Exercise: Creating Depth with lighting

This exercise is about using lighting to create atmosphere, layers and depth. In a dark room, I experimented with different lights.
I was surprised at how much light I needed to create any effect at all. This was the room with a small overhead light on.

 CREATE three distinctly different impressions of depth in the same space:

This shot is taken from one end of the room with the light on the desk. The light fades at the edges of the image. To me it gives the sense of something happening in the middle of the night; Someone focusing in detail on a piece of work. The foreground is entirely unlit. So a lot of the detail is blacked out.

 In this image, the light is under the desk. Everything on the desk is unlit. The curve of the roof is pronounced. The overall effect gives the impression of something secret going on; undercover; possibly corrupt. The flipchart suggests a plan being hatched.

 In this image, the two masks have been lit up from below. The way the  light shines orange, suggests something halloweeny, a bit spooky. There is very little else in the shot, just a few unidentified objects.

 In this image the desk and shelves are lit evenly and give the impression of a straight forward office. Work being done, busy day to day living.

Exercise: Spaces

Four shots:

1) An oppressive cluttered space:
I chose this scene because it is overly full of drawers and things hanging down. I took the picture from below to give the sense of being overshadowed by clutter.
I'm wondering if it is too cluttered! Quite hard for the viewed to get a sense of where they are. Though maybe that's part of the point.

 2) An open honest simple space with one intriguing item.
I chose the 'old fashioned' wooden table and chair by a window to suggest a sort of time-honoured simplicity and honesty. Outside it is daylight. There are white walls. There is no complications, secrets or difficult patterns.
The hand addressed envelope on the table suggests news of some sort.

 3) A stark empty hostile place:
The grey stonework where only a tiny weed survives gives the impression of an unlived, unloved space.

4) A warm, friendly, cosy space
I chose a little cosy nook by the fire for this. The fire is on, the warm yellow walls feel warm. The blankets and a book suggest cosiness. The only thing I'm not sure about is the foil behind the fire, which detracts from the cosiness.

Project 6 - Mis-en-scene. Viewing.

The arrangement of objects in a frame affects the atmosphere and meaning of a shot.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Scene 1:

 SHOT 1: 'You weren't followed?'
The opening frame is of a dark door, which at the sound of a knock is opened.
It feels closed. Hidden. Secret.
This has been achieved through the face being contained between the dark doorframe. Low lighting. Also the coat stand in the background is almost insect-like, as though this place is a web. The meaning conveyed in the shot: This character is hidden away in a kind of den, or web.

SHOT 2: 'Trust no-one Jim'

The camera follows the characters across a cluttered study: books, papers, desks, lamps, chairs.  Low-lighting. Dark and dense. This place feels as though it is a hub of secret activity. slow music. Jim sits on a plastic chair. The meaning conveyed is that the main character has enticed Jim into his web.

SHOT 3: 'I understand you still have one identity running'

The camera close up on the main character. An uncluttered shot, though still dark. He is smoking which adds to the veil that is drawn over him.

The meaning in the shot is that he is giving Jim a mission. 

SHOT 4: 'I want you to go to Budapest'

Light, Open. Grand building with a river straight across the screen. This is a big contrast from the dark cluttered den of his study. While he talks about the mission, this open shot conveys the contrast of open-closed, public-private, secret-revealed.

SHOT 5: 'They're after my head, JimBoy'. 

The camera retreats backwards into a building 

that overlooks the river. Children are laughing and their youth is in direct contrast to the ancient pillars and the grand building on the other side of the river. Also, as the camera is retreating, a couple of planes shoot over head.

The meaning conveyed is the danger to innocent lives.

SHOT 6: people hurrying - left to right -  mostly alone. Cars cutting across the frame.

A general feeling of lack of safety. Fear. Achieved by colours - greys and browns. Regimented windows. Regular cars cutting people up. Man with a dog on a lead. 

 SHOT 7: 'I have had an offer of service'
The busy shot with people walking left to right cuts to a shot of a single man (Jim) walking right to left, alone. Again, the regimented windows. Also the large lettering along the wall suggests rules and strict government enforcement. Though the yellow wall is warmer than the grey. The mis en scene suggests that Jim is alone against a world of corruption.

SHOT 8: 'A Hungarian General has some information'
Jim walking right to left is intercut with the general walking left to right also alone. There is the sense that they are going towards each other in opposite directions. ie they are on different sides of the fence, but they are about to meet.


 SHOT 9: Revisit of Shot 2 - cluttered study.

SHOT 10: The two men come together in the same shot, with their backs to us and some distance apart. The streets are a complicated network and suggest that they will meet somewhere in the complex web.





SHOT 11: 'There's a rotten apple, Jim and we have to find it'
A shot of Jim coming out of the exit of the underground. From dark to light. Again he is the only one going out from the dark, all others are going into the dark. The suggestion is that he will bring the secrets to light.