Black and white

Although my film has come away from the origional idea, not completely but in some ways, the images are now all in black and white, which along side some of the shots ive used have given it a look like control. When shooting i couldn't control the weather and therefore had to deal with what England gave me, which was snow, it worked to my advantage as it added some more beauty to the shots, such as a pull focus i did on a snowdrop. the fact there is one central character in the film gives the lonely effect i was looking for, the black and white also adds time to the image and with me putting a lot of headspace within the image ive gained the control look.

Snow!

My film has had to be shot in the snow due to the weather, this isn't a problem as there is no set narrative to the film, but it does mean i can focus more on the cold isolated idea, in essence, the film is shots of stafford, interlinked with shots of a woman walking into and through a forest, the snow is both on the floor and settled on the trees and the bushes, it adds to the contrast, as in control there is a lot of light faces and over exposure, i had to play with the white balance, and the exposure a bit, but it made the film look more styleized. Another bonus with the snow is with some of my pull focuses, it added more depth of field. The shots were harder to achieve with the snow but all in all looked better for it, the actress looked more alone and this was my goal.

All abuot my mother

Pedro Almadovars all about my mother http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185125/ Has a scene in which the mother witnesses her son being run over and killed, the following shot is of her standing there in the rain with an umbrella, with a great deal of space next to her, as she is placed to the right of the screen, the large amount of space on her left, represents where her son had been in her life, and now he's been killed, the empty space that it left in her life, this is something, cold, isolated, is what i want to achieve with my film.

Outside shots

I've decided to shoot my entire film outside rather than in, as i think the isolated, lonely look is the direction i want to give my film, as it reflects on the character of Ian Curtis' emotion, as he's torn between his two loves, wife Debbie, and lover Anik, he feels trapped so removes himself from the situation. I want my film to have a cold isolated look to it, with one centeral character, and many shots of location. I want to focus the character to one half of the screen in most of my shots, leaving more space for landscape to convey emptiness.

the above image is something of the style i want to go for within the film. You can see more of the landscape than character as he looks more on his own, which can take you more into the mind set.

Ian Curtis/Sam Riely

The lighting when Ian Curtis is in a room on his own is very isolated, there is one point of light, which is normally a lamp that provides lighting for a section of the room, which adds a lot of shade to the face. the single light and the large headspace within the film, which is a running theme, shows isolation, and that he feels small, his face is very washed out, and the shots are minimal with very little in them, so the center thing your look at is the character and the lighting.

Control research

In film tech 1, e were asked, in essence to complete a smaller version of the final cinematography assignment, to make a short clip using the visual styles of a film, the style chosen was also control, i used the visual styles of major or minimal headspace depending on the type of shot. there is also one light source, which is completely natural light. The shot types are all simple and follow the Wide-mid-close status quo. We attempted a slight silhouette on the last close up, however it didn't quite work. This wasn't done as part of testing for cinematography, It  shows my understanding of the style of the film, and can therefore be recognized as research.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsCAGu8ka9k

Control image shoot

During a cinematography tutorial, we were asked to re create an image from a film, me and my group decided on doing a shot from control as we believed it was an image that would be challenging but enjoyable and I realized it would help toward my final project for the module. We used legends bar at the university, and used 3 blondes and set them up behind two members of the group, and shot it on a Canon 550d.




Unfortunately i don't have the shot we took but this was the image we copied, It has the single source of lighting which is a theme throughout the film, it's silhouetted, and has little detail.

Martin Ruhe

Martin Ruhe is the cinematographer for 'Control', the film I'm using as my base for my assignment, in my previous post I listed some of the lighting techniques used within control.

Another film by Ruhe is 'Harry Brown' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1289406/

Harry Brown has a lot of blue lighting for the exterior day time shots, whilst the night time shots, for which the most vital scenes from the film are shot, all have somewhat of an orangey glow, which can give the audience in some circumstances, such as if it were in a living room, a comforting feeling. However a lot of the scenes in Harry Brown, where the orange light is used, are where violence, such as gun crime is being committed, so the orange acts more as an aggressive color.

Some of his other work contains the video for UK band, Coldplays, 'talk' the look of it is largley similar to his work on control, it's black and white and the faces are slightly over exposed, theres also a lot of lense flare from the torches the band have in the video

Martin Ruhe

Martin Ruhe is the cinematographer for 'Control', the film I'm using as my base for my assignment, in my previous post I listed some of the lighting techniques used within control.

Another film by Ruhe is 'Harry Brown' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1289406/

Harry Brown has a lot of blue lighting for the exterior day time shots, whilst the night time shots, for which the most vital scenes from the film are shot, all have somewhat of an orangey glow, which can give the audience in some circumstances, such as if it were in a living room, a comforting feeling. However a lot of the scenes in Harry Brown, where the orange light is used, are where violence, such as gun crime is being committed, so the orange acts more as an aggressive color.

Some of his other work contains the video for UK band, Coldplays, 'talk' the look of it is largley similar to his work on control, it's black and white and the faces are slightly over exposed, theres also a lot of lense flare from the torches the band have in the video

Initial Idea

I've taken my initial idea for my cinematography piece from Anton Corbijn's 2007 film, 'Control'. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421082/. The cinematographer on Control is Martin Ruhe. Initial reasons for me deciding on this were because of my love for the film, both due to my intrest in the subject matter, and it's stylish look. In a lot of the interior shots, there seems to be one main point of light which is left for the viewer to focus on. The film is in black and white, which in my opinion, allows you to see lighting effects to a better degree, as shading comes nito it more. The faces of the cast are washed out, and i believe most of the outdoor scenes have a slight over exposure to them. Whilst like i said before the interiors have one focused light, but are slightly under exposed and have a lot of shade.

Another focus point was locations, none of which are enhanced, all locations are real life within a small town, with simple streets and fields, there is nothing over the top nor enhanced.

The shots within 'Control' differ, sometimes, especially when surrounded by bigger buildings there is a lot of headspace between the character and the top of the frame, however a lot of the close ups and the mid shots cut of all head space. Characters are often placed at one side of the screen, rather than being centered.