Is Technicolor simply back in fashion like everything else in our history that goes in loops? I don’t believe so. We’ve seen movies replicating this distinct visual atmosphere now and then throughout the decades. Crafting the cinematic world so bold, saturated, and vivid that it’s almost surreal is a powerful tool. Not only can it be joyful to watch, but also special colors indeed may serve storytelling needs. Let’s talk below about emulating a Technicolor look in digital cinematography.

What is a Technicolor look?

Technicolor (which is still a trademark) is a company that was founded in 1914 by three gentlemen: Herbert T. Kalmus, Daniel Comstock, and Burton Wescott (“Tech” in the name refers to MIT, where Kalmus and Comstock originally met). Their goal was to achieve full-spectrum color photography for motion pictures, and so they did. It’s important to mention that Technicolor wasn’t the first color process in film history (it came after Britain’s Kinemacolor), but due to its quality, beautiful results, and very special technology, it quickly became the most widely used one. So popular in fact, that the Golden Age of Hollywood is literally marked by Technicolor, and over the years, it became a household name.

When we talk about Technicolor today, we usually mean it as an adjective for bright, saturated movies from the 1930s to 1950s. To achieve such incredible results, the company developed a series of processes that use dye-transfer techniques to produce color prints. The most famous one was Process 4, or the so-called “Three-strip Technicolor”, which used a completely novel system (including a special enormous camera) and made coloring accessible to Hollywood. The biggest advantage was you didn’t need any additional complicated equipment for the cinema projection of the movies.

A brief history of Technicolor

The founders and experimenters of Technicolor started by merging red and green colors. For that, they put a prism beam-splitter behind the camera lens. What it did was expose two consecutive frames of a single strip of black-and-white negative simultaneously. One went behind the red filter, another one behind a green. This process meant that filmmakers had to capture and project everything at twice the normal speed and needed a special projector to properly register the two color images on screen. It wasn’t very convenient, and often the results were far from the ones intended. While this process transferred skin tones reasonably well, it didn’t include the color blue at all.

Blue came into the mix only in 1932, when Technicolor tweaked the technology and developed their famous Process 4. (We will talk about this extraordinary three-strip workflow in a moment). At first, they showed the results only in cartoons. In particular, Walt Disney gathered the courage to make a bold move using three-strip Technicolor in the short, “Flowers and Trees”. As it turned out, it was the right decision, as the unusual color boost helped the previously unsuccessful “Silly Symphonies” series to launch and Disney won an Oscar for that.

The first fully Technicolor live-action feature was “Becky Sharp”, and after that, the groundbreaking coloring process became an industry standard. More than half of Hollywood films until the mid-50s used this then-novel technology. You can see the full list of three-strip Technicolor works here.

Unfortunately, shooting Technicolor involved a special and very expensive photographic system, as well as a complicated dying process. Of course, this annoyed studios and filmmakers. So, when other – simpler and cheaper – coloring workflows emerged (such as Eastman Color, which used a single strip), they quickly took over the industry. Technicolor took a few last breaths, trying to adjust, and eventually died. “The Godfather Part II” is recognized among the final major films using this technology.

Three-strip Technicolor and how it worked

So, what was so special about the three-strip Technicolor? First, it used a custom-designed camera that operated with three black-and-white film strips simultaneously. An optical cube inside splits the light beam into three parts: favoring and recording either the red, blue, or green spectrum of light accordingly.

The three strips were developed separately and were then flipped into positive matrixes. Each print was treated with the appropriate dyes corresponding to complementary colors (cyan for red matrix, magenta for green, and yellow for blue). These multiple color records had to be printed one by one onto a blank piece of film. Together, they created a gorgeous Technicolor image. As it lacked contrast, the company would add a black and white layer underneath the matrixes to serve as “the key” and add crispness to the images.

What was cool about it was you could make different palettes. Technicolor consultants and directors could establish an individual film look by adjusting the cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes. At the same time, the so-called dye-transfer process was super complex and needed huge rooms filled with continuously operating machinery and vast quantities of film prints traversing through walls, floors, and ceilings. If you want to understand this in more technical detail, here you go:

Difficulties associated with Technicolor

As the Technicolor camera had to run three strips of film simultaneously, it was bulky and extremely loud. To deal with it, filmmakers required a special large-volume sound blimp, which made the whole system weigh around 500 pounds (more than 200 kilograms).

Wow, look at that monstrous contraption! No wonder film studios couldn’t buy Technicolor cameras – they had to rent them together with a special supporting crew. Additionally, the company always sent a “color supervisor”, who ensured that sets, costumes, and makeup didn’t push beyond the limitations of the system. Oftentimes, the supervisor had more to say than the directors themselves.

As if it was not already complicated enough, the correct processing of the three film strips also required a lot of light while filming. That’s why sometimes sets were completely overlit, which warmed them up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (or around 38 degrees Celsius). Imagine working in such conditions! Truly, beauty knows no pain.

The effect that the Technicolor look provides

No matter what, Hollywood fell in love with the Technicolor look, and let’s be honest: we’re still mesmerized by it. For instance, when Judy Garland’s Dorothy from the “The Wizard of Oz” leaves sepia-colored Kansas, and enters the Technicolor land of Oz, it’s a breathtaking moment. Let’s rewatch this scene together:

In my opinion, it’s also one of the best examples of how color can enhance storytelling. It wasn’t only a crazy experience for the audience of that era, accustomed to monochrome films. As the Technicolor look creates exaggerated, lively, and even unreal visuals, we perceive them as a separate world that waits for Dorothy on the other side of the door. Diving into it is almost a sensual experience.

Technicolor consultants at that time also helped productions develop a color scheme to support the narrative. They often referred to conventional associations: red for passion, danger, and heat; green for freedom, nature, freshness; and so on. Of course, nowadays we can call such statements cliché. However, consider this: color perception studies do state that we have different physical reactions to various waves of light. Seasoned colorist Ollie Kenchington dedicates a module to it in his MZed course “Directing Color”. He explains, for example, why blue is almost like white noise to our eyes, and how red elevates the heart rate and blood pressure. These are insights to think about when defining your movie’s color palette.

Modern movies, inspired by Technicolor look

Coming back to Technicolor, the technology is now considered obsolete, and the equipment designed for it was uninstalled years ago. However, its lush and bold look keeps inspiring filmmakers after all this time. For instance, in Martin Scorsese’s latest epic Western drama “Killers of the Flower Moon”, filmmakers use a variety of color LUTs, including Technicolor. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (who also received his Oscar nomination for this film) explains that the story’s epilogue is set in the 30s. To stay true to this epoch, they decided to go for the most popular technology at that time and emulated it. They also tested three-strip Technicolor in an earlier shot when Mollie’s mother dies and meets her ancestors. The contrast to the autochrome movie world worked so powerfully they decided to keep it this way. It also made this moment in the story feel slightly artificial and special.

That’s not the first Technicolor moment in the Scorsese filmography though. In the biopic “The Aviator”, the director went for two vintage color processes that reflect the protagonist’s emotional evolution. While the story revolves around Hughes’s early career (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), we watch it in Technicolor’s two-color look. However, as the character sets a speed record in flying and goes to Connecticut, the movie transitions into the vibrant, three-strip aesthetic, which is associated with glorious years in cinema history.

At the same time, Rodrigo Prieto took his experience with emulating Technicolor to Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”. Based on the old technology, they developed a special LUT (that they jokingly called “Technobarbie”) for the film‘s lush and vibrant artificial world of plastic dolls. To me, it felt almost like an homage to the fantastic experience of Dorothy, who also goes on a journey of self-discovery.

If you want to learn more about the cinematography and colors of “Barbie”, we wrote about it here. Also, make sure to listen to the ASC clubhouse conversation with Rodrigo Prieto on MZed.com, as it will give you more insight into the development of two distinct cinematic worlds in this movie.

How do digital films emulate Technicolor look?

Okay, but if the Technicolor technology is obsolete, how do we replicate the look in modern movies? The colorists of “The Aviator” explain that they found a process that mimics three-strip Technicolor digitally. Put very simply, you create a red filter, a green filter, and a blue filter, and apply them in the VFX software of your choice.

This approach filters out the other colors from each one of those layers, just like the filters in the old three-strip taking cameras did, and then what you’re left with is a digital form of that Technicolor look.

