Damien Chazelle’s La La Land pursues the musical feel from the New Hollywood and Classical Hollywood by mixing stylistic composition of scenes and sets with contemporary style of film making. In the audition scene in particular the scene shifts from a conventional back and forth between Emma Stone’s character Mia and the interviewers conducting the audition. However the gravity of the scene can be felt as this is the final audition for Mia, it was all or nothing in this moment. She wanted to give it her all but also wanted the respect she so desperately wants to perform in a comfortable space. The lighting change in the scene to have a spotlight effect with her as the subject blacking out anything other than the dark curtain behind her which was probably an intended effect of the light to not only light her from the front down at an angle (indicated by the shadow of her hair and head on her neck) but to also drop off onto the curtain to illuminate an silhouette of sorts around her. The key light also points to using a front on down angled soft light to perhaps represent a stage light in the scene with the key light being flat on Stone’s face leaving little fill light. The light seems to be diffused enough for it to spill onto the fill areas of her face.
The effect it insinuates is a familiarity with musicals, in particular would be stage musicals. With the backdrop within the scene it would have this effect, which Chazelle would probably have drawn significant inspiration for shooting not only this scene but many others within the film. He pursues this desired effect of mixing contemporary drama storytelling with what feels like classical Hollywood musical transition into song (Robinson, 2016). The curtain could simply serve as a reminder of classical Hollywood in Chazelle’s eyes within this scene.
What would be difficult in this scene is to provide a fair contrast between Stone and what would be intended to be darkness. I believe the light would have to be fairly spotted whilst running through a filter to reduce the exposure of the light to achieve a Hollywood musical feel with the spotlight effect on the main focus on screen. Another hypothesis of achieving this shot would be to decrease the aperture lens (greater f stop) to reduce the light and to use a harsher light to light the scene. However given the curtain looks fairly in focus indicating a larger depth of field it is less likely the case. The scene was probably achieved by finding a balanced aperture lens to achieve the contrast within the scene and having a single light the subject.
