‘The Lighthouse’ (2019) trailer

[Satsuki Murashige]

Dir. Robert Eggers

DP. Jarin Blaschke

Looks fantastic, really looking forward to this. The tonality of the black and white, the compositions, lighting, and VFX integration are stunning. Curious to hear details on how it was shot. Congrats, Jarin! 

 

[Tyler Purcell]

Very cool! 

Shot 35mm 5222 double - x 

Love the feel and the old school vfx look. 

Hope it doesn't come and go too fast in the theaters because I wanna see it. 

[Manu Delpech]

7 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

Dir. Robert Eggers

DP. Jarin Blaschke

Looks fantastic, really looking forward to this. The tonality of the black and white, the compositions, lighting, and VFX integration are stunning. Curious to hear details on how it was shot. Congrats, Jarin! 

 

https://www.kodak.com/GB/en/motion/Blog/Blog_Post/?ContentId=4295013233

[Satsuki Murashige]

Thanks Manu, great find!

[Tyler Purcell]

Yea great article! Very cool! ?

[Manu Delpech]

It's a bummer the trailer is only available on YouTube for now, that darn compression doesn't do it justice. A24 doesn't release many trailers on Apple Trailers as well.

[Dom Jaeger]

Orthochromatically filtered Double X and vintage Baltar lenses!  Can't wait to see this.

Terrific actors too.

The Witch was a sublime combination of language, set design and cinematography that fully immersed you in a particular time and place, I'm hoping this film will do the same.

[Jarin Blaschke]

Thanks guys. I need to convince A24 to make prints!

What's interesting about exposing and grading black and white is that you make day scenes brighter than you normally would, since it's your only tool to strengthen transitions between night and day. This is not fully portrayed by this first trailer, which has a very high number of shots from our "dusk" and "dawn" scenes.

This film was much different than the Witch. This time, the night scenes around the "lantern" that look so dark in the movie were nearly blinding on set.

It also has a proper black and often good highlights, unlike the low-con look of "The Witch." We may continue to stay rich in contrast for our next color film as well. Shall see. Harris Savides had such a profound influence on so many of us cinematographers. For me, the soft look and unending highlight scale stuck for a long time.

 

Jarin

[Miguel Angel]

Second trailer is out!!
 

 

It is amazing!!! Congrats @Jarin Blaschke!! :) 

Hopefully you convince A24 to make some prints and they send one to us in the UK ?

Looking forward to watching it! 

[Tyler Purcell]

I hope they do make a print or two for exhibition with actual black and white stock. That would be pretty darn cool! 

[David Mullen ASC]

I saw this today -- it was like Sam Shepard and Martin Scorsese worked on a script that David Lynch directed.

The look was amazing throughout.  Was surprised at how sharp it was considering Double-X 35mm + old lenses but a D.I. and digital projection probably helped mitigate the softness.

[Phil Rhodes]

Is it me misremembering or does 5222 not have the anti-halation backing?

[Jarin Blaschke]

I’m pretty sure it has an anti-halation back later (like still films) but no rem-jet. But David probably knows definitively.

 

Thanks for your compliments, David. Did you see it here at Camerimage or in a normal theater?

 

I pulled the whole film 1/2 stop except for the gloomiest, flattest exteriors and never opened up beyond 2.8, so that also helps a tiny bit with sharpness.

[Phil Rhodes]

There's a wonderful halo on the shot of the lighthouse in the trailer.

One daft question if you'll indulge me - there's a rather artistic shot of the lighthouse's lens system rotating which is used under the closing title of the trailer. Is that something that was shot, or is it something the title people came up with?

P

[David Mullen ASC]

Correct, b&w film has a type of antihalation backing that is less effective than remjet.

I saw it at the Arclight Hollywood.

Did you use your cyan "ortho" filter even for interiors? Wouldn't lighting with daylight units with maybe some green on the lamps, plus exposing for less skin tone brightness, get you close enough for that effect inside?

Old silent era movies actually used to use light make-up to compensate for ortho's effect.