Rob Legato, a quote from the interview with The ASC magazine

Using this as a reference, and after making a conversion chart that would recharacterize every pixel to create a desired palette, they produced a LUT. This saved enormous amounts of time, as with the LUT the instructions were built into a graphics-processing card and allowed each shot to be rendered quickly.

Another interesting insight comes from Ti West’s horror movie “Pearl”, which also used the Golden Age of Hollywood color aesthetics as inspiration. In one interview, the director explains that replicating the three-strip process is unique and you can do only so much in color correction. So, they decided to be very particular in front of the camera and made sure everything they photographed looked like Technicolor already. This approach involved a huge effort with the costumes, production design, and contrast ratio of the lighting. Well, being that mindful of color pays off for sure.

Conclusion

Thank you for coming with me on this long journey! I hope you gained some exciting insights and inspiration from the story of the Technicolor look and how filmmakers used it for storytelling.

What other examples of modern movies inspired by this old color approach come to mind? Why do you think directors went for such a special aesthetic? Let’s talk a bit more in the comments below!

Full disclosure: MZed is owned by CineD

Join MZed Pro now and start watching today!

Feature image source: combined film stills from “Becky Sharp”, “Pearl”, and “Barbie”.

For your information: this is a live, recorded session from Videocamp in Vienna, Austria. Originally, it was supposed to be just a brief introduction to the vast world of advanced technology and showcase some practical AI tools for video creators. However, a week before the event, OpenAI announced their text-to-video generator Sora, which took the world’s attention by storm. So, we decided it was also important to talk about generative AI in general, and the ethical topics surrounding it at the beginning.

The second part of the video is dedicated solely to simple workflows based on deep-learning models, which are quite helpful in pre- and post-production.  

Why should you keep up with AI development?

Although a lot of people despise AI and would rather ignore it, there are solid reasons why we believe you shouldn’t. First, the tech is already out there and is developing at breakneck speed, getting crazier every week. We can’t put this genie back into the bottle, so we have to learn how to deal with it.

Secondly, artificial intelligence is not completely evil (in case that’s what you think about image or video generators that scrape the entire Internet and train on other people’s work without credit to the original artists). There are AI upscalers that allow you to increase the quality of archive footage, DaVinci Resolve’s Magic Mask, automated captions in editing software, and much more to explore. If you don’t learn how to use these tools, at some point you will for sure become much slower than those who do. Also, if deep-learning mechanisms can take over mundane tasks leaving you more time for creative endeavors, why shouldn’t they?

In the video above, we talk about a few more reasons why you should keep on educating yourself on this topic. One way to do so is to read our articles from the “Artificial Intelligence” section.

AI-enhanced workflows for video pre-visualizations

One of the tools I showcase in the live talk in detail is Luma AI. This is a zero-cost app (also available in the web browser) that turns a simple video into a 3D model or a 3D environment using the so-called NeRF technology. Personally, I use it during location scouting and for video pre-visualizations. Even if you don’t have the newest smartphone (mine is a dying iPhone X), you will be able to share a comprehensive 360-degree look at a chosen space with your DP or production designer within minutes. Better yet, by animating the keyframes directly in the app, anyone will be able to pre-visualize exact shots on location (you can even include your characters or important props) after you’ve closed it.

Some online creators also use Luma AI to create impossible shots and cool visual effects using only their phones and imagination. Here’s an example by a vlogger @karenxcheng to give you a taste of it:

Generative AI and how it evolves

In my opinion, it is also totally okay to use generative AI in the pre-production stage: to create artistic mood boards with Midjourney, to research overseas locations with ChatGPT, or to make pre-visualizations of your desired shots using AI video generators (Runway is the one we’re taking a closer look at in the video above).

Over the last year, we’ve seen how quickly this technology has evolved. For example, here are the results created by the image generator Midjourney using the same text description: its very first model (on the left) and the actual one (V6 on the right).

No wonder this rapid advancement is so intimidating. That’s why when OpenAI’s Sora came out, a lot of video creators instantly felt they were going to lose their jobs in the not-so-distant future. Why? Because it showed unprecedented realism. We don’t dive into Sora in the video because it was the topic of someone else’s presentation, but if you want to learn more about it, head over here. Also, please, join our open discussion there, as we believe Sora is not the end of human filmmaking and would like to read your take on it.

How to enhance audio with AI?

As you know, sound is a drastically important part of every video, even if it is only an Instagram reel. However, as an independent video creator, you don’t always have the best possible conditions to record sound. Sometimes, there is disturbing irregular background noise; other times human mistakes occur and the audio has not been leveled correctly. In the past, such things were difficult to fix. Nowadays, we have AI tools to take care of it.

In our video, you will see two workflows. One helps to enhance the quality of audio within seconds. Another can almost seamlessly separate voice and music (or sounds) from each other. Let’s say you have an old recording, the project file is lost, and you need only the interview part from the audio track. That’s where such tools can be of immense help.

Other AI-enhanced workflows for video you will learn about

Last but not least, we take a look at AI-enhanced post-production workflows. In particular, you will get a step-by-step guide on how to quickly translate your subtitles into different languages using automated captions and ChatGPT. The workflow suggested in our video still requires a couple of actions to be done manually. Yet, if you often work with long interviews or documentaries, you need to try it out because it will save you a massive amount of time!

Conclusion

If you haven’t worked with AI tools yet, this video presentation might be a lot to digest. At the same time, it’s only a tiny fraction of what artificial technology already offers filmmakers and video creators. We believe it’s important to follow this topic and we will always try to keep you updated here on CineD.com. So stay tuned!

What about you? Do you already use AI? Can you share other simple AI-enhanced workflows that you find particularly practical? Let’s expand our toolkits together and talk in the comments below!

Why is there a free version of DaVinci Resolve?

First of all, why is there even a free version of the program? This is pretty clever marketing on behalf of Blackmagic Design. Resolve is used as an attractive gateway into the Blackmagic Design ecosystem. The thinking of CEO Grant Petty is that once you really get to know Resolve, you will also be interested in the hardware they offer, such as the speed editor, color grading panels, or the ATEM mini-series.

As your expertise grows and you become more professional, the more you will invest in Blackmagic products – and this strategy seems to work well (judging by my current desk setup, it sure worked on me). So, there are no signs that the company will change this any time soon.

“We want people to be able to create great content for free, but also have the opportunity to unlock further professional features once their skill level has reached a certain point.”

Simon Hall, Senior Technical Sales Specialist at Blackmagic Design

So, why should you pay?

Which brings us to the next question: why should I pay around $295 for the full Studio version? First of all, one of the biggest differences to some competitors: it’s only a one-time fee; there are no recurring charges and Blackmagic does not charge for updates. So, if you bought version 15 some years ago, all updates, including the current version 18.6, have been free of charge. You can find our article on what to look out for when upgrading versions here, and you can find a list of all the new features of version 18.6 in this document by Blackmagic Design.

We will guide you through the differences according to the workflow in Resolve, starting at the Media page and ending at Export. In the end, you will know whether the free version is sufficient for your needs or if you will make the jump to the paid version of the program.

Media page

You will start noticing differences once you upgrade your camera gear and professionalize your workflow. While the free version can handle many formats and codecs, only the Studio version will play back formats such as AVCHD, HEIF, J2K HT, and Sony XAVC, or 10-bit formats such as the H.264 10-bit 433 out of the Panasonic GH series. Here is a link to a list of all supported Codecs directly on the Blackmagic site.

A feature missing in the free version is face detection for creating smart bins for different actors. This is a great feature for organizing your material for a long-form project with many different people.

Cut and Edit page, collaboration, and performance

The differences come mostly from the program’s performance itself. While both versions use the GPU for processing, only the Studio version can make use of multiple GPUs. However, it seems like one powerful GPU will do a better job than a few weaker ones, so if you are thinking of investing in graphic power, then go for one powerful card.

The timeline resolution in the free version is limited to Ultra HD 3,840 x 2,160. However, you can create timelines in different aspect ratios even in the unpaid version of the program.

Two Edit Page Inspector features that can only be found in Studio are Smart Reframe (which automatically puts the most important part of the video at the center when zoomed in or using aspect ratios different from the one the video was shot in e.g. when going vertical for footage that was shot horizontally) and Lens Correction (for getting rid of spherical lens distortions and other aberrations).

Both free and paid include multi-user collaboration on projects (featuring a chat function), but only the paid version supports markers and comments synchronization using Dropbox, as well as remote grading (which lets colorists work with clients via the internet), remote rendering, and remote monitoring of 444, RGB 10-bit video and audio streams.

