1. Lecture 7 Lighting: What was covered? Do you think the content is relevant to your project? And why?

In this lecture, we covered lighting techniques and different types of lights. This was definitely relevant to our project as there’s no way we could rely on natural lighting to cover everything in our shots. Of course, lighting is also important in order for stylistic reasons – there are many scenes in films in which the lighting is paramount. Often, we don’t notice the lighting as it is simply there, but there are times where it is really impressive. When a film doesn’t have good lighting, it’s quite noticeable and can really detract from the film, no matter how good everything else is. Learning about lighting is very important, and in our film, there will be many scenes with “natural” lighting, which means we need to be very careful about how we light them.

2. Select from one of the readings from week 5, 6 or 7 and describe two points that you have taken from it. Points that excite you, something that was completely new to you.

I chose: ‘Lighting a Scene’. Two points I took from it:

Location lighting as some unique problems, key among them being the time consumed by relighting. On location, a small change in camera angle can reveal lights, which means everything needs to be moved.

We had a few scenes which were day interiors, which is why I thought the section on day interiors was relevant and interesting. The time of day is very influential for interiors, and it’s important to choose the right angles for lights. The first paragraph was particularly interesting for me: the fact that cinematographers feel uneasy about certain types of lighting, especially a ‘film look’ as opposed to a realistic look, is particularly cool.

3. Blow Up is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.

In this scene note the choreography of the actors, camera, frame and focus. As covered in the lecture describe the things Antonioni would have have to consider when directing the actors and the camera.

This sequence would have had to be very carefully blocked out. Because the actors and the movement in the frame is very dynamic, it’s clear that this was very carefully choreographed and there were many cues and marks for actors, as well as cues for crew, particularly for the camera.

Speaking of the camera, in this scene, the camera uses a wide variety of shots, including close and long shots, and pans and still shots, which follow the actors’ movements through the scene. Obviously, the director would have had to consider how he was going to frame specific shots throughout the scene, in order to best bring out the set design as well as of course, the actors.

Antonioni clearly would have had to be very careful in the way he directed the actors: the two seem to be quite uneasy and uncomfortable with each other, and it works to great effect in this scene. This acting works in tandem with their movements and the cameras: there’s a sense of distance and space between the characters, both literal and metaphorical.