The Ring

Adam Frisch FSF · February 20, 2005

Sorry, I couldn't find it on a search - has it been talked about?

Anyway, I don't normally have that much patience with horror (nor the stomach, to be honest), so I didn't see it until just now. But my God - that was a gorgeous looking film. Every frame is fantastically lit by Bojan Bazelli. Great, simple work that embraces greyness, cyan and underexposure. Striking compositions at times. I particularly like all the underexposed solid grey exteriors - very moody.

Any info on the filming? It does have a slight DI feel, but in a very organic way. If it is, I'd say that's a perfect use of DI. Film?

Hats off to Mr. Bazelli. And Mr. Mullen, maybe you can put in agood word for him at the clubhouse? :)

Tim Tyler · February 20, 2005

Hats off to Mr. Bazelli.

Checkout Sugar Hill. Bojan has a great eye for composition and lights interiors beautifully. http://imdb.com/title/tt0107079/

(Plus it's got Clarence Williams III (Linc from the old Mod Squad!)

Keith Mottram · February 20, 2005

did some nice work on deep cover if i remember correctly.

keith

Stas Tagios · February 20, 2005

Sorry, I couldn't find it on a search - has it been talked about?

Anyway, I don't normally have that much patience with horror (nor the stomach, to be honest), so I didn't see it until just now. But my God - that was a gorgeous looking film. Every frame is fantastically lit by Bojan Bazelli. Great, simple work that embraces greyness, cyan and underexposure. Striking compositions at times. I particularly like all the underexposed solid grey exteriors - very moody.

Any info on the filming? It does have a slight DI feel, but in a very organic way. If it is, I'd say that's a perfect use of DI. Film?

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I'm totally obsessed with the cinematography of "The Ring." Didn't catch the movie till it came to cable, and initially wasn't particularly enthralled by the concept, but after tuning in a few minutes of it, was blown away with the look of it, which got me to watch the whole movie, which I discovered was actually very eerie and compelling.

Bazelli's work in the movie is stunning.

The Nov. 2002 issue of American Cinematographer ("Die Another Day" is on the cover) has an article on "The Ring."

When I saw the movie, I thought it had gone through a DI too, but according to the article, it didn't. The entire show was shot on Kodak EXR 200T 5293, rated at 160 and pull-processed 2/3 of a stop which "created softer tonality and less saturated colors..." The film was printed on Kodak Vision 2383.

Bazelli used 85 EFs to "maintain a cold palette in cloudy exteriors," and used two green filters, a Tiffen and a custom made one from Harrison & Harrison. "The filters feature primary green coloration that was equal to +14 points of green printer lights for Green #1 and +7 for Green 1/2 [the custom-made filter].

the production shot on Arricam ST and LTs, using Cooke S4 lenses, a set of Zeiss superspeeds, and an Angenieux 12:1 zoom. "For the majority of the show, Bazelli set his aperture at T2.5."

Alvin Pingol · February 20, 2005

I enjoyed the look of The Ring. The second installment of this film was photographed by Gabriel Beristain - it'll be interesting to compare the different styles, especially since Ring Two got a different director, as well.

Wendell_Greene · February 20, 2005

How different/similar is the look The Ring compared to the Ringu, the original Japanese film on which it's based?

Tenolian Bell · February 21, 2005

How different/similar is the look The Ring compared to the Ringu, the original Japanese film on which it's based?

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A agree with everyone hear, I loved the Ring the first time I saw it.

The looks between Ring/ Ringu are very different in several ways. The lighting and feel are completely different. The Ring had a much more haunting look, much more atmosphere.

Ringu was warm, not as contrasty, and a little more straight forward.

But composition was similar, Ring even had some very similar shots to Ringu. The Ring did have that great arial shot over the ocean, the lighthouse and onto the island.

Adam Frisch FSF · February 21, 2005

Yes, Tim. Love the look of Kalifornia - very Kimball-y. Or should I say Tony Scott-y?

Anyway, The Ring was very far removed from the Kalifornia look, though. No backlights, no smoke, just simple single source lighting. Lotsa negative fill on the exteriors.

Damn it! I curse Bojan for stealing the look I had in my mind... :(

Michel Hafner · February 22, 2005

Sorry, I couldn't find it on a search - has it been talked about?

