Transitions Building a Visual Lookbook

Once I sign on to a project and everything is confirmed I immediately launch into pre-production mode. The early stages of a project are some of the most exciting times as the road ahead is filled with endless possibilities.

Decisions made in conversation with directors and producers during this stage will form the backbone of the piece and to make sure you get what you are looking for I find it easiest to be over prepared.

The Art of Preparation

I am a visual learner. I need silence, time, and access to relevant information to generate my best work.

For me the creation of a Visual Lookbook is a necessity when working with new directors and a luxury when working with familiar collaborators. The basic function of a Lookbook is a place for me to organize a series of images (paintings/photos/stills from films) that I can then share with production when we are in meetings, location & tech scouts, and during the actual filming.

I have found that you can talk your way through a set up or idea for an hour or you can show a basic reference and have everyone on the same page in under a minute.

As the lookbook gets closer and closer to an agreed upon “style” I will then start to break them down, compare the scenes and set ups to the brief, and start to incorporate a few of the key images into my lighting prep and diagrams.

Generally I will make a quick document with all the main talking points and relevant references and print them out to hand out at the tech scout. Doing so allows other HODs to jot notes and other things down on them. Plus it just lets everyone know you have done your homework and you are serious about getting the job done.

Lookbook Creation – My Method

It is always a good idea to keep reference images from every bit of work you do, whether it be for leisure or commission .  Have them categorised on your computer for situations, angles, types of shots, types of lighting, and more.

I am pretty much always on the look out for something that catches my eye.

Everyone will have their own method but I find categorising things in the narrowest possible fields help me be quicker when a commercial comes up and I need to get the ideas flowing on possibilities for an afternoon two shot in a cafe.

I can go through my Interior Lighting folder, then my two shot folder, and then my Location – Cafe/Restaurant folder and generate tons of ideas in a very limited time.

If you work in TVCs long enough you will find yourself shooting in the same types of locations again and again.

If i were to be asked who my favourite DOP/ Cinematographer is it would without doubt be Roger Deakins. I love Roger Deakins' work and if you take a look at his entire body of work you quickly realize that he shoots more office interiors than almost any other DP in the history of cinematography. The Coen Brothers seem to have more office interior scenes than non office interior scenes in their films. The best part is that each of Roger's scenes are different but they all have the Roger feel.

Lookbook Step #1

For this project I knew we had 5 different scenes to be shot in 5 different places.

First step was to get an overall feel of different options for location lighting. I started gathering all the stills I had in my library for each of the 5 locations.

Anything I couldn’t find or if I wasn’t happy with the options I already had I just typed it into google and searched for images.

Lookbook Step #2

Mood Lighting. Now that I have a base for the possibilities of what locations may or may not look like I start to hunt for images that represent the mood we are after. These will often have nothing to do with the scene we are shooting but are there to spur lighting ideas and lighting placement thoughts.

Lookbook Step #3

Camera angles & lens selection for coverage.

Once I have the location ideas flowing and the mood I think may fit I will start to go through interesting framing options. Just as before with the mood lighting this may not have any direct correlation to a scene but I am just hoping looking at the stills will spark some creative inspiration.

Culling the Numbers

At this stage in the process I am just grabbing anything that remotely sparks my interest. 90% of the stuff doesn’t make it through the first cut. I am just piling