Transitions DOP Statement

Once the edit was at a point where it could be passed on, there was very little time until the submission date, however i did not let this dissuade me. The first thing i wanted to establish was how to get that "cinematic look". First i turned to the internet, which had plentiful material on this subject! so i looked at some videos such as the one below

The problem with every colour grading video that i watched was that there was one key difference, the youtube videos were shot either outdoors with lots of natural light or a well lit interior scene with lots of clean light. Our hotel scene however was a pain in the rear quarters! Due to the fact that EVERY light in the room (of which there were six!) had a very yellow hue to it, we had to adjust the camera so that yellow appeared more blue just so we could get the scene looking normal. Even with the Rota light being bounced off the ceiling the walls and surrounding areas of the scene were still yellow, this meant that the presets for colour and white balancing we set the camera to created problem when trying to colour correct.

Quite often the "quick and easy" method is to film in locations with as much natural light as possible and when in post slap a "look" or LUT from the colour panel onto the footage. For those who want to take longer but provide a more professional looking colour grade it normally begins with the way you shoot it, the best case in which would be shooting in V-Log. 

V-Log is a logarithmic (“log”) gamma curve developed by Panasonic. That’s basically it, but for those who are familiar with log-encoding, that’s more than enough to get excited about.

You would notice smaller changes in brightness in darker areas, so a log curve is optimised to give shadows

and midtones the most granularity. The curve is also flattened in the highlights to capture a wider range of highlights, though with less granularity than shadows and midtones.

Simply put, log encoding allows for a wider dynamic range of luminance information that is more in line with how the human eye sees things.

Once you have established how you will be capturing the shots that you want the next step is to understand colour itself. The following video taught me about colour and the lumetri scopes on Adobe Premiere Pro.

Unfortunately i was only able to give this project a basic colour correction due it's to the time sensitive nature. The first thing i did was to load a clip from the hotel scene on premiere pro and try different things as a sort of "experimental stage" just so i could play around with colour and see what it would look like on our actual project. Firstly i adjusted the dark areas and shadow, through trial and error i managed to get the look i wanted which was a slightly dark look with dark skin tones that imply dark gritty tones similar to that of Deakins work Prisoners. 

The difference is that in this scene Deakins had the choice of a set, so he could adjust the light however he wanted for whatever effect he wanted. Deakins positioned the light so that it would highlight the main character and create strong shadow behind him. I also did this however we could not cause areas of darkness (to stop the ye wondering from the main character) as we had bright walls and limited space. The location was a hotel room we had managed to attain for free, therefore we had to work with what we had been given. The positioning of the camera was another point of interest for me. I placed at this angle because i the photo above there are two characters in frame but the one on the left is shown to be looking down on the character facing the camera. This is a classic well know technique for symbolising power or dominance in some sense or another. In our scene however, niether character has more power or dominance than the other, one rapidly fires out continuous fantasy plans as the other deconstructs them as soon as they are mentioned. They are equally matched, one speaks sense as the other oozes confidence and optimism.

The last thing i want to talk about is the first time we see Sam (Alex) in the bathroom. The lighting in there made it perfect to colour it so that it gave a dark cold feel to it and along with the dark clothing gave it a really serious tone. This can be related to a scene in another Deakins film Skyfall. In said scene Bond is returning to service but badly out of shape and not qualified for active duty physically or mentally, and the scene occurs at the point where his superiors are starting to realise that. It is a tense dark moment and this is reflected by the pale green/ blue colour. Not only this but The camera places Bond close friend and long-time superior M, in soft focus and appearing to be the shortest one of the three. This relates back to the first comparison where physical size/ height can be related to power/ influence. M being the only one of the three superiors that suggested bond come back the audience can tell just by watching the scene and the placement of the camera that due to Bond performance in his tests she is in a weak position of power. Where this concerns our scene is that our main character is introduced on his own, reflecting his loneliness and showing that he is not in a good frame of mind due to the dark serious colours that surround him. Then as he leaves the bathroom he transitions from being alone with his troubles to having Phill talking about their situation and trying to come up with solutions. So even though his speech hints to the contrary, through the colours changing to become warmer show that he is happier or in a better place when around Phill.