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Do you remember a film that got a brief burst of popularity a few years ago - “1917“?
I saw it at a cinema and was both im and un-impressed with it as it rolled along - for various reasons. It had something of an innovative style that won awards, but I kept looking at something wrong with it on the screen.
The lighting. It was well-lit, beautiful cinema. it was all that one might expect in colour and contrast…but just didn’t look like European light. The history of the film says it was shot in the UK…but I would have bet on somewhere in British North America, based on that light.
It’s a curse - looking at movie light. You sometimes lose all sense of the plot looking at it. In the cinema you are reduced to asking your partner what is happening and they silence you with an elbow. I can show you ribs…
You’ve seen it. The southern Californian light masquerading as France and the South Australian sun supposedly showing Gallipoli…and even if every costume and actor is perfect you know it’s a fraud. People are a lot more sensitive to colour, contrast, intensity, and direction of light than you’d think, and we can instinctively place it throughout the globe.
The directors can do a lot to disguise it, or to distract us. A recent “ All Quiet “ used a lot more gelled light than ever the trenches saw. For myself, as I saw it on my television screen I could improve it for myself no end by turning down the saturation a lot. Indeed, there are any number of period pieces that improve this way.
The other thing about cinema or still lighting is how addicted we become as photographers or audiences to a style. I have caught myself replicating past successes and wonder if it is practicality that urges me…or just laziness. I have also been guilty of copying other’s styles but there it is more experimentation than anything. And some people’s work remains unique.
The real worry is when you find yourself repeating past mistakes and failures - always hoping that some magic change will occur.
Text by Richard Stein