A very useful tool, especially when dealing with long interviews, is the audio transcription feature. It analyzes a clip from the media pool and gives you a transcription allowing you to edit via text. See our video on this handy tool here:

Further features only found in the Studio version include:

• Support for HDR10, HDR10+, Vivid, and Dolby Vision workflows and H.265 Dolby Vision encodes
• Support for HDR metadata over HDMI/SDI

Color page and color correction tools

This is the area that DaVinci Resolve is most known for, and the free version offers a lot of tools needed to correct and grade your material to achieve a professional look.

Some features only found in the paid version include the Magic Mask, a tool for easy masking that can save you a lot of time by avoiding rotoscoping – or the face refinement tool for beauty touch-ups, since both these tools use AI features of the Neural Engine working in Resolve. See how the magic mask works in this video from MrAlexTech:

Also, only available in the paid version are HDR scopes, which enable you to create videos complying with standards such as Dolby Vision or HDR10+. Studio also features more advanced noise reduction tools than the free version, including temporal and spatial noise reduction tools that can be used separately or together. While the temporal noise reduction will analyze changes between frames, the spatial noise reduction tool looks at neighboring pixels to find and reduce noise in the picture. 

Other tools and effects on the color page that can only be found in the Studio version:

• DCTL import (DCTL stands for DaVinci Color Transform Language and allows you to create tools that can act like LUTs or plugins for image manipulation, check out this page if this sounds interesting to you)
• Re-light (which allows you to add virtual light sources to scenes)
• Depth Map (which analyzes the image and generates a 3D depth matte to quickly grade the foreground differently from the background)
• Grading of stereoscopic 3D projects
• Film Halation (for adding a glow around high contrast edges, which can be found on footage recorded on analog film)
• Speed warp (for creating smooth slow motion)
• Superscale for upscaling HD to 4K
• Film grain
• Camera blur
• Motion blur
• Motion trails
• Lens flare
• Lens blur
• Lens reflections
• Pencil sketch
• Analog Damage (for vintage looks)
• Aperture Diffraction
• Automatic Dirt Removal
• Beauty
• Stylize and Pencil Sketch
• Chromatic aberration
• Chromatic adaptation
• Auto color matching
• Color Stabilizer
• Contrast Pop
• Deflicker
• Dehaze
• Detail recovery
• Dustbuster
• False color
• Frame replace
• Object tracking
• Object mask
• Object removal
• Patch replacer
• Sharpen
• Sharpen Edges
• Smear
• Soften and Sharpen Skin
• Surface Tracker 18
• Texture Pop
• Tilt Shift Blur
• Warper

Creating effects in Fusion

Interestingly enough, the effects suite within DaVinci Resolve or the Fusion page has only minor differences between the free and Studio versions.

Features only available in Studio include:

• Fusion Camera Tracker
• Fusion VR Toolset
• Control Scripts from local or remote machines

So, you can do nearly everything that Fusion offers for free, although this page has quite a steep learning curve. Once you wrap your head around concepts like nodes though, you will be able to create great effects here.

Working on audio in Fairlight

For audio mixing in Resolve, we use the Fairlight page. The free version already offers a lot of features such as the royalty-free audio library (which can be downloaded from the Blackmagic Design website).

A new AI feature added in the latest version of Resolve Studio is the audio classification. This feature will analyze audio clips and automatically put them into bins according to their content (such as music, effect, dialogue, etc.). See Jason Yadlovski’s video on this feature here: 

Only in Studio can you find the following functions:

• Output stereo sound higher than 192 kbps
• Voice Isolation (to get rid of unwanted ambient sounds)
• Dolby Atmos audio
• MPEGH import and rendering
• SMPTE ST.2098 support
• B-chain audio monitoring
• Auro-3D audio
• 3D panner
• 3D Spaceview
• Support for object and channel-based immersive formats (ADM, 22.2, SMPTE, MPEG-H, and others)

Deliver page and export options

Here you will find some major differences between the versions. The free one limits exports to 4K Ultra HD and 60 fps. Studio enables you to export up to 32K and 120 fps with advanced HDR delivery. If you need to create DCI 4K 4,096 x 2,160 or even higher resolutions, then you have to go for the paid version.

Studio also supports hardware-accelerated encoding and decoding of codecs such as H.264 and H.265, which will not only speed up working with this type of material but also significantly shorten the rendering process when exporting. Frame.io integration is only supported in this version as well.

Workflow integration plugins

You will need the Studio version if you plan on connecting to third-party software for tasks such as digital asset management or automation. You can even write plugins yourself and log them into the JavaScript APIs. Furthermore, it supports scripting in both Python and LUA allowing you to set up custom workflows. 

Conclusion

As you can see, the free version of Resolve already offers you a lot of functionalities for creating great content. Since you can download it directly from Blackmagic Design’s website, it is easy if you want to give it a try and see if you can get comfortable with it. You can find our article about great resources for beginners here. Once you have figured out your needs, you can still make the upgrade to the paid version at a later stage. For most users planning to go more professional, this will be the next logical step.

Price and availability

You can get the free version of DaVinci Resolve directly from Blackmagic Design. You can find the Studio version at retailers such as B&H and CVP.

Are you using DaVinci Resolve and if yes, are you paying for the Studio version? When did you make the switch to Studio and what features made you go for it? Let us know in the comments!

To learn from Paul Atkins’s experience, we’ll be taking a look at one of the lessons from our freshly added MZed course “Lighting People – On Location”, which you can also read about here. It was filmed in cooperation with the ASC as part of the Jack Wild Summit and includes four hours of distilled practical knowledge from both Atkins and Stephen Lighthill. The Master cinematographers share their on-location lighting workflows both indoors and outdoors, showing various set-ups and how they apply in real-life situations.

You can watch the whole course on MZed.com.

Choosing the camera direction to light people outdoors

Let’s say, you’re a documentary filmmaker or video creator, and you suddenly find yourself in a situation where you need to shoot a spontaneous interview outdoors. Assuming your background options are similar in any direction you look, which way would you (or better, should you) point the camera? That’s the first question Paul Atkins asks his students and it’s the first and most important decision you have to make in these conditions.

If we want to translate this question into lighting terms, it would sound like this: “Where is the sun?” I guess, most of you know, that the simplest rule to follow is: never shoot with the sun behind you (the cinematographer’s), as it creates a flat and unpleasing front light. Keeping that in mind, Paul will always shoot towards the sun. And here’s why:

• Your interview partner (or presenter, for that matter) won’t have to squint throughout the shoot;
• The sun will create beautiful backlight, especially on the hair;
• Bouncing from the surfaces around you, it will also cast a soft light on the face.

Thus, if you only have a short time to set up for an interview outdoors, choosing the right direction your camera points to relative to the sun will already help you achieve a decent-looking picture.

Scheduling your interviews correctly is crucial

Of course, in reality, it’s not always that simple. Nature doesn’t always play along. Sometimes, the sun will stand way too high, other times, you will come to the location only to find a heavily overcast sky. It can even happen, that you are forced to shoot into front light because the director or producer needs a particular background.

In that case – when possible – suggest shooting at another time of the day. Paul Atkins reminds us, that’s what location scouting is for. If you’re shooting eastward, then you’ll get the best interview light early morning. Westward? Late afternoon. (Not sunset, because in case the interview drags on, the light is going to change in a matter of minutes).

At times, you won’t have the possibility for a proper location scouting to check the sun’s direction. The least you can do then is study your shoot spots beforehand, for example on Google Maps. Also, there are specialized apps, that will show you detailed shadows and lights at the chosen time and address, using 3D models. For example, I use Shadowmap, which is browser-based and has a free plan without registration.

We talk a lot about other tips for location scouting outdoors here. Remember, that as a cinematographer, you should also be able to control the shooting plan. Scheduling the interviews correctly is crucial when you’re dealing with exterior lighting.  

In case you have some time to model your light

Okay, now imagine, that you picked the right time, the weather is good, and you can film with the sun as your backlight. The shot is 90% ready. What you can do now is bring some more contrast to the face of your interview partner or presenter. Paul Atkins recommends taking a simple bounce (a reflector, a white card) and placing it on one side. On the other side, you may use a black flag, to add a bit of negative fill. This set-up, when applied outdoors, will make a very sublime change, yet it’s significant for shaping light and shadow on the face:

The great thing about backlight is, that even if you have five people in shot, you can put a huge 6” white bounce card, set it up on the side, so that the sun is hitting it, and voilà! Your shot is lit.

