Nosferatu - Robert Eggers - Jarin Blaschke DP

Tiago Almança · January 4

https://theasc.com/videos/clubhouse-conversations-nosferatu

Robert Houllahan · January 5

Just saw it today.

Thought it was great and very entertaining loved the cast and the look is fantastic.

Stephen Perera · January 6

.....award this man an ASC or whatever it is haha!!!...nominated for an Oscar for The Lighthouse in 2020 but lost to the 'one take' gimmick film of 1917 that was great (but Gallipoli by Peter Weir, shot by Russell Boyd was better film)...surely this one should be nominated for best Cinematography and win it this time round....let's see what happens.

Jarin Blaschke · January 6

On 12/31/2024 at 1:39 PM, Stephen Perera said:

By the way this film is a masterclass for how to shoot low light with film…..

@Jarin Blaschke could you talk us through how you created this scene in particular….my favourite set up of the whole film! Wow

Well thank you. The ‘moonlight’ work in the film, including the frame you reference, may not be truly “low light” in 2024 terms. It was shot at T2.8 at ISO 200 (after our “Mesopic” filter factor) and with a 1/2 stop push. The hard back/top light is set at -2 incident, the soft top light is -3.7 incident and the front fill is -4 to -4.3 incident. This under exposure level still lights the set at 12 foot candles, which is bright to the eye when you’re shooting at night. Lighting ratios set for low exposure also look very flat to the eye, so testing is definitely necessary!

Jarin Blaschke · January 6

Hard moon: two 18ks at two different depths in the highest lifts possible (80 ft height? 120 ft?) -2

Top Skylight: LED sausage shape balloon between camera and subject. It just squeezed in between the branches above. -3.5 to -3.7 if memory serves

Fill light: 2.5ks mounded into Molton-covered 20x20 ultrabounce. Behind camera far enough to hide foreground/background falloff. -4 on average, brighter for closer shots.

Stephen Perera · January 6

I'm absolutely nobody to comment on the hardware used for the lighting...others will surely comment, but the moonlight crossroads scene with the duotone vibe I insist is the shot of the film.....I'm going to watch it again in another cinema and see if the proyector bulb makes it look different or not!! I think this film needs a fresh proyector bulb at the cinema to see the nuances of what you have shot haha...actually was that a concern at all @Jarin Blaschke do you 'fear' a Game of Thrones "it's too dark" backlash at all from it going onto crappy cinema screens?

Edited January 6 by Stephen Perera

charles pappas · January 6

I’m curious know if there wasn’t a great deal of - perhaps a tremendous amount of - cgi/green screen used in this movie, because if there wasn’t, I will need to re-calibrate the way I look at movies. (I appreciate that the scene of the path to the castle, for one example, is the equivalent of matte painting; that’s fine).

To expand on this a bit, i’m thinking of Orlack’s castle as compared to the beast’s castle in the 1978 Czech version of Beauty and the Beast (Jural Herz). The 1978 Beauty and the Beast castle is clearly all “real" whereas Orlack castle set might as well be all green screen for as much as we can see of it.

Petr Kvapil · January 7

Were all the exterior night scenes shot at night? I read somewhere that some were filmed in the daytime, but I couldn't find anything about it anywhere else, so I guess that's nonsense?

Uli Meyer · January 7

16 hours ago, Stephen Perera said:

I think this film needs a fresh proyector bulb at the cinema to see the nuances

Our local cinema runs their projector bulbs at 80% or less so they have to replace less often. It really puts you off going to the cinema.

Edited January 7 by Uli Meyer

Jarin Blaschke · January 11

On 1/6/2025 at 8:11 PM, Petr Kvapil said:

Were all the exterior night scenes shot at night? I read somewhere that some were filmed in the daytime, but I couldn't find anything about it anywhere else, so I guess that's nonsense?

Yes. At night. I would experiment with day for night in a location that has almost guaranteed clear sunshine (like the Mojave), but in my opinion overcast light makes terrible day for night.

Tyler Fukuda · January 11

On 1/6/2025 at 6:28 AM, Jarin Blaschke said:

Well thank you. The ‘moonlight’ work in the film, including the frame you reference, may not be truly “low light” in 2024 terms. It was shot at T2.8 at ISO 200 (after our “Mesopic” filter factor) and with a 1/2 stop push. The hard back/top light is set at -2 incident, the soft top light is -3.7 incident and the front fill is -4 to -4.3 incident. This under exposure level still lights the set at 12 foot candles, which is bright to the eye when you’re shooting at night. Lighting ratios set for low exposure also look very flat to the eye, so testing is definitely necessary!

Hey Jarin, thank you for taking the time to answer some of the questions being asked. To clarify for some about exposure readings, when you give numbers like “-2” and “-4”, you are talking about stops of light under your target stop (2.8) correct?

Secondly, when you have a scene that big where you’re essentially lighting an entire set or maybe a street, especially one that is on film, what’s been your working method to test whether or not the scene is going to come out the way you want it for final picture if you don’t have the lighting units or any resources required to achieve a shot like that. It’s certainly gorgeous and would love to know what that process of testing is like for you.

Thank you again for your time.

