Gregory Crewdson: Basement (2014)
After roles were arranged and everyone was into their groups, we were presented with five different images which we could choose to base our piece off, we were only allowed to use five words in the whole piece. So our group had a meeting, to discuss the five images and what we could draw from them. We all agreed on the Crewdson image Basement. We discussed the set, characters, lighting and potential sound. We then went onto discuss character motives, were they related? what were they watching? are they at home? what time of day is it? and slowly pieced together a rough idea of what we wanted. We wanted to base the film around the five stages of grief, and the stages be directly related to the girl on the sofa, when acceptance played on the screen she would be gone.
So with the rough outline of the story, I sat and talked with the director and the D.O.P about possible lighting set ups, and influences or inspiration they wanted me to look at. And any inspiration I had myself that I could bring to the table. The D.O.P suggested I look into renaissance paintings with the harsh shadows, and the triangle of light on their cheek, they wanted me to look into any colour gelled work I could find, even better if it was the colour red, and any films I felt had a good "homely" feel to the lighting.
So I began looking into the renaissance paintings, I wanted to see what I was being asked to aim for in close ups, and potentially get some reference pictures for me to practice.
Rembrandt
Caravaggio
After looking at images of renaissance work, with artists such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio I began to see what the crew wanted from me. I already had an idea in my head but this confirmed so we are all on the same page. In order to create these harsh shadows and light pools on their faces in close ups, I may have to acquire a snoot. The D.O.P informed me on what a snoot is, a cone like structure that directs light more than barn doors can. I feel this can help me in creating the lighting the camera team want for the shots. Also, I discussed potentially having some cine lights to work with, as if we are having close ups with the harsh lighting, then I may need to be able to move the lights wherever. The rigged lights will be used to create the atmosphere and "homely" feel but the stand alone cine lights I feel we need to create these intensely lit close ups.
I then decided to call upon all the films I have watched and my film collection to see if there were any I thought would be good research in terms of lighting. I thought about more indie films as a genre for low light lighting as they are often in home environments and lower budget than the big blockbusters. I thought Scott Pilgrim Vs the World would be a good reference, even though the story isn't anything like the one we want to pursue, it has a lot of low lighting and is often set indoors.
Pictured here are some still images from the film, as you can see the scene is still quite well lit, however it does have an authentic home feel to the lighting, keeping it dim, but still ensuring the characters are able to be seen. I feel that with the lighting for this film, they used overhead lighting on a low dim setting and then attached spun to the front of the light to soften the brightness on the set.
I then looked into a few more indie films, one of my favourites and that visually I feel the lighting matches what the crew want me to produce is The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Again, similar to Scott Pilgrim, there is a lot of low lighting, where the characters are well lit but often the background is dark to draw attention to the characters. I feel I will take that on board when going forward with this shoot.
I also found that Juno was a good lighting reference, there is often a lot of use of internal lighting, meaning lamps, real light bulbs etc, this already dresses the set into a more homely feel and makes the lighting warm and natural for a home set up, as supposed to big white studio lights that wash everything out.
I hope you enjoy. Thank you.
