usually took 2 times to get right. The day consisted of 35 to 40 shots per day as is. In the 100 days that they worked on Pearl Harbor, they shot 37,000 setups with the first unit. That averages out to more shots per day than they do on episodic TV! Also, another tool that the cinematography used against the inconsistent weather would be the black smoke that was poured into the bombing scenes. This smoke helped to cover the weather and create an atmosphere inside itself so to speak.
A final factor in the look of the film was Bay and Schwartzman’s decision to utilize Technicolor’s revived dye-transfer process for a substantial number of Pearl Harbor’s release prints. He gloats that the pictures come out sharper than Eastman color positive. Dye-transfer process takes a piece of negative and physically extracted the image into three matrices, coating them in food coloring and then laying them back onto a piece of clear celluloid. Eastman color positive is projecting light through a negative that’s in contact with a piece of positive.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Vox Populi - Rome

This miniseries became a huge task for cinematographers Alik Sakharov, Maco Ponecorvo and Martin Kenzie. The major pressure was to make everything look realistic. Which is exactly what shut the show down after the first three episodes. They were “Too Pristine” according to HBO standards. Therefore the problem fell to the cinematographers.
One issue that was dealt with rather well would be the backgrounds, extras and scenery. In order to fix this, first they had to make it look old, used and decayed. They examined old ruins in rome to find out how to make the textures look and feel like Rome. They actually shot many outdoor scenes right on the hillsides of rome and its neighboring cities. In order to make the extras and scenery fit into the setting, they keep most of the inside shots of a building out of focus. In other words, the focused the camera on who ever was speaking and fading everything in the background as to make it feel and seem not important. They used one big light directly over the buildings to help bring color to the faces and little lights positioned in windows to give off the effect of sunlight penetrating the windows.
Something else they needed to distinguish was the differences between the rich and the poor. In order to due this they used a mixture of lighting and costume effects. If they were shooting in a poor area, they used very few lights and mostly candles with dirty clothing and unclean buildings. This helped to make the feeling of “dirt poor” become reality. In order to bring the rich to light, they used extravagantly bright colors and mostly daylight shots with clean buildings. They used bright lights as well to make the effect of being rich and almost godly come to life. Something that you can grasp.
They also used cranes to help with the shooting of battles. Take the battle in the opening scene. The cinematographer wanted to throw the audience into the mix right away and therefore used cameramen to shoot most of it. This way the viewer was right in the mix. He focused two cameras on fictional characters to bring out the importance of each. His many goal was the reality of it. He even went so far as to tell the cameramen that it didn't matter if they were catching each other in the shots, they would edited them out later.
Another effect that the cinematographer used to his advantage would be smoke and dust. He used these to element not only to help keep everything looking realistic, but to also help direct the focus of the camera from one to another. During the Senate shots, he lets the smoke from the candles give a shadow on some characters, while others on in direct sunlight the entire time. This hints on the importance of certain characters. Take for example Caesar. He was usually shot in with a mixture of bright light and smoke. His day shots were usually very bright it the focus always on him. The smoke and dust also helped to make other scenes look like it actually happened and was real. The fight scene used allot of dust to make it seem like the soldiers were truly fighting and smoke was used regularly in buildings of concern.
All in all, the mixture of lighting, smoke, dust and perfect costuming made this miniseries a great hit. All elements played off of each other rather well. The show went from being “too pristine” to actually fitting into its time period.

Bad Religion - Article Review

This article was written around the movie “Frailty” and the lighting difficulties that entailed it. Veteran cinematographer Bill Butler, ASC, talks to writer Jay Holben about four scenes that lighting became an important part of the script. First, before we tell why they were difficult to light, let me give you some back ground information. Butler shot the majority of the film in these three scenes and used as little light as possible throughout the entire movie. He wanted the movie to start out bright and cheering so that the children still held their innocence. Yet as the movie got darker, so did the children.
The first scene that became difficult to light was the tool shed, where the first few killings took place. As the father takes the first “demon” (a waitress) into the tool shed, you see a silhouette of him against a foggy background. Then you see him disappear into the blackness of the tool shed carrying the “demon”. Butler put no light into this scene, he left actor (Bill Paxton, who plays the father of two kids) completely black and refused to show the audience any more than he had to. He’s says that this became his “Modus Operandi”. He uses as little light as possible on different areas of the set. When a group of actors walk onto the set he usually uses a single light source.
The next scene was the home-made cellar. You see Paxton digging the cellar at night using only a lantern for his light source, However, this was not enough light when Butler began to move the camera and take different shots. There they took down a dirt wall and backed off a 10k and threw it through 4 sheets of tough frost spaced evenly away from the set. This gave the illusion of a lantern lighting the cellar and also gave Butler the full head to toe lighting he needed for many of his shots.
The last scene, the family rose garden, turns from a happy bright garden to a dark and grim graveyard. In the opening scenes of the movie, the audience watches two children run through the garden with plenty of sunlight and just a good feeling of happiness. Yet, as the story gets gruesome, so does this garden. The next time the audience gets a glimpse of it, the father is burying his first “demon” in the middle of the night while his kids watch him. The father is completely covered in black dirt with blood stain on his shirt. It just totally ruins the gardens innocence for the audience for the rest of the movie.
Now most of this movie is done in flashbacks. Fenton (One of the children and now around the age of 25) retells his gruesome family story to an FBI agent, promising to take the agent to where all the bodies are buried. The last scene that Butler talks about takes place in the agent’s cop-car, on the way to the garden. It’s in the middle of the night, of course, during a rainstorm and all you can see is Fenton’s face with the shadow of the grill between the seats across his face. The rest of the car is pitch-black except for the driver, who is illuminated only by passing streetlights. This scene was shot on stage using many different techniques. The first technique was to tie four lamps to a rotating fan and put it beside the car, giving the impression of the car passing streetlights. The next was to blow a fan at the car, so as to make the rain go horizontally, to make it seem like the car was moving forward. One of the final techniques was to put two penlights on the sides of on end of a board and have an extra dressed in all black walk from left to right behind the car. This gave off the illusion of them going down a road that was not perfectly straight and that there were other cars behind them, off in the distance.
These four scenes, bringing the entire movie together, gave Butler the exact lighting he was looking for. For mostly using only one or two light sources and shooting mostly at night, the film gave off that gritty and gruesome effect that he was looking for all along.