Daniel Klockenkemper · January 11

I caught a screening a couple nights ago. The lighting was very well done as others have noted, but I also felt that the camera movements were exceptionally well conceived and executed - often seamlessly changing from motivated to unmotivated (and sometimes back to motivated, and even unmotivated again). Can you comment about how these were planned and realized?

Also, I noticed that in shallow-focus situations your focus puller went for the subject's far eye most of the time. Is this a general/personal preference, or a particular decision for this project?

Stephen Perera · January 14

the lighting in the interior of the tavern was spectacular......beats Barry Lyndon by a mile.....atmospheric and laughs in the face of people who say you cant shoot film for dark scenes

Stephen Perera · January 14

On 1/7/2025 at 8:24 AM, Uli Meyer said:

Our local cinema runs their projector bulbs at 80% or less so they have to replace less often. It really puts you off going to the cinema.

I must say I saw the film again in a local cinema and it was slightly brighter so the proyector bulbs without doubt affect the experience of watching this film!

Stephen Perera · January 23

Congratulations @Jarin Blaschke for the Oscar nomination...again! well deserved for magnificent cinematography unmatched by any of the other films!

Edited January 23 by Stephen Perera

Stephen Perera · January 23

...this time a gimmick film wont take it from you

Edited January 23 by Stephen Perera

Gautam Valluri · January 23

Congratulations Jarin for the Oscar nomination!

Tyler Purcell · January 23

Well deserved nomination, such a great guy and DP!

Jon O'Brien · February 1

Loved the cinematography in this. I found the vampire himself a bit .. not scary but that was just me. My favourite scenes were the candle lit low light scenes. Beautiful, a memorable movie. Well done all!

M Joel W · February 1

Looked great.

How much of the atmospherics (the fog in the graveyard scene, the snowfall) was done in comp and how much in camera?

Why did the mesopic filter reduce apparent saturation? Wouldn't band pass filters increase the apparent saturation of the image?

For the candle-lit scenes, how much supplemental lighting was there in addition to the candles?

Edited February 1 by M Joel W

Jarin Blaschke · February 9

On 1/31/2025 at 8:20 PM, M Joel W said:

Looked great.

How much of the atmospherics (the fog in the graveyard scene, the snowfall) was done in comp and how much in camera?

Why did the mesopic filter reduce apparent saturation? Wouldn't band pass filters increase the apparent saturation of the image?

For the candle-lit scenes, how much supplemental lighting was there in addition to the candles?

Thanks.

Most atmospherics are on set, including all falling snow. Rob HATES CG snow. The only CG atmosphere I can think of is removing budding spring leaves in the cemetery. In doing that, they also strengthened the background fog to hide the distant trees that were filling out in March/April. There is also some fixing and extension of snow dressing where effects people couldn't reach like windowsills on the second and third floor, high boulders, etc.

The filter indeed gives a saturated cyan image but that is then desaturated in the grade. The intention of the filter is simply to darken red and orange and set up an orthochromatic tonal response for the final near-monochrome image.

Candlelight was only supplemented by more candles off-camera, as well as mirrors to double the existing candlelight toward chosen directions. There is no electric supplementation. However, in the interiror monastery, I needed more oomph to light the featured ceiling fresco. So I added some flame bars with mirrors to light the ceiling adequately.

Tyler Fukuda · February 9

One more question @Jarin Blaschke

I attended your Q&A last night at the Kodak house and you mentioned about camera movement wanting to take on a more "classic" approach. Were there any films Rob and yourself watched that demonstrate this type of approach?

Clearly all the moves are very calculated and precise -- I imagine this had a lot to deal with the cranes/remote heads you were using.

Jarin Blaschke · February 10

14 hours ago, Tyler Fukuda said:

One more question @Jarin Blaschke

I attended your Q&A last night at the Kodak house and you mentioned about camera movement wanting to take on a more "classic" approach. Were there any films Rob and yourself watched that demonstrate this type of approach?

Clearly all the moves are very calculated and precise -- I imagine this had a lot to deal with the cranes/remote heads you were using.

Rob cites “The Innocents” shot by Freddie Francis. For me though, I generally don’t follow other films as far as camera movement. References are better for texture or “vibe”

Jem Margen · February 19

Hi @Jarin Blaschke,

I read that on Nosferatu you rated the 500T 5219 at 320 or 250 ASA and also push-processed by half a stop. I thought this was interesting because you typically hear more about underexposing-and-pushing or overexposing-and-pulling.

I was wondering how this affected the approach to lighting and the print/grade:

if your incident reads at-exposure on set, with the 320 rating and the half stop push, do you then 'print down' an otherwise slightly overexposed image?
lets say everything in a shot is going to be 1-4 stops under incident. is there a difference between rating it at 250 and metering everything to be 1-4 stops under, vs rating it at 500 and metering everything to be 0-3 stops under? (assuming the same footcandles)

Would love to hear more about the consequences of using these variables in concert vs. rating and developing as normal. Is the idea that you can work with your known/tested contrast ratios but guarantee a certain amount of overexposure/density at the target shooting stop?

Thanks!

Jarin Blaschke · February 20

I decide the processing and the working ISO first. When that is done, it stops becoming a variable. The working ISO is now 250, period. Then I test how dark or light I want key and fill for all the different kinds of scenes at this locked Iso.