[David Mullen ASC]

I normally feel that for interiors, b&w tonal contrast and luminance can be controlled through art direction and lighting so color contrast filters aren’t really necessary, especially if you are fighting for exposure. However, I can see that when it comes to skin tones without make-up, a greenish filter, for example, would make a face more textured by enhancing freckles, veins, etc.

[Ravi Kiran]

I saw this a few days ago. It's a great film and a great-looking film.

Did you have short-pass filters of varying strengths, or did you use one filter the whole time? Would the filter have a similar effect if used on a digital camera?

How did you treat the image in the DI?

Edited November 14, 2019 by Ravi Kiran

[David Mullen ASC]

You'd have to use a monochrome digital camera (Bayer filter removed) for color contrast filters to make sense.

[David Mullen ASC]

If you are shooting with a color digital camera, it's actually better to record a fairly saturated image so you have information on each color channel (red, green, and blue) so you can play with their individual luminance values before conversion to b&w to simulate the effect of color contrast filters on b&w film.

[Jarin Blaschke]

On 11/14/2019 at 5:29 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

Correct, b&w film has a type of antihalation backing that is less effective than remjet.

I saw it at the Arclight Hollywood.

Did you use your cyan "ortho" filter even for interiors? Wouldn't lighting with daylight units with maybe some green on the lamps, plus exposing for less skin tone brightness, get you close enough for that effect inside?

Old silent era movies actually used to use light make-up to compensate for ortho's effect.

I used the filter for every shot in the film, save for one mermaid close-up and one shot toward the end of the film.

The short pass filter is very efficient for what it does. It is a 1-stop loss filter that gave test results not far from a 47B blue filter, which has a 4-stop loss (in tungsten light). It gave noticeably stronger results than a 58 green filter which is a 3 stop loss. It went in the matte box and we were done. And the set didn’t have to be a weird strong cyan color.

Additionally, theres no way I could have gelled that phenomenally hot halogen bulb in the table lantern. White LEDs didn’t come close to requisite light levels in a small lantern, let alone a green\blue diode version.

 I also didn’t have to gel with safe distance and manage the gel kick-back and peripheral white light leak of six 9kHMIs bouncing outside the windows for day interior scenes.

[Jarin Blaschke]

On 11/14/2019 at 6:55 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

I normally feel that for interiors, b&w tonal contrast and luminance can be controlled through art direction and lighting so color contrast filters aren’t really necessary, especially if you are fighting for exposure. However, I can see that when it comes to skin tones without make-up, a greenish filter, for example, would make a face more textured by enhancing freckles, veins, etc.

Indeed, the reason was primarily for altered skin tones/texture and exterior atmosphere/sky effects.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks for the info, it looked great -- like a Dreyer movie.

What is the short pass filter? Who makes it?

[Jarin Blaschke]

Schneider custom made it to my specs, and was able to make it within a month. Panavision owns them now. It’s over 95 percent transmittance for wavelengths shorter than 570nm and then on a dime plummets to zero for everything longer.

It has a hot mirror baked in so can be used digitally too.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Trailer looks amazing, Jarin. What a dream project for a cinematographer!

On the Arris (and I think Panavisions), you can order them with a special black pressure plate. Because of the weak backing on B&W film, what happens when you have bright objects in image, is that the light actually goes through the film, bounces in the chrome plated pressure plate and then re-enters back into film, creating a weird halation and greatly reduces contrast. It's a classic problem when you shoot into light sources. With a black pressure plate this problem is greatly reduced, if not eliminated.

[Jarin Blaschke]

1 hour ago, Adam Frisch FSF said:

Trailer looks amazing, Jarin. What a dream project for a cinematographer!

On the Arris (and I think Panavisions), you can order them with a special black pressure plate. Because of the weak backing on B&W film, what happens when you have bright objects in image, is that the light actually goes through the film, bounces in the chrome plated pressure plate and then re-enters back into film, creating a weird halation and greatly reduces contrast. It's a classic problem when you shoot into light sources. With a black pressure plate this problem is greatly reduced, if not eliminated.

Yes, the black plate is mandatory and of course we used it. The plate is also ridged, so if you use the chrome version, you get striped halation with black and white film.