In case it’s cloudy outside, Paul Atkins mentions, that there is still a difference, in where you point your camera towards. In this event, he would also place the invisible sun behind the subject but also add an LED panel as a key light on the side (because the bounce won’t have anything to reflect).

Working with the eyelines

The next tip might be obvious to the most, but it’s an important one to mention. Whenever you set up an interview (and this applies to interior shoots as well), always make sure that the person looks into the light side. In the case we described above, it will be the direction, where we put the white bounce card. Not only does this eyeline look better, but it makes sure, that your interviewee’s eyes catch some light and seem alive. If they don’t, they will look weird, almost “dead inside”. Normally, that’s something you want to avoid as a filmmaker.

Attention to color spill while lighting people outdoors

Another brief note from Paul Atkins: whenever you shoot with backlight, pay close attention to where it bounces off. Why? Because you may get some unintended color spill on the face. A yellow wall of a nearby building, for example, can give the shot a warm undertone, which is okay. However, what if the wall is bright pink or even green? (This is also the reason, why the camera crew normally dresses in all black).

That being said, if you are shooting in the rainforest, you won’t be able to defeat the green spill completely (making it the task for the colorist). One of the tricks to reduce it is by covering the ground with black material (or putting your black flag there). In case you use artificial LED lighting in your set-up, you can also try to counter green by tweaking your light source into a red or magenta direction.

What you can do if you’re stuck with frontal lighting

What if it’s the worst-case scenario, and you are forced to film with the harsh sunlight shining directly into the face of your interviewee?

In this scenario, Paul Atkins would at least try to soften it. Everybody uses something different to do so, but Paul’s go-to is a quarter-grid cloth. However, any type of diffusion will suffice.

It indeed looks a bit artificial, because the background is extremely lit, and the face of your interviewee or presenter is not. If the person doesn’t interact with the background, make it as blurry as possible, to put the focus away from it. This quick softening solution also works, when the sun stands vertically – just turn your diffusion rig into an overhead one. In case you somehow don’t have a diffusion at hand (even the smallest one), try to find a shadow.

The more ideal way to deal with the sun direction issue would be to try and talk the director into at least using it as a side light. In this case, the background will get more depth due to light and shadows. You can still soften it (with a lighter diffusion), shaping the contrast in the face.

Other tips on how to light people outdoors

As Paul Atkins says, feel free to violate all those principles, depending on your story. Sometimes, you may want the presenter in the harsh front light, squinting at the sun – for instance, when they’re talking about the insane drought of a chosen region.

If you want more hands-on tips from the wildlife cinematography experts, head over to the MZed course “Lighting People – On Location”. In the discussed lesson, Paul also covers how to maintain light during interviews on a boat; what to do, when it’s completely gloomy outside; and how to position multiple people (and/or multiple cameras) for one interview set-up.

What else do you get with MZed Pro?

As an MZed Pro member, you have access to over 500 hours of filmmaking education. Plus, we’re constantly adding more courses (several in production right now).

For just $30/month (billed annually at $349), here’s what you’ll get:

• 55+ courses, over 850+ high-quality lessons, spanning over 500 hours of learning.
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Feature image source: MZed

What about you? Do you often need to light people outdoors? What tips could you add to Paul Atkins’s ones? Let’s talk all about exterior lighting in the comments below!

The 96^th Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, the 10th of March. Thus, our short Oscars sprint is also coming to an end. To conclude it with something special, we decided to take a look at a smaller category – Best International Feature – and break down the cinematography of a quiet drama from Japan. “Perfect Days” has strong competition this year, sharing the nomination with, for example, Jonathan Glazer’s powerful “The Zone of Interest”. It doesn’t matter though whether Wim Wender’s picture has a chance of winning or not. After all, it already won its place in our hearts. Interestingly, it’s done so more with a rather simplistic approach than with fancy effects or complicated tools.

The quiet frames of Perfect Days: how they started

This story begins with “The Tokyo Toilet Project”. Contemporary designers and architects from all around the world created 17 public bathrooms in Japan’s capital for the Olympics (which were postponed due to COVID-19). They treated them as installations, pieces of art, yet of course, the toilets themselves were also open for ordinary use. Relieve yourself and enjoy the artwork, so to speak.

At first, the production invited Wim Wenders to make a series of short documentary films on the unique facilities to promote the project. Yet when the German director (known for his love of Japan) saw the toilets, he immediately came up with an idea for a fiction feature. Luckily, everyone agreed. So, together with his co-writer Takuma Takasaki, Wim went back to Berlin and they wrote a script in 3 weeks. The film itself was shot in Tokyo over 16 days.

While it may be the least effort put into an Oscar-nominated feature, this approach seems to align better with its central message than any other would.

Documentary approach

“Perfect Days” follows Hirayama, a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, who not only loves his job but also generally enjoys a minimalistic, simple life, based on an ever-repeating routine. This film doesn’t have a rigid, classic plot; it’s more or less based on short stories unfolding around Hirayama and small moments he notices and enjoys – eating lunch on a bench, listening to a Lou Reed cassette in the car, exchanging gazes with a strange woman in the park, or getting his dinner at the same underground sports bar. Nothing thrilling is happening, really, only ordinary events anyone can relate to. If you’ve watched “Paterson” by Jim Jarmusch, then you’ll recognize the vibe.

To make it feel even more authentic, the documentary approach felt like the right decision. “Perfect Days” plays out in an intimate 1.33:1 aspect ratio, has mostly handheld camera work, and includes a lot of exterior scenes using available light. There is very little dialogue as Hirayama doesn’t speak much, preferring to keep his thoughts to himself. Accordingly, we don’t know a lot about his background – only glimpses of his old life. Wim Wenders explains that this was his intentional choice. The director wanted to keep the protagonist’s history secret (sharing it only with the main actor – Kōji Yakusho) because this story is not about any possible drama he had in the past. It’s about here and now and the universal humanity of the character.

How to tell routine in quiet frames

As Hirayama’s routine became the central focus of the movie’s structure, filmmakers made sure to show it from his perspective. Wim Wenders believes people often put a very negative connotation on the word “routine”. Generally, it’s considered something boring that you do automatically, without really being ‘present’. To him (and to Hirayama), routine means beautiful processes you love doing and that give your life shape. The main character is attentive to every detail and each change surrounding him. This is why his day (and the film itself) starts not with an alarm clock, but with the subtle sounds of someone sweeping the street. Cut to a close-up of Hirayama’s ear and we dive smoothly into his world, carefully put together from tiny pieces.

The idea that routine can be endearing and engaging also manifests in the way different scenes in “Perfect Days” are framed. Yes, we often see the same activities from Hirayama’s days: driving to work, cleaning the toilets, and eating at a specific location. However, if you look closely, you find that we always see things from a slightly different angle whenever the story repeats – meaning there might be a change in surroundings, but also usually from a different camera viewpoint. An interesting and seamless way to slightly shift a perspective, as Hiroyama does, looking at every single day with clear and loving eyes every time.

Komorebi as a visual metaphor

Another metaphor Wim Wenders uses to support his message is the Japanese concept of “komorebi”. This term describes the dancing shadow patterns created by sunlight shining through rustling leaves and swaying branches. Every day, during his simple lunch in the park, Hirayama takes komorebi pictures of a particular tree with his old Olympus film camera. On some weekends, he gets the film developed and chooses the best snapshots of patterns for his extensive collection. Black-and-white pictures might seem the same to an inattentive viewer. Yet, of course, they are all unique. The whole concept behind komorebi is that it can exist only for a moment. So, this original passionate hobby is probably the most suitable visual symbol for the main character’s attitude about life.

There is another visual element in “Perfect Days”, which breaks out of the documentary approach. At the end of every day, we see Hiryama’s dreams shown as abstract sequences. These consist of shots we’ve seen before, but they overlap each other in an impressionistic manner. To me personally, flickery images rhymed with komorebi photos are also reminiscent of unique patterns – where our life shines through.

Music and frames of “Perfect Days” go hand in hand

As we learn more about Hirayama, we explore his simple hobbies: growing trees, reading books (quite unexpected ones for a minimalist janitor, such as Faulkner), and listening to music in his van to and from work. His cassette tape collection could make a decent playlist full of classics featuring Van Morrison, the Velvet Underground, and the Kinks, to name a few. Music is indeed an important storytelling element in “Perfect Days”.

