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Akeelah and the Bee


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Since now Lion's Gate is allowing anyone to download some publicity images from their website, here's one:

 

aatb27.jpg

 

This is a digital still photo I believe, taken by the set photographer. But the composition is close to what we did for the master (I cropped the photo to widescreen.)

 

It was lit with just two lights: a backlight from the window (a 4K HMI probably) and an Image-80 Kinoflo tucked against the wall where the bed's headboard would be (if I hadn't removed it.) The bed had to be cheated about a foot from the wall but that's the great thing about Kinos -- you can get them right up against a wall. The young man's face is lit by the Kino but also by the bounce of the backlight up into his face. Plus we shot this in real daytime so there is some overall natural ambience.

 

The scene was shot around an f/5.6-8 at 320 ASA.

 

This was a shot where the producer was concerned that I did not use any fill light. The scene was supposed to be early morning and the soldier is leaving the home, so I wanted it to have some mood, and with all the windows and backlight, there seemed to be plenty of ambience, especially since I was shooting on Expression 500T stock for this.

 

Sure, the one-quarter of the man's face that is dark has no shadow detail, but that seemed fine to me -- you need a black reference in a frame anyway. But I actually had to print this shot and go to the lab and project it because of concerns I wasn't using enough fill light on scenes. I mean, jeez, if they think THIS shot is too dark and moody, you can imagine what I was thinking... Luckily on the big screen, the amount of darkness was less distracting to them and they approved the shot (otherwise, they might have made me reshoot it with more fill light!)

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Hi,

 

What surprises me here is that clipped highlight on the left hand side of the face. When I asked the guy who graded my 16mm for hotter highlights, he made it look like that, and I went "yes!" - then he said "No, no, that looks like video...."

 

This may be why American productions have contrast, and Brit ones have milkiness!

 

Phil

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Well, to be fair, the DVD dailies had bulletproof blacks, somewhat crushed -- which I liked -- but sometimes it gives the impression of a lack of shadow detail. Not there was much more shadow detail in the print, but the "softer" blacks of the print gave the impression that the shadows weren't being crushed. So after that, they were OK (I think.) But I just had a philosophical problem with the notion that shadows can't be black. To me, the determination should be based on whether you feel you need to see something but can't. In this case, you see his face, his expression, his eyes, etc. so why can't one-quarter of his face roll gently off into deep black? What's in that part of his head that you need to see?

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"""To me, the determination should be based on whether you feel you need to see something but can't. In this case, you see his face, his expression, his eyes, etc. so why can't one-quarter of his face roll gently off into deep black? What's in that part of his head that you need to see?"""

 

It's almost like the more we see, the closer we get to him. But how close does the director or the story itself really want us to get to this character?

 

If you want to distance the subject from the audience or the situation he's in, than having 1/4+ of his face hidden will do just that, in my opinion.

More light will just put him on display and leave him and his emotions naked for all to see.

What grabs my attention in this picture (as a member of the audience) is the fact that I have to try harder to reach out to him because he's hiding in the dark.

 

Killer work by the way.

 

(My very invaluable $0.02)

Edited by TSM
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What surprises me here is that clipped highlight on the left hand side of the face. When I asked the guy who graded my 16mm for hotter highlights, he made it look like that, and I went "yes!" - then he said "No, no, that looks like video...."

 

Well since this is a still from a digital camera -- I'd expect that on film that highlight would feather pretty nicely.

 

Phil give your colourist a copy of Oliver Stone's "Heaven And Earth" (Robt. Richardson) to ponder over B)

 

ps I see nice shadow detail on both of them (but maybe I'm cheating, I have a Macintosh TFT screen :D )

 

-Sam

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When I asked the guy who graded my 16mm for hotter highlights, he made it look like that, and I went "yes!" - then he said "No, no, that looks like video...."

 

Phil

 

Phil,

 

You are the DoP! Tel the colourist what you want. Don't be fobbed off with a `Technical Grade'. I always shoot a grey scale and ask to grade to that, when not attending the transfer. However the colourist will always try to help me. I usually have to send it back repeating `Grade to grey scale, If the highlights are bright thats what I wan't, if its dark please leave it alone!

 

Cheers,

 

Stephen Williams DoP

 

www.stephenw.com

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lol, what was that? no offense but who ever put that trailer together needs some since of what a trailer should be. I heard of "Teaser", but this is kind of too much.

 

Cinematography is great though! But what else could we expect from Mr. Mullen? Always top notch A+ work.

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Tonally, the trailer is wrong, making the film seem more like a whacky family comedy when it is meant to be more of an academic "Rocky".

 

In my opinion the cuts are also waaaaaaay too fast.

Can barely see a thing that's going on.

 

I like the last few seconds when it slows down, and think it would be a better trailer if it was just that last few seconds where the girl say akeelah and the announcer.

 

The rest just hurt my eyes.

 

love

 

Freya

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  • 4 weeks later...

The trailer was pretty darn fast, but from what I was able to see the lighting looks extremely juicy. I'm wondering if the kickers on the kids onstage are appropriate, though? I'd have to see the film to judge, but they somehow jumped at me as being distracting.

 

Congratulations to you, David! It's our pleasure and honor to have you here.

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I liked the trailer, and I didn't mind its fast pace, seeing as it was cut to the "Flight of the Bumblebee" . I'm sure they'll cut other trailers that will be slower and more dramatic in tone.

 

Congrats David on all your hard work and for the production diary.

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I'm wondering if the kickers on the kids onstage are appropriate, though?  I'd have to see the film to judge, but they somehow jumped at me as being distracting.

