70's style

[Arnaud M. St Martin de Veyran]

Hi,

 

I'm going to shoot a scene in S16mm with the a-minima.

It's supposed to be in the 70's.

I wondering if anyone have an idea about the look?

I'd already shoot a movie as DP with a 70's part. That time, i used a Straw filter but does any have another idea?

 

It's a very silly and subjective question but...

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

There's a kind of low-con, washed out and desaturated look with brownish tones that seems to be pretty popular at the moment and definitely says 70s. Someone posted a music video here a while ago which was a great example. Alternatively you could go for the super contrasty and saturated Kodachrome look, but that would be a bit home movie. So I think you have a choice, but I'd go for the first one. I don't really know about filmstocks, but the modern vision 2 stuff is lowish-con, or there's also that very low-contrast ISO320 stuff, I don't know if it's still being made. I've seen images off either which would seem to do the slightly washed-out 70s thing.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

There were a huge variety of looks in the 1970's so you have to be more specific. There was the gritty push-processed New York look of "French Connection", the fog-filtered pastel look of many films, and the "stuck in the early 1960's studio era look".

 

One cliche I think of is the use of fog filters to soften colors and contrast, but still the use of hard lighting, rather than the modern approach of sharp lenses and stocks but soft lighting.

 

It helps to limit yourself to slower-speed films because it might force you into some of those lighting styles.

[Guest fstop]

It's funny you mention those three opposing styles in relation to 70s cinematography, David- The Dickie Attenborough film MAGIC from 78 treads pretty much all of these photographic conventions, and very well I might add (Victor Kempster ASC).

 

A few daylight absent interiors and portraits not unlike say a Philip Lanthrop lit 60s studio, nightime exteriors and interiors full of punchy hard light and then lots of overexposed available light exteriors and NYC locations shot on pushed stock.

 

Everything wrong and right about 70s lighting and exposure is contained in Attenborough's MAGIC, albeit used creatively to make the most of the story. Certainly viewing to compliment David's posts on the topic, and a good film too :)

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, you see that dichotomy in Unsworth's work as well, like in "Superman" -- he would push-process for low-light stuff all the time (not uncommon back then when film stock was 100 ASA), some scenes are soft-lit and natural, others high-key with old-fashioned glamour. Same with some of Conrad Hall's work -- he was never a strict realist. It was a transitional time, but then, it's ALWAYS a transitional time!

 

On the other hand, you had DP's like Willis, Alcott (working for Kubrick), etc. who were more thematically and stylistically strict in regards to the look of a project. But even they would do certain theatrical lighting effects when needed.

 

Speaking of cinematographer's longevity or lack thereof (Alcott and Unsworth, who did not live to ripe old ages), this weekend I got a tour of the Hollywood Forever cemetary. Besides the usual famous people's graves, I snuck off and found Gregg Toland's urn in one of the masoleums. Also saw Hal Rosson's grave.

Edited November 1, 2004 by David Mullen

[Guest fstop]

I expect Hal Rousson's grave to look like nothing more than an intimidating solid gold rock, much like is personality, apprently- LOL Ah, heroes past and present! :)

 

It's interesting you mention the transitional element to the 70s- there were all the big new DPs like Hall, Fraker, Watkin (of course), Kline, Alcott, Storaro, Zsigmond, Willis, Kovacs doing AMAZING work that has really revolutionsed the art, yet at the same time you had all of those really charming, conservative DPs like the inhouse Disney oldschoolers (think Frank Phillips and Charles Wheeler) who never took advantage of the advances and swore by flat, 3 point lighting. Some of those Disney pics, especially the Herbie and Witch Mountain series you can tell were intended to be shot on some 50s-60s 50asa colour stock, yet the advances in film speed make their older techniques resemble some of the ridumentary TV work of the time: hard to distinguish Freaky Friday from an episode of Quincy or Columbo when it comes to exteriors! Even renowned, GREAT DPs and true characters such as Luicen Ballard and Phil Lanthrop were becoming completely passe in an era of adopted available, lower light levels- Look at movies such as The Getaway or Earthquake- those interiors are so flat and shot with such a backward mentality that it lends an unintentional kitschness to the proceedings! I'll never forgive Ballard for those truck interiors from The Getaway- you compare it to Marathon Man or Catch 22 and you'd think there was a 50 year gap!