First of all, the passion of the protagonist helps film creators pose the question of materialism versus simplicity. At one point in the story, his cassettes are getting appraised. To the astonishment of Hirayama’s colleague Takashi, they are extremely valuable. Yet, Hirayama doesn’t want to sell them as he obviously enjoys listening to his music tapes more than money.

On the other hand, every melody we hear in “Perfect Days” somehow supports the story. As an example, the final piece, “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone, is about looking forward to new beginnings with optimism. As it plays, we see a frontal close-up of Hirayama lost between different emotions: sad, happy, melancholic, and grateful at the same time. Well, life can be both painful and beautiful, but finding the silver lining in each of the moments is something we could strive for.

Philosophy of living

“Next time is next time,” says Hirayama to his niece, Niko, who has run away from home to visit her uncle – “Now is now.” Unlike films with the usual hero’s journey, the protagonist of “Perfect Days” doesn’t change much throughout the story. We see him at peace from the very first frame, finding satisfaction in a simple, ego-free life. Yet, it would be a mistake to say he is always happy. At different moments Hirayama experiences various emotions: Stressed out during a night shift when his colleague unexpectedly quits; miserable to see a woman he likes hug another man; in tears after meeting his sister and having to confront the past.

However, these emotions don’t dictate how he lives and what choices he makes. Following the “now is now” philosophy, Hirayama finds his own happiness and bliss, even when life is an imperfect beast.

Personally, I felt a deep gratitude to the Universe and also a peaceful state of mind after watching this film. What about you? Did you like the quiet frames of “Perfect Days”? How did you find the pacing and the documentary approach? Looking forward to your answers in the comments below.

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Feature image source: a film still from “Perfect Days” by Wim Wenders, 2023.

This candy-coated comedy naturally revolves around the famous plastic doll developed by Mattel. The screenplay is original and depicts Barbie’s sudden existential crisis, which draws her into the real world in the hope of finding a cure. Apart from being an entertaining piece to watch, the movie raises topics of patriarchy, self-esteem, social roles, and following your own path. Personally, I know a lot of people who considered it to be a rather shallow attempt at defining feminism (unfortunately, me included). However, let’s focus on Barbie’s cinematography instead, for it is an exciting achievement in world-building!

Watch the entire interview with Rodrigo Prieto here.

The concept of authentic artificiality and how it started

For Rodrigo Prieto, kicking off the work process on a new film is always like going back to school. It’s about resetting your previous experience and beginning anew by asking the major question: What should this particular world feel like? Usually, the look isn’t meticulously described in a script, so a thousand options hang in the air.

With “Barbie”, Greta Gerwig wanted to achieve something that she called “authentic artificiality”. As the film takes place in the doll world, their goal was to create a tangible plastic feeling. Yes, the characters are toys. At the same time, we see that they are humans and everything is authentic to them.

A lot of the shots you see above (and throughout the entire movie) use CGI backgrounds. However, production designers constructed each and every piece of Barbieland as miniatures. The visual effects team scanned those and used them in compositions allowing everyone to collaboratively achieve a cohesive aesthetic and make this world feel real.

Barbie’s cinematography: two worlds

The concept of authentic artificiality also informed the cinematography. How does a character feel in Barbie Land? It is perfect (at least, until the stereotypical Barbie asks whether anyone else has ever thought about dying). So, they needed the set to always be sunny. Okay, but the sun can be ugly, so Rodrigo made sure the shots in Barbieland were always backlit. Another keyword was “innocence”, and that’s why filmmakers went for a digital look with zero grain, shot on the ARRI Alexa 65. Because of its bigger sensor, it felt as if they filmed with a regular camera in a miniature toy world. Additionally, it brought a shallow depth of field that felt appropriate for the story.

The real world, on the contrary, had to feel messy and spontaneous, so they used a different LUT (we will talk about the LUTs in a moment). On top of that, the camera movements differ. In the idyllic Barbieland, we see a lot of sequences shot from the Technocrane because it feels more precise, mechanical, and – yes, more “perfect”. Conversely, for the real-world moments, filmmakers settled on dollies, sticking with a looser camera. They discussed going completely handheld, but Rodrigo admits that it would have been too on the nose.

Another visual decision separating the two worlds was the choice of optics. The real-world sequences were shot through longer lenses, especially from Barbie’s perspective, when she discovers ordinary life for the first time.

Developing a Technicolor look in Barbie’s cinematography

In pre-production, Rodrigo and Greta exchanged a lot of references (and some of them were really surprising to me as you will find out further below). For the artificial look, the director mentioned different musicals from the past that are known as 3-strip Technicolor films such as “Singing in the Rain”. So, it became the inspirational basis for Barbieland.

Luckily, at the time, Rodrigo Prieto had already created a similar Technicolor LUT for “The Killers of the Flower Moon” – his period drama with Martin Scorsese that he had just finished working on. They adapted it to achieve the poppy colors without destroying the accurate, natural skin tones, and called it “TechniBarbie”.

The cinematographer remembers testing the LUT they’d created on all the possible colors that were featured in sets and costumes, just to see how it would react. They even had a special corner during the pre-production phase where he could come to experiment.

For the “reality” scenes, creators switched the LUT to what basically emulated a film stock (even though they shot everything digitally). That way, the colors looked normal to the audience’s eye and achieved a higher contrast between Barbie’s two worlds.

Cheating the lights and neutral fill

As mentioned above, it was always sunny in Barbieland. They constructed a large light source to achieve this, whose position and direction could easily be changed. The enormous size of the unit gave the shadows a certain softness to them, while the bright backlight still maintained an edge to it. In a way, it was a perfect “beautifying” solution for the utopia of “Barbie”.

Yet, on set, this light bounced from all the pink floors, walls, and design elements onto the characters and their faces, which was indeed problematic. Rodrigo and his team came up with an unusual solution. They bought tons of neutral grey cloth and draped it over everything that was off-camera. So, you have to imagine one-half of the set bright and colorful, while the other was dark and dull. Rodrigo called it “neutral fill” (an analogy with the negative fill concept) and would keep it in each shot. Additionally, he brought a key light, which typically was a big breezy round source, that created a nice organic catchlight and an overall pleasing “commercial” effect.

Travel sequences and unexpected references

And here’s a kicker: when asked about wide-tracking lateral shots and slow pulls and pushes, Rodrigo Prieto brings up one of his references – “The Shining”. Can you imagine Kubrick’s psycho-thriller having a connection to the sweet pink world of a plastic doll? I couldn’t, although, of course, it starts with a direct reminder of another great Director’s work – “2001: Space Odyssey”.

Another unexpected inspiration was “Mystery Train” by Jim Jarmusch. When filmmakers were looking for a visual solution to the transportation scenes, Rodrigo remembered a very graphic and lateral scene with Japanese tourists from that movie.

With Greta’s wish to make the travel sequences as theatrical as possible, and production designer Sarah Greenwood’s idea of building real 2D sets reminiscent of dioramas, “Barbie” took these sequences to a new level. In the making-of video, you can peek behind the scenes and get a sense of how it worked:

For me, these scenes were the most special and joyful moments in “Barbie”, and it’s great to know that filmmakers created them by hand without CGI and overused blue screen. Somehow, it feels more magical this way.

Barbie’s cinematography – what else you will learn

Although “Barbie” might not be the favorite film of the past year (yours or the critics), it still has a lot of beautiful moments to discover. Want to know how filmmakers applied an unusual trick to light the dusk sequences in Barbie Land? Eager to listen to Rodrigo Prieto’s workflows in Volume? Interested in the choreography for the dancing scenes and what artistic references the cinematographer used to create a special sky space for Barbie’s last dialogue with Ruth? Then head over to MZed.com and watch the full ASC clubhouse conversation on “Barbie” for free.

Let’s turn the tables now! How did you like the authentic artificiality of this famous doll’s world? What struck you as the most special feature of Barbie’s cinematography? Let us know in the comments section below!

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Feature image source: a film still from “Barbie” by Greta Gerwig, 2023.

“El Conde” offers the audience a satirical look at the fascist reign of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. In the film, he is depicted as a 250-year-old vampire who yearns for death when the atrocities he’s committed finally begin to haunt him. However, he changes his mind halfway through after falling in love with Carmen, a beautiful nun, whom Augusto’s children hired to exorcise and kill their father (under the disguise of auditioning for the family’s wealth).

