Kiarash Sadigh

There is a great commentary by Danny De Vito in the Hoffa dvd...he goes through a bunch of trick shots and in-camera sfx....very interesting stuff.

My approach is that i go through the blocking with the director (this is when I light for fiction not documentary) then I find out where the key moments are i.e. pulling the gun out or stop and look into the closet etc. then I light for those key moments.... Now, this does'nt mean that I key light them all, in fact a key light that lights the first key moment can sometimes back light the second key moment in an interesting way. Let's use a film noir example here: you start with a wide shot of a living room at night, the camera is in the living room looking at a deep hall way that leads to the kitchen way back in the BG. The action is that your actor walks from the kitchen into the hallway, finds a gun inside a vase that is on a table in the middle of the hallway, cocks the gun and walks all the way across the living room to the camera (foreground) where he stabbed from behind by the killer. This scene can be lit with three lights, here is how: light#1 in the kitchen, sort of suggesting the moon light, 90 degrees to the camera's axis, so the actor first seen inside the kitchen in side lit. Light #2 is inside the hallway coming from the top, I would make the hallway the brightest area in this scene, so he walks into the hallway finds the gun inside the vase and comes to the edge of the hallway (where hallway meets the dark living room), now he's completely backlit, we may not see his face but we see a perfect outline of his body...this is a perfect moment for him to cock the gun. from this mark he starts walking towards the camera, all the way through he's still back lit by the bright hall way in the BG( here you can add a few pools of light but I stick to my 3 light idea). Then I put the Light #3 close to the camera on one side (camera's 10 o'clock) about 8 feet high pointing down at the mark where he gets stabbed at. Our brave actor now getting closer to the camera is walking into his/her close up, he's been silhouetted by the hallway light all the way, now it's time for him to step into his light ( light #3 ). He gets there, a beat, we see the reaction of him/her getting stabbed from behind i.e wide eyes etc. then he falls down out of the shot and we victoriously watch our light #3 catching the killer just a touch. Think about brightness contrast and the way it reveals shapes to human eyes. Hope it helps. Kiarash Sadigh DP Toronto