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It' s available in HD on D-Theater D-VHS. It looks great from a CRT projector. The kind of dark material

that requires a CRT or top print in a top cinema.

David Mullen ASC · February 22, 2005

It's the hard light

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Are we talking about the same movie? "The Ring" is predominately single-source soft-lit. What marks Bozelli's past work isn't so much hard light, it's contrast -- he's like Storaro, big single source with lots off fall-off.

David Mullen ASC · February 23, 2005

While there are many degrees of soft light, I consider a hard light to be one that produces sharp shadow patterns, a point source. Storaro and Bozelli are similar in that they often work with big multi-bank tungsten units like Jumbos (in Storaro's case) or similar Dino's, Raybeams, etc. at a distance, often diffused but not always. "Sugar Hill" probably being the most Storaro-esque thing I've seen from Bozelli, shot on slower-speed stock in a single-source style, very Italiante.

"Dangerous Beauty" was softer, more romantic, and more diffused (lens-wise) and "The Ring", while sharper than that, has an overall cool overcast look outside (sort of like "The X-Files" or "Jennifer Eight", that Pacific Northwest wet and foggy look) that carries into a lot of the interiors. So Bozelli has changed over the years -- while "Sugar Hill" looks more like Vittorio Storaro, "The Ring" looks more like Gordon Willis or Sven Nkyvist. Same with someone like Amir Mokri, whose early work is clearly influenced by Storaro (like "Blue Steel'.)

Storaro basically defines light as being either a point source or a broad source and he uses either according to the dramatics of the scene. I think Bozelli thinks in similar ways.

DavidSloan · February 23, 2005

That trailer looked great...but what an awful film concept!

Mike Williamson · February 23, 2005

Storaro and Bozelli are similar in that they often work with big multi-bank tungsten units like Jumbos (in Storaro's case) or similar Dino's, Raybeams, etc. at a distance, often diffused but not always.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but could we talk more about Storaro's lighting? I've been watching an "imported" copy of "The Conformist" on DVD and I'm totally blown away by it again and again, like my brain can't quite wrap around how good it is. I know that the giant interiors in that film aren't average locations, but I'm wondering how powerful the units are that Storaro used either in "The Conformist" or, for example, to light the apartment in "Last Tango"? How big is a Jumbo? I'm assuming that he's actually lighting through the windows or am I wrong about that?

Also, I've got the "Writer of Light" book on order right now, any other good Storaro articles or books worth reading? Don't know that I'm quite ready to fork out for the giant coffee table book in Italian though...

I've got to go back and watch "The Ring" again, the strongest impression I had from that film was the beautfiful cyan tone that Bozelli got, as well as the texture of the image, very lovely.

Wendell_Greene · February 23, 2005

Sorry to hijack the thread, but could we talk more about Storaro's lighting?
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Hey Mike, I'm going to take your advice and start a new thread dedicated to Storaro? Then we can discuss his work and post examples and go into detail.

I can't think of any other cinematographer other than probably Gordon Willis whose work on DVD has been treated so shabbily. Which is why I'm alway game when I see any of Storaro's work shown on the big screen.

Mike Williamson · February 23, 2005

Thanks Wendell, I should've done it myself, my apologies. Now let's all form a single file line and head over to the new thread...

David Mullen ASC · February 24, 2005

All descriptions of art are inaccurate by nature so I can only talk about personal definitions. To me, a sharp light produces a sharp-edged shadow and anything that softens those edges is the beginning of a soft-light, even if all you are doing is shining a hard light through Hampshire Frost, which admittedly is practically still a hard light afterwards.

So for all practical purposes, if the shadow a light produces has a reasonably clean, sharp, defined edge, it's a hard light. That's my own definition. Anything after that are degrees of soft-light, from barely soft to super-soft.

Guy Meachin · February 24, 2005

Wow - you found a copy of the Conformist on DVD!!!!! Has it just been released? Where did you find it? Gold dust!

Mike Williamson · February 24, 2005

As far as the DVD goes, note that I said "imported"... which means bootleg. Try Ebay, that's where I found a copy. The quality on mine's decent, widescreen with English subs, worth it considering that it's so tough to track down and film is brilliant. I'm not one for bootlegs, but in this case I sort of made an exception, considering I'll be more than happy to purchase a nice legal copy as soon as somebody makes one available.