Cinematography Final

Guillermo Del Toro wants his monsters to be sophisticated. He wants them to be intellectually appealing. He also wants his monsters to have visual depth. All of of these qualities bring his monsters to life. In the film “The Devil's Backbone” he uses a ghost as the epitome of being a monster. The physique of the ghost is damaged. It's body is decaying. As time passes by the ghost's body decays more and more. This creation of Del Toro' s monster fleshes out his craftsmanship. Throughout the movie you can perceive the ghost's physiology and conclude that it is anthropologically correct. In the film “Pan's Labyrinth” Del Toro invents his monsters in a fairytale mythological style. According to Del Toro, the key element in the design of “Pan’s Labyrinth” was color. He puts up a big board to color-code the movie for the three key departments referring to Navarro, production designer Eugenio Caballero and costume designer Lala Huete. Those were the colors that were allowed. In the Pale Man’s intensely warm environment, which is dominated by red tones and a blazing fire, Navarro’s lighting team was faced with similarly limited options. In the corridor Ofelia walks through to reach the dining room, small skylight-like holes were built into the ceiling to allow for sources. They brought in something fairly soft from there, just so there would be a little bit of level as she walked through. Rick Stribling and Lee rigged Source Four Lekos around the holes and bounced them into white or silver cards. Then they had places to plug in small lamps hidden throughout the hallway. They also hung 150-watt Linestra tubes on the backsides of the columns and then taped them until they were doing something that did not look like they’d just hidden light bulbs everywhere. Sometimes they put an Arri 150 or 300 on the floor and bounced it into something, but this was rarely possible because the camera moved so much and saw so much.

The Bad Sleep Well

In this film, Akira Kurosawa repeats his cast from previous movies.

Sanjuro

In this film the characters are enjoyable. The protagonist bands together with nine samurai. The costume design of these characters is exceptional. It creates reality in the film. The costumes contain equipment that Japanese warriors wear and use in battle. It also expresses the militarism of the Japanese culture. In the final duel, there is an explosion of blood. The blood is a mixture of chocolate syrup with carbonated water and put under thirty pounds of pressure. In the film Sanjuro kills a twenty-seven people. The close-up shots reveals that Mutsuta's wife have what appears to be blackened teeth.

Rabbit-Proof Fence

The setting of the movie takes place in Western Australia. There is a 1,500-mile fence that separates the outback desert from the farmlands. The cinematography is good. The angle shots allows the viewer to perceive the shades of the people's faces. Every scene is clear and distinct to the eye. The last scene in the film, which shows the real life Molly walking with a walking-stick, was shot first.

King Kong

Despite the obvious complications, Ann Darrow connects emotionally with Kong, who is placated by her presence. When provoked, Kong readily asserts his aggression. After colliding with a reef, the S.S. Venture arrives at Skull Island. Dump tanks were used to slosh water onto the shows gimbal-mounted ship set, which is installed in a blue screen stage where the ocean's undulations and surrounding environment is simulated. The big towers of broken rock on Skull Island suggest the canyon-like streets and huge buildings of New York. In both environments, the humans are dwarfed by their surroundings. Skull Island is really dangerous from the moment the human characters arrive. After using a rowboat to reach Skull Island's shore, Carl Denham and his team survey their surroundings with a vintage Bell & Howell 2709 35mm camera, serial number 152, manned by Denham's cinematographer. Black and his fellow actors take on water during green screen photography of the landing. The filmmakers attempt to cross a massive ravine but soon fall into the lair of a giant spider. In the “spider pit”, the only source of light is the sunlight from above. A boom lift with a rig consisting of aircraft-landing lights is used to provide a strong top light, and some 10Ks gelled with White Flame Green to give everything a slightly green, murky quality. The bottom of the pit is so far down that it's developed its own luminosity. A "flare light" designed by practicals gaffer Warwick Peace illuminates the cast. The source comprised nine Photo-Litas, four of which stayed constant while a circuit "encouraged" the remaining five to fibrillate and mimic the shimmering effect of a flare. Night shoots at the native village set entailed the use of 18Ks on steel scaffold towers and 50K and 100K SoftSuns on cranes. The top of the wall was appropriated as a lighting gantry. Light from the large oil fires was created by Dinos, Dinettes and Par cans programmed to chase. To get tracking angles in front of and behind the fleeing crew, key grip Tony Keddy devised a simple cable rig that delivered the shots safely. To create shade in the narrow brontosaurus set, Lesnie's crew created the "sky garden," a Condor bucket filled with potted palms and draped in camouflage netting. The Times Square portion of the seven-acre New York back lot. The filmmakers re-created the street level practically and built the height of the city digitally. Green screens measuring 25'x100' allowed for CG street extensions and were lit with inverted waterproofed ground rows. Warwick Peace's practicals team laced 2,000 bulbs and lighting units into this set. The blurs in the street are extras running from Kong. Providing ambient light in the set are units the filmmakers dubbed "UFOs," comprising 200 to 400 Par cans that were dimmed in groups to limit the number of cable runs, keeping cable weight to a minimum.

O Brother Where Art Thou

The three main characters are Everett Ulysses McGill along with his allies Delmar and Pete. The setting of the movie is in Mississippi during the 1930s. The cinematography is bold. Every scene is clear and consist of the country settings of the “heart of the rural south”. The sound is good. There are no pitches of sound in any of the scenes. Everything flows sequentially and correctly. The color scheme is beautiful. It fleshes out the scenes by making it look real. In one scene, it shows a close-up of a couple of the characters' faces. The shades of their faces indicates the amount of lighting used in this scene. The lighting alters in every scene. Lastly the costume design is spectacular. It resembles the actual jail outfits they use in real life.

Pan's Labyrinth

Miserable in a new environment, young Ofelia cannot stand the imminent departure of the kindly housekeeper, Mercedes. This scene, set in Ofelia’s bedroom, illustrates the filmmakers’ blend of cool background tones and warm light, a mix that characterizes several settings. After chalking out a doorway on her bedroom wall, Ofelia steps through it and discovers a mysterious hallway. Small holes in the set’s ceiling facilitated the placement of Source Four Lekos, which were bounced into white or silver cards to send soft light into the corridor. Gaffer David Lee and key grip Rick Stribling then proceeded to hide small lamps throughout the hallway, taping them off until they created an interesting effect. In the pozo beneath the labyrinth, the faun explains the tasks for Ofelia's mission. The faun is played by Doug Jones. In this scene, he is seen here with greenscreen-clad legs that will facilitate digital leg removal. This character design is exceptional. Angered at her failure, the faun visits the girl in her room. The creature’s considerable height gave the filmmakers a practical reason to shoot in standard 1.85:1, and the format is appealing for its “human scale.” Navarro and his crew had to light the dark pozo set entirely from above, through a 10 ft.-12 ft. hole at the top, and the ceiling height on stage was limited. The solution was to surround the opening with lights shooting into a silver card overhead, sending a generous bounce down into the well. Key grip Rick Stribling lines up the puchi for a shot in Ofelia’s bedroom. Visible on the wall behind him is the chalked-in doorway that leads to the Pale Man’s room.