Tuesday’s class was a grounded one that encouraged me to think about the function of lighting beyond simply what it does for the mood or atmosphere of a scene. Whether consciously aware of it or not every film has a lighting ‘style’ that is indicative of the cinematographers ‘look’ they are going for with a given film. As Robin put it, it’s something that’s difficult to describe, but each film has its own look that’s achieved through lighting. Looking back at Chopper, the film I analysed last week, the lighting is incredibly distinctive through its use of colour temperature and exposure which sparked my initial interest in colour temperature to begin with. It was a look the cinematographer was very consciously aware of, going to the extent even of using different types of film purely for the sake of achieving the colour profile present during the scenes at Pentridge prison. This lighting style creates a general ambience that is reflected across the whole film. In the case of Chopper, the lighting aesthetic is deliberately ugly to emphasize the twisted and detached nature of Chopper’s reality. It’s a hyper-stylised look that has become a trademark of Geoffrey Hall’s (Chopper cinematographer) other work, which includes Red Dog. While not a particularly amazing cinematographer, his work demonstrates how every cinematographer has a style that is predominantly established through their lighting decisions.

Screengrabs from Geoffery Hall films:

Chopper (2000)

Red Dog (2011)

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010)

The question has been raised throughout the course regarding what the function of lighting is, particularly in a drama film, and how it functions. In the case of Geoffery Hall’s work above, the lighting functions as a dominant display of ambience. It’s incredibly expressive and overwhelming, but in ways that are completely intentional not just as a narrative device, but as a preferred visual spectacle, regardless of how ugly the look is.