Cinematography has many aspects to it that a great cinematographer must fulfil to create a stunning picture, including speed of motion, perspective, depth of field and countless other criteria that needs to be filled. One of the most important parts of a film is the tone. The contrast of light, exposure, tinting, toning, to create the right character about the film.
This use of tone can be seen in the film Zodiac. The director of the film David Fincher, described the challenges that came along with telling a story that had a few boundaries visually due to committing to telling a real story. Of this he said “part of the approach was to make it look mundane enough for people to accept what they’re watching is the truth.” And this is where tone truly comes into play. The colour palette of the film revolved mainly around ordinary, mundane colours such as toned down browns, red, yellows, which not only helped set the film in the 60’s/70’s but also relates back to Fincher’s quote; this film is showing through its bland colour tones that is it real, this story is the truth.
The contrast of light in the film is varying. There are horrifying scenes shrouded in light, shown when the couple in the national park are stabbed to death in broad daylight, and there are chilling scenes at night, for example the first murders shown in the film, of the young couple in the car. In the first murders scene, the couple are in a dark coloured car at night, the sudden emergence of headlights behind them draws the audiences focus to one thing, the sudden realisation that they are all alone in an abandoned space. Even more so, the light on the gun that the Zodiac is holding shines onto these characters highlighting the shock of an unexpected, seemingly gratuitous murder. It also makes the audience desperately wonder who the Zodiac is, which is the entire plot of the film. This contrast of light and the underexposure of the light which creates an eerie effect, coincides with the main point of the plot. Who is the Zodiac?