There is also Fyodor, a white Russian servant, who Augusto turned into a vampire, and a sudden appearance of Margaret Thatcher and other plot twists that I don’t want to spoil. Instead, let’s dive into the remarkable cinematography of “El Conde” as discussed with the DP Ed Lachman in a recent ASC clubhouse conversation on MZed.com.

If you want to watch the entire episode, head over here.

The origins of El Conde’s unique black-and-white world

Some cinematographers’ visual and lighting styles are instantly recognizable. Others try to always build a unique world that will be true to a given film. Ed Lachman belongs in the second category. At the beginning of each project, he first tries to find out what makes a story exceptional.

Does content drive the visuals, or do the visuals drive the content? In a certain sense, it’s an overlap. They both affect each other.

A quote by Ed Lachman from his ASC clubhouse conversation with Greig Fraser

He recalls when Pablo first approached him with a story about Pinochet as a vampire that launched their journey into the past. Naturally, they had to go back and take a look at “Nosferatu” and “Vampyr” by Carl Theodor Dreyer. These references, along with the depicted time, influenced their decision for a black-and-white world for “El Conde”.

To me, it made the story feel more authentic. Although, of course, the visual metaphor of a tyrant sucking the blood out of his people is obviously grotesque, the monochromatic perspective brought it back to the realm of history. Maybe this was also his intention, as the real Pinochet was never on trial for his crimes and died a multi-millionaire. This way, in “El Conde” people can finally find retribution – even though it’s only in a fictional world.

Working with a monochromatic sensor

In most cases, you would shoot film in color and post-process it afterward (when we talk about digital photography). Here, Ed Lachman opted to work with a monochromatic sensor instead. At that time, ARRI had already gained experience in producing these, but never for the Alexa Mini LF, which was Lachman’s system of choice for “El Conde”. He needed it within two months and the experts managed to roll it out in time, but they let the cinematographer run the tests himself.

His tests showed that this sensor was about three-quarters of a stop faster, which felt like a godsend for shooting in low-light situations (we will describe some below). Additionally, Ed was able to rehouse the original Baltar lenses, a simple single-coated glass from 1938. (If you are a film theory fan like myself, the same lenses were used in classics like “Touch of Evil” and “Citizen Kane”, to name a few).

Working with these, the Alexa LF monochrome sensor, and a special exposure latitude (EL) system allowed the cinematographer to have the most precise control of highlights and shadows as possible. He could read all of the details and trust this information, and that provided the film with its beautiful high depth of exposure. (Also, it convinced Lachman that sometimes digital solutions can be more convenient than analog ones).

Simplicity in work and frame

If you watched “El Conde” then you probably noticed the film’s cinematography uses simple yet beautiful movements, shot compositions, and lighting setups. This simplicity manifested itself not only in the visual language but also in the workflows on set.

This was the first time Ed Lachman had worked with a full Chilean crew – he didn’t know anybody, only barely spoke Spanish and had to trust the process. He asked for 10k lights but they only had 5k available. He wanted 20 by 20 over the heads – well, they provided him with china balls instead. The cinematographer even jokes that the strength of this film is that he couldn’t change much during production, so he couldn’t mess anything up with his perfectionism.

In the behind-the-scenes picture above, you can see how the creators shot all the interrogation sequences. Two cameras were set up side-by-side with the same focal lens, recording the dialogue simultaneously back and forth. Ed had no other option than to light it in the simplest way possible – with a paper china ball. The result is comedic in its weirdness:

Practical approach

All the interior shots were filmed on stage, so in most scenes, filmmakers went for lighting only through the windows or using practicals. It was important for Ed to work with tools that were available at the time. For instance, during the French Revolution scenes, they could only rely on the authentically emulated daylight through the window. In more modern sequences, Ed hinted at Kinoflos in several scenes, including the underground hallway and the room with the hearts and the freezer:

Another attempt at simplicity was a 15-foot Technocrane around which the director designed the sets. That way, they could find beautiful frames quickly and shoot a lot of interior shots from interesting perspectives.

A great thing about black-and-white

A great thing about black-and-white, admits cinematographer Ed Lachman, is that you don’t have to worry about the color temperature. As long as you achieve the correct contrast, you can make your pictures look like they were shot at dawn, even if you film during midday.

For example, blood was a very important element in the story. During pre-production tests, filmmakers discovered that the color blue looked better on camera and was much more expressive in black-and-white than normal red. So every time we see one of the vampire characters drink their smoothie, made from fresh or frozen hearts, bear in mind that the actual liquid on set was blue. Curious, huh?

Learning more about the black-and-white world of El Conde

“El Conde” will compete at the upcoming Oscars for Best Cinematography. It is the only nomination for the film, and to be honest, the picture seems more like an arthouse underdog in its category next to huge productions. Even if it is unlikely for the black comedy to take the prize, its carefully crafted world deserves praise and attention.

In the ASC clubhouse conversation, you can also find out more about the groundbreaking EL Zone system, that Lachman liked so much, explore how he shot interior scenes and matched them to the following exterior shots, and dive into his philosophy for developing a visual language. Just head over here and listen to the full episode on MZed.com.

Have you watched “El Conde”? If so, what feelings and senses did its black-and-white world awaken in you? Did you notice any special scenes you would like to break down? Looking forward to our discussion in the comments below!

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Feature image source: a film still from “El Conde” by Pablo Larraín, 2023.

Of all the films that came out in 2023, “Poor Things” is my personal favorite. The black-comedic fantasy tells the story of a woman who is reborn with a child’s brain, and her journey of discovering this world with all it has to offer. Naturally, knowing other works by Yorgos Lanthimos, I expected his new feature to be odd and visually impressive. Yet, it goes way beyond that. With mesmerizing actors’ performances, crazy sets, playful colors, and stunning frames, “Poor Things” creates a firework of feelings and offers an unmatched sensual experience. No wonder it got high, critical acclaim and 11 Oscar nominations for the upcoming Academy Awards, including one for outstanding cinematography.

Click here to watch the full ASC clubhouse conversation with Robbie Ryan on MZed.com for free.

Behind the scenes of Poor Things: creating a wild world of its own

Robbie Ryan has already worked with Yorgos Lanthimos on “The Favourite” – a film that can also be described as an “absurdist”, “dark comedy”, and “satirical” period drama. He was familiar enough with the director’s intuitive, expressive, and experimental approach to filmmaking. Yet, Ryan understood straightaway that “Poor Things” was a special film for Yorgos as it is based on such a wild story that it literally cried for new and different ways of world-building.

From the very beginning, they knew they wouldn’t shoot on location. Yorgos wanted to show us the world through Bella’s eyes, so it had to be very different from normal – from how everyone else sees it. This concept triggered the idea of building a set for each scene. Not only were they able to create a unique, fantastic atmosphere that felt unreal (at the same time, real in its own sensibilities), but it also added to the bizarreness of the overall film. See for yourself:

Production designers indeed pushed the boundaries of what makes this film so special. Robbie even believes that the cinematography of “Poor Things” works because every set has rich, handcrafted, and unbelievably stylized elements to explore. While I agree that the love of detail is impressive, it’s also a humble statement because the camera work here brings so much to the table.

Funny fact: Yorgos Lanthimos wanted to build a forest for the stroll scenes, but they ran out of money and had to compromise, filming instead in real woods outside of Budapest. “Luckily,” Robbie Ryan adds, as he couldn’t imagine the best way to light such a huge space on stage. To add contrast to the black-and-white sequences, they brought an 18K to the forest, which crafted the same “unreal reality” feeling.

Using practical lights and unusual film stocks

From their work together on “The Favourite”, Robbie Ryan also knew Yorgos preferred practical lights and loved to use them as much as possible. On “Poor Things”, however, this approach posed enough of a challenge to overcome.

The color sequences of the film use Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 and a limited run of 35mm color reversal based on Kodak’s Ektachrome. The latter was the same stock that the DP of the “Euphoria” series, Marcell Rév, re-animated for the show. As Robbie explains, Ektachrome is immensely beautiful but also slow, so they had to use it mostly in bright or daylight scenes. In terms of filming the interior, sometimes they couldn’t avoid very dark and even underexposed shots. He learned to go with the flow, trust Lanthimos’s vision, and hide LED lights anywhere he could.

