Last night I came out of the cinema buzzing, with thanks to Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn who were of course aided with the screenplay by Peter Stone and the Cinematography of Charles Lang.
The festival is a presentation of the University of the West of England and the audience was pointed towards this article in American Cinematographer by Herb A Lightman.
According to the UWE speaker, this film marks the end of innocence in America after the assassination of Jack Kennedy and also one of the last films of the era using the glorious Technicolor. However, Paris in late Autumn/early Winter, has none of the romantic colour we’d expect.
There’s lots to learn for me here as a director, on how to film in urban settings when the season is not attractive to those aforementioned glories of Technicolor and putting that into a contemporary setting…
Lang, in this interview talks about his technique on ‘Charade’; how to light women like Hepburn and ‘older men’ like Grant, gobo arrangements, the cuckoloris(?) and cross-lighting, along with ‘process plates’ (I’m not sure of the method here) and the joys of the crab dolly. It’s a great conversation if you want to learn from a master.
Here’s an excerpt:
The final chase and gunfight sequence among the colonnades of the Palais Royale had a very sinister photographic mood. What lighting approach did you use to achieve this?
I used lots of black shadows created by cross lighting as much as I could and still have the actors look well, the ones who were supposed to look well, that is. Sometimes we cross-lit the background and lit the actors in the front with a softer light so they were attractive. You come to know their best lighting and angles. We try our best all the time, no matter what kind of conditions, to make the players look attractive. When using a harsh cross-light, we’ll shade it a bit where it hits an actor’s face or we’ll shade part of it, eliminating whatever is unattractive, and fix it so that it is attractive. Sometimes, with rugged male stars, we have to switch over and purposely make them look stronger by using what we call a “sculptured” style of lighting.
Enjoy…
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I haven't seen "Charade," Geoff Hall, but the cinematography in it is phenomenal. I noticed that in the video about the witty dialogue. The interviewer asked Charles Lang, "What special lighting problems did you encounter in shooting inside actual location interiors — such as the theater in Charade?" I didn't know cinematographers have problems with lighting inside locations. I thought cinematographers only have problems with lighting when filming outside.
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Maurice Vaughan ah, I see. Interior locations will have their own lighting sources which may conflict against how the film is being shot and so there may be lots of control issues for existing light and then of course, Charles Lang does like his cross-lighting that of course wouldn’t be at the location. It’s all about adding ands taking away to get the right effect.
Ok, gotcha, Geoff Hall. Thanks for explaining. I thought cinematographers only have problems with lighting when filming outside because of the sun. Inside, the sun isn't an issue.
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I was recently involved in a project where basically the challenge was to make a short film within a month based on a theme. It's all about people pooling their time and passion to make it happen, there is no budget. A venue was sourced because of very generous proprietors, the team had 7 hours over 2 days to set up, shoot, pack up. The bar area was a basement setting. Unfortunately I could not make either of the shooting days because they were weekdays, but I was talking to the director after the event at a catch-up social, and he said because the lighting was so dim, he had to use two LED lights.