 

Chris Menges work on Black Beauty also deserves praise- the wave of documentary cameramen moving into features on both sides of the atlantic really pushed (no pun intended ;) ) for that transition throughout the mid-late 60s and early 70s- Medium Cool is another, and Wexler took that get up and go mentality with him to Jewison on Thomas Crown, napalming all of those suit-wearing old studio camera formalities (unsuprising given this was a generation brought up on Goddard, Lester and Truffaut)! Speaking of Jewison, it always irked me just how anonymous and Brady Bunch episode Rollerball looked given Douggie Slocombe shot it- sci-fi SFX visions of future were rendered far better by old schooler Ernest Lazlo on Logan's Run, progressing the old school studio cameraman's fascination with theatrics, innovating with neons and experimental practicals, even if he retained his formal studio gloss for the portraiture and 3 point set ups. I always thought Lazlo's mentality (also evident on Fantastic Voyage) and fascination with obscure practical light devices certainly influenced the look of Star Wars, Superman's Krypton and Star Trek TMP, especially as he retained and never compromised an epic cinematic quality.

 

Dick Kline's King Kong is another transitional film, having a young new DP versed in the newer techniques (pushing, zooms, available light) come along for what was nothing more than another dated 70s disaster movie (with a name this time), replacing the usual Fred Koenekamp, Phil Lanthrop or Harold Stine and their inherent older traditions (high key 3 point lighting, slower stocks, locked composition)- the results sit more with the latter quarter of the 20th century than say the first 75 years (could you imagine Stine or Lanthrop OPTING to shoot the Hawaii location work entirely with available BACKlight and reflectors)??

 

I think Unsworth really crossed the whoe spectrum of techniques and styles on Superman, however- we've discussed this before, but every photographic style known to man is checklisted on that movie- from black and white to verite to old Hollywood to Watkin/Hall/Storaro new Hollywood-

 

you could argue this all started with the directors themselves, such as Arthur Penn and Polanski detraining Burnett Guffey and Stanley Cortez on how to shoot a studio movie like a New Wave European on PERIOD films such as Chinatown and Bonnie and Clyde, the types of movies that would have been traditionally executed in the 40s as noirish, stylised black and white thrillers...

[David Mullen ASC]

These older studio cameramen who successfully made somewhat of a transition to the more realistic style of the 1970's always interested me because they still had a theatrical bent, but in an interesting way, not a flat overlit way like some of the other older cameramen. "Logan's Run" is a good example, which is quite dark & moody at times, a well-designed progression from the glamour of the future to the harsh, overgrown world outside (and the ice cave inbetween). And I can see the comparisons to Kline's style, like on ST:TMP.

 

The new transfer of "Star Wars" on DVD is pretty nice too; color-correcting Gil Taylor's photography on the dark and contrasty style I think is in keeping with his intentions; transferred too light, and it all looks like TV lighting on the Death Star, but kept dark, and it has a nice moodiness and sculptural quality, and probably made the blow-ups to 70mm look better, not to mention helped with the quality of 1970's anamorphic lenses (same with "Logan's Run" and "ST:TMP").

 

The more I look at Unsworth's work, like on the new DVD of "Murder on the Orient Express", was that he keeps alternating between harder-lit portrait lighting and soft key lighting. One moment the image is very glamorous, the next quite naturalistic, looking like it was lit with practicals or windows.

 

Another schitzophrentic (sp?) movie (due to the different cameramen from different countries) is "Tora, Tora, Tora", with a somewhat low-key push-processed look for the Japanese ship interiors compared to the high-key look for the American sequences.

Edited November 2, 2004 by David Mullen

[Guest fstop]

Your Star Wars transfer observations remind me of Taylor's work for Badham on Dracula, currently in the visually mutilated "drained colours" for laserdisc print. Ughhh!!! But no your right- Taylor put everything together for sure in the lab- I think the guy was a master of portraiture.

 

TORA! TORA! TORA!- Oh looky! Charles Wheeler! LOL

[Arnaud M. St Martin de Veyran]

Thanks Guys!

 

I was thinking to shoot on Kadak film stock.

After everything you said, i think i'm gonna go for a 50D and a low contrast filter.

We'll see for the last idea.

I was thinking to use Straw filter for a warm touch and Blow out very hard the window.

Basically, the shot is a master shot (steadicam shot) of 4min going from outside to inside. Most of the shot is inside. It's not so easy for me...challenge.

Anyway, if you have any comment about this kind of shot...

 

Thanks again.