One of the most challenging (and also Robbie’s favorite) scenes was Bella’s reanimation sequence. The first problem was to light the set with practical sources. That said, the filmmakers didn’t care about making it look 100% authentic (the Victorian era, in which the story takes place, featured only gas lamps). The second achievement was using a special camera which Robbie Ryan calls “a Frankenstein of its own”. The so-called “Beaucam” VistaVision is normally used for special effects and miniatures. It moves the film stock horizontally through the gate and produces a bigger negative on the end called Lazy-8. It’s a beautiful format, but the tests proved the camera to be too noisy for dialogue scenes, says Ryan. That’s why although Yorgos planned differently, VistaVision’s time to shine came exclusively during this scene.

Language of lenses: rules and lack thereof

When I wrote about Yorgos Lanthimos’s intuitive approach to filmmaking, I wasn’t kidding. Robbie Ryan confirms: They didn’t use storyboards (except for a couple of complicated scenes with numerous departments involved), nor did they have a shooting order. The Director would come on a prepared set and say they should start with a zoom-in on Emma Stone’s face. To him, it didn’t matter whether they had to film a wide establisher for this specific scene afterward as well. This taught Robbie to develop solutions on the go.

The only rule they established in pre-production was the choice of lenses – five in total – including a zoom (ARRI Master Zoom 16.5-110mm). They would switch between glass according to the situation and the emotional meaning of the scene, and also aimed to keep the perception of the story fresh. Among their lenses were peculiar exemplars such as the rare portrait Petzvals (58mm and 85mm), built for projectors more than 100 years ago. These are known for their distinct bend bokeh with a sharp focus in the center and crazy spiral shallowness on the sides.

Although the lack of rules and planning had to be a nightmare for the AD, who, I can imagine, had to juggle every shooting day, it was also a very liberating experience. Following your gut, being in the moment, and playing around is, after all, at the core of creativity. The best outcome is that this playfulness transferred directly into the film, supporting Bella’s character whose journey is also very liberating in a way. I felt it. Did you?

The idea behind the superwide fisheye lens

One of the exotic visual tools of “Poor Things” is a rare fisheye look that pops up unexpectedly in some scenes. Lanthimos’s concept was based on early photography references that had a vignette and looked like a porthole into the world. To achieve this effect, Robbie Ryan used a 4mm lens (T2 OpTex Super Cine) that captured a super wide view without too much distortion.

How does this visual composition affect us, the viewers? First, it’s a completely different perspective that gives us a feeling of being closer to the characters – as if we could almost step through this porthole. Secondly, we’re used to “normal” establishing shots that help to place ourselves in the film space. The fisheye frames of “Poor Things” have the opposite goal: they’re intended to disorientate the audience and cause our minds to take a moment to adjust and focus our attention.

Black and white and color: behind the scenes of the decision-making

Let’s talk about the black-and-white sequences for a moment. Within the first half hour, the film plays out in monochrome, and when we left the cinema, we discussed when and why the story transitioned into color. Among our theories was the idea of discovering the world for the first time, and how we dive into its lush and juicy life when Bella starts her travels.

Well, Robbie Ryan would call this “post-rationalizing”. In reality, Yorgos Lanthimos came up with the black-and-white decision 8 or 9 days before they started shooting. He just had an instinct that it might be a good idea. As Robbie recalls, it was a real hustle for production designers. Although they made sure to have lots of texture on the sets anyway, ignoring color was a bitter pill to swallow. In the end, we might agree: It was indeed a powerful and beautiful decision, giving the film another level of depth.

Behind the scenes of Poor Things – shooting on the volume

Apart from building the sets, filmmakers also worked with miniatures and painted backdrops. For the latter, they even used Volume. Here, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, and Mark Ruffalo break down some of the scenes, including the ship sequence where surrounding LED screens created an absolute immersion for both crew and cast.

Robbie Ryan found these fantastical backdrops to be valuable as they influenced the choice of lighting colors and provided a creative playground for crafting elements that do not exist, such as a vast sunset. At the same time, he had concerns about unwanted light spills on the screens, which were, of course, much closer than the real sky would be. In the end, he fell back on the VFX specialists who did a fantastic job of creating the final look for the fictional exteriors.

Other curious behind-the-scenes of Poor Things

Did you know that “Poor Things” was also Yorgos’s first time working with a composer (the soundtrack is a jewel on its own)? There are many other stories from the set of this weird yet amazing movie: from funny, shared moments to technical insights on cross-processing the film. You can get further glimpses of them by watching the full ASC conversation on MZed.com.

I must admit that I would definitely like to work on a set like this. And you? How did you like the hand-crafted and truly bonkers world of “Poor Things”? What do you think about the slightly chaotic and intuitive filming process of Yorgos? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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Feature image source: The ASC/MZed.

Not only did “Oppenheimer” mesmerize millions of cinema visitors last summer, but also the epic got 13 Academy Award nominations, leading this year’s Oscar race. The film competes in all the major categories including Directing, Cinematography, Best Picture, Film Editing, and three Actor divisions. While to some degree “Oppenheimer” seems to be an untypical movie for Nolan (for one, we didn’t leave the theatre with a jumbled mess of thoughts and puzzled looks), it still carries a lot of his creative handwriting. As an example, extreme attention to important details resulted in emotional yet very challenging close-ups of Oppenheimer.

In the ASC clubhouse conversation, Nolan’s longtime partner Hoyte van Hoytema shares behind-the-scenes stories of their filmmaking process, and we picked some of the most exciting ones. If you want to watch the entire episode, head over to MZed.com.

Intuitive approach to cinematography

Many people compare cinematographers to painters in terms of how they create art. For Dutch-Swedish visual maestro Hoyte van Hoytema, though, music seems closer to describing his approach.

Music is emotions over time. As a cinematographer, you do the same thing, putting notes over the timeline, and rhythm is also important. Then people listen to it and feel it.

A Hoyte van Hoytema quote from the ASC clubhouse conversation

For Hoyte, the cinematography in his work must speak to emotions, and that’s why one of his rules is “less precision, more soul”. Sounds rather curious for a DP who operates an enormous IMAX camera and works with one of the most focused visionary directors of our time. Yet, that’s what van Hoytema has learned during his career: Yes, we’re required to wrangle ever-developing technology and know it inside out. However, sometimes it’s even more important to find ways to step away from an ideal, precise picture and think intuitively and emotionally. Relax and be a little sloppy, in other words. After all, no one is perfect – especially not J. Robert Oppenheimer with his inner struggles, as the film strives to depict.

Maybe that’s exactly why van Hoytema’s sensitive visual approach works so well for this story. Who knows?

Close-ups of Oppenheimer as a storytelling tool

The 3-hour-long biopic follows the theoretical physicist (convincingly portrayed by Cillian Murphy) from his early 20s when he was just an anxious student through to leading the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. The film examines both Oppenheimer’s professional and personal life as well as the B-story called “Fusion”, about his later public battle with United States Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss (played by Robert Downey Jr.).

For all its epicness, vastness, and bigness, this feature relies on close-ups and details so much that it even starts with one. (Remember the idea that your movie’s first shot bears extreme importance?) Hoyte recalls that it was pretty much already in the script, written almost word for word:

Why close-ups though? As we know, a picture speaks more than a thousand words. What’s on the screen is where the essence lies. Biopic creators didn’t want to make it an objective narrative about events around World War II. No, their goal was to dive into the character’s perspective with all his controversial choices, sparks of genius, doubts, and sorrows. His face became an art canvas for the story. As Hoyte van Hoytema describes it, filmmakers wanted the audience to look into Oppenheimer’s eyes and feel as if we could climb through them and nestle ourselves in his head. Well, that’s exactly how I felt watching this movie. What about you?

The technical side of this approach

Faces are intimate, and Hoyte van Hoytema admits that Christopher and he had never shot a film so much in people’s faces before. At the same time, they stayed true to working with IMAX cameras (as well as large-format 65 Panavision) and treated portraits as landscapes. This choice – based on Nolan’s love for the format and belief that it offers an unmatched level of immersion – became challenging in execution.

First of all, filmmakers still wanted the flexibility of using large, cumbersome systems while maintaining agility, allowing them to be maneuvered like, say, a GoPro. Many close-ups had to be shot handheld, so Hoyte and his team used his workshop to build rigs and tools unique to this project.

At the same time, shooting close-ups with an IMAX camera posed the challenge of being in tune with the actors. To show Cillian’s face so often and so close up also meant putting a diesel generator in front of him every single day. Remember the famous Oppenheimer speech after the nuclear “success” in Japan, and that distinct feeling of the world falling apart around him? For me, it was one of the most powerful bits of acting. Murphy’s eyes reflected the whole spectrum of emotions his character was going through, and he had to pour his subtle inner world out to an enormous, non-intuitive camera.