 

Well, to some degree, it's supposed to be distracting -- I'm trying to maintain a feeling of the "hot glare" of lights. Plus it's theater lighting so anything is possible. But mainly it's because with so much front light on a stage for these events, the backlights and kickers are the only things to add some contrast & depth to the image (which is why theater lighting uses these tricks, to "sculpt" the object and make it look more dimensional, plus separate it from the background).

 

Personally, I always kick myself for not being bolder with my lighting, so I try and resist the temptation to "fix" things too much. Caleb Deschanel once said that in every shot, there should be some element in the lighting that is a little out of control. Sometimes it is a practical that is very hot, or a window, etc. I tend to agree.

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Sounds good to me, David. Obviously I understand the fundamental idea of kickers and backlights, but I was just wondering if they might be a bit much.

 

It's interesting to see how artists evolve. Personally when I began lighting, I was really into the hot flashy work of people like Doyle, Khodji, etc.. I used to like blowing stuff out 4 or 5 stops, throwing all kinds of crazy filter combos, push 2.5 stops, and really going crazy.

 

Now I see myself approaching a humble, minimal Almendros type aesthetic. I've also been very big on the direction of Robert Bresson, who taught me to remove the flourishes in order to get closer to the truth. Maybe in a few years I'll move to something else, who knows? Right now I'm really drawn to an unintrusive simplicity.

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It all depends on the movie -- as a DP, I'm not so much interested in imposing a personal style on everything. The inspiration for this movie was the "Rocky" films, so my job was to try and make a spelling bee seem more like a sporting event. And for the final one, a big media event as well. On a budget. So an overly somber Almendros / Willis approach probably would have been wrong, although that's how I approached the earlier scenes -- the movie slowly evolves into something flashier as it goes along.

 

But I agree about the importance of simplicity and the beauty of it. But sometimes you have to be "glitzy" and flashy when the scene is supposed to have that element. There's no such thing as "natural" lighting at an ESPN indoor sporting event. It's ALL artificial, which is why I took such pains to show lights in shots. I'm only afraid I didn't go far enough sometimes.

 

The intensity of the lighting is supposed to mirror the emotional experience for the little girl, which is why everything is heightened beyond strict realism. It's not a documentary about a spelling bee. In some ways, I always lean a little towards expressionism, where the photography mirrors the emotional state of the scene. At least in dramas.

 

In fact, when I scouted auditoriums for the other smaller bees in the movie, I realized that they were all windowless rooms and I'd have to supply everything, lighting-wise. Which is why I wanted this gymnasium with a giant row of windows for the first bee to have something at the opposite end of the look of the last bee.

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Also, you have to understand I only got the job after I convinced the producers I wouldn't make the movie look like "Northfork" or something; I had to keep "selling" them on the idea that I understood this was a commercial movie that needed a slick style. It was only after they saw "D.E.B.S." that they realized I could shoot eye-candy as well as drama. And the only questions I got about dailies were all the low-key Willis-type night scenes in the beginning of the movie, but the director and I felt that the movie had to GO somewhere visually, and had to start dark to end light.

 

My basic concept for the movie was the journey towards personal knowledge was the journey into light, which is emphasized by the brightness of lights by the end of the movie. Which was easy to show when I was looking out from the stage into the house lights but harder to sell when I was looking back at the people on stage without resorting to strong back and edge lights.

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Thanks for the response.  I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

 

Do you feel that this is your strongest work to date?

 

No, that would be "Northfork." It's the only film I've shot where I feel that it's 90% what I wanted.

 

There were limits to how far I could push the visuals on "Akeelah" because the general attitude was that this wasn't an art piece but a commercial work, a family film, etc. Plus it's hard to shoot a lot of multi-camera stuff of kids spelling words and make it arty -- it was all about finishing the days work before the kids left. It got very meat & potatoes filmmaking at times, just to be fast and efficient. Plus I've always found it hard to find an interesting style for ordinary middle-class locations, which is why "American Beauty" is so interesting visually considering how mundane the locations were. I'm no Conrad Hall.

 

If "Shadowboxer" ever comes out, it's got some interesting visuals here and there, sort of an oddly lush color-coordinated crime film.

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I don't know if anyone has asked or if you already posted this, but how did you and the polish brothers link up? It seems you guys collaborate very well. Were you guys friends before you made films together?

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Michael Polish was at CalArts when I was there but we never met -- I was in the film department and he was in the art school in graphic design. About two years after graduation, he started making 16mm short films and asked a friend of mine who was in school with me for any DP recommendations. So I ended up shooting this really low-budget 16mm short in b&w out in Sacramento for them. Then two years later, they asked me to shoot their first feature, "Twin Falls Idaho."

 

The success of our working relationship, I believe, really comes down to the fact that we both have the same tastes in images; I can be sure that if I get excited by a certain type of lighting or color or architecture, he will like it too. This sort of reduces a lot of need to communicate; I know what he likes and I happen to like the same things. We both have a preference for a certain somber, low-key "European" painterly look but will draw influences from other graphic arts. I find that it is better to talk to Michael about art references than movie references, for example. Personally, I drew upon some recent study I did of John Ford films when I shot "Northfork" but that wasn't something I really discussed with him specifically but I knew he'd like a certain epic widescreen framing style if I showed it to him (he's really into scope framing, lucky for me.) You know, low wide-angles to see more sky, slow crane shots, and then at other times, telephoto shots to make the mountains look larger. A sort of monumentalism and classical formalism. It just seemed obvious to both of us once we saw the locations about how they should be shot. I remember shooting a shot of cars leaving a church; I was about to suggest we move the camera farther back when Michael said "How about we go up that hill and get a really wide shot?" to which I nodded enthusiastically.

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Congratulations David, Great work!

I think that most times trailers are kind of misleading (and noisy).

I'm looking forward to seeing the whole film.

 

There is some shots with a bit of difussion, you see it glowing in the highlights. Is that your filtration or is it post?

 

Francisco

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