Yet, according to Hoyte, Cillian and the other actors were all in, showing humbleness and respect for the technology. Just imagine the force and inertia of 70mm film pulled through the gate 6-7 inches from your face! That definitely provides a focused atmosphere (and not only in terms of money that you can literally see floating away).

Pulling focus on emotional close-ups of Oppenheimer

Keeping such close-up sequences sharp was another struggle. Dan Sasaki – Panavision’s glass expert – engineered special lenses for “Oppenheimer” that allowed an extremely close focus, which wasn’t possible on IMAX before. Let’s go back to the speech scene for a moment. Here, Hoyte van Hoytema had to watch the action on a little monitor while operating the camera. His usual viewfinder was occupied by the 1st AC Keith Davis, who pulled focus literally by hand.

If you watch it, you know it’s not perfect – the protagonist’s face keeps falling in and out of focus. Of course, this wasn’t at all an easy task with a number 2 diopter on the lens of an IMAX camera. However, filmmakers also used focus here as one of the most important storytelling tools, alongside flashes, muffled sounds, and visual effects in the background. This combination achieves an intense visceral experience for viewers. At the same time, it’s the best possible metaphor for Oppenheimer’s state of mind at that moment.

The magic of being so close

As mentioned above, normally Hoyte van Hoytema looks through the viewfinder so he can lose himself in the moment and react intuitively to what he experiences during the take. The cinematographer describes it both as magic and addictive, even if it sometimes means operating in uncomfortable positions.

For Hoyte, it feels like an extreme privilege to be the first person to look through that glass and see the action unfold before his eyes. There are some moments when he just knows when a scene will make it into the final film and other people will respond and connect to it. Of course, that’s a big responsibility, but it’s also a very emotional experience. It may explain why he doesn’t give up operating, leaving it his undertaking at all costs. 

Also learning from this conversation

In the ASC clubhouse conversation with Hoyte van Hoytema, you will also learn why they decided to use black-and-white film in “Oppenheimer” (which meant that Kodak had to develop a special stock for them), how he approached challenging, intimate scenes between Oppenheimer and his love affair with Jean, and all the technical details about color timing. In the meantime, we will observe which Academy Awards this epic biopic will win, crossing our fingers for Christopher Nolan, who has won no Oscars to date.

Did you watch “Oppenheimer”? What do you think about its cinematography? Which scenes or emotional close-ups resonated with you the most? Let’s talk in the comment section below!

Full disclosure: MZed is owned by CineD
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Feature image: a film still from “Oppenheimer” by Christopher Nolan, 2023.

In this 4-hour course, master cinematographers Stephen Lighthill, ASC, and Paul Atkins, ASC, share different tips and tricks for on-location lighting, both indoors as well as outdoors. This is, of course, particularly relevant for documentary filmmakers who often have to live with what’s available in terms of location. Having worked as DPs in the industry for many decades, Paul and Stephen share a wealth of experience and knowledge with a diverse group of filmmakers, and the MZed audience has an exclusive chance to be part of that workshop. 

The ASC Lighting People course was filmed in Austria as part of the Jackson Wild Summit – you can watch the other course with Stephen and Paul, the ASC Wildlife Filmmaking Workshop, for free on MZed as well. 

The course is available now for free for all MZed Pro subscribers who also have access to over 500 hours of content in over 55 courses and close to 900 lessons. The course can also be purchased separately, to be owned forever, for only $39.

Lighting People – On Location by the ASC: lesson overview

Lesson 1 – Indoor Lighting with Paul Atkins, ASC

In Lesson 1, Paul Atkins, ASC, one of the most renowned wildlife cinematographers in the world, teaches indoor on-location lighting of people to a diverse group of young filmmakers. He talks about camera angles and positioning, catchlights, the direction of the light, and achieving lighting that is natural looking, depending on your location. He experiments with the positioning of the key light and how it changes the look of the subject in front of the camera, including how shadows fall. Paul talks about big light sources vs. small ones and shows the effect of reflecting surfaces as well as spill light, how to control it with black floppies, and so much more. At the end of the session, he answers lots of student questions on lighting and shooting interviews. 

Lesson 2 – Outdoor Lighting with Paul Atkins, ASC

In Lesson 2, Paul Atkins, ASC, transfers what he taught in Lesson 1 into a very simple and everyday outdoor situation during harsh sunlight. He deals with getting an acceptable image and explains why he recommends always shooting into the sun outdoors. Paul touches on how to adjust for various skin tones in outdoor lighting, and how to get more contrast even on light skin tones when the sun is out. In conversation with the students, they delve into adapting to overcast conditions and adjusting the setup accordingly. The significance of maintaining catchlights is highlighted, and guidance is provided on achieving it in various situations. Diffusing sunlight is shown in practice with frames and diffusion. The students ask practical questions about documentary shooting outdoors – how to shoot interviews on a boat, for example. Paul also goes into practical considerations like choosing the right time of day for an interview, the right location, the right clothing for interviewees, and so on. Lighting is also creating shade when needed to create contrast, especially outside, and using reflectors to create a natural-looking image without artificial light (or as a fill light). 

Lesson 3 – Indoor Lighting with Stephen Lighthill, ASC

In his first indoor lighting session of the workshop, master cinematographer and former ASC president Stephen Lighthill, ASC, challenges the students to tell him what their plan is to light a room and then gives his comments to the suggestions. He talks about the problem of working under existing fluorescent tubes in a room when you are shooting an interview on location, and how to manage different circumstances – lights you can swap vs. lights you have to live with and how you can modify their look. Stephen talks about how to tackle different challenges when working with windows – in-shot and off-shot. They talk about working with multiple cameras in an interview and what compromises that would mean for the lighting setup. They run through various focal lengths and show the different effects they have on the face in front of the camera in combination with the lighting. Towards the end of the lesson, Stephen shows how to light a setup at a bar.

Lesson 4 – Outdoor Lighting with Stephen Lighthill, ASC

In his outdoor lesson, Stephen starts by advising the students to look at the direction the sun is moving and plan for that. He then proceeds to talk about the sweet spot of various lenses and how to find it – and what not to do with them. Stephen shares his rule of thumb that you should reflect the key light to get a natural-looking fill light. He talks about the importance of catchlights and shows his favorite positioning of a key light – in this case, a large white bounce board. They then swap to a strong LED light and show how easily a portrait shot will look “lit” outside if not used correctly. Stephen talks about the importance of consistency in lighting, framing, and lens selection within one production and much more.

Other ASC content on MZed

We’re very proud of our partnership with the American Society of Cinematographers, and if you are interested in more ASC content, I can highly recommend that you watch the ASC Clubhouse Conversations, which bring to screen some of the most renowned cinematographers and directors in the world to talk about their productions. We have over 150 episodes on MZed, and the list is ever-growing. Here’s a recent article on the latest addition of new episodes in the run-up to this year’s Oscar celebration. The latest episodes are free to watch with a free MZed account, and you can watch all 150+ episodes with an MZed Pro subscription.

Talking about free access, our original ASC Wildlife Cinematography Workshop is also free to watch for anyone with a free MZed account. As mentioned above, that workshop was recorded together with this Lighting People workshop and also features Paul Atkins, ASC and Stephen Lighthill, ASC. They give tips and tricks regarding filming wildlife.

What else do you get with MZed Pro?

As an MZed Pro member, you have access to over 500 hours of filmmaking education, including The ASC Clubhouse Conversations. Plus, we’re constantly adding more courses (several in production right now).

For just $30/month (billed annually at $349), here’s what you’ll get:

• 55+ courses, over 850+ high-quality lessons, spanning over 500 hours of learning.
• Highly produced courses from educators who have decades of experience and awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award.
• Unlimited access to stream all content during the 12 months.
• Offline download and viewing with the MZed iOS app.
• Discounts to ARRI Academy online courses, exclusively on MZed.
• Most of our courses provide an industry-recognized certificate upon completion.
• Purchasing the courses outright would cost over $9,500.
• Course topics include cinematography, directing, lighting, cameras and lenses, producing, indie filmmaking, writing, editing, color grading, audio, time-lapse, pitch decks, and more.
• 7-day money-back guarantee if you decide it’s not for you.

Full disclosure: MZed is owned by CineD
Join MZed Pro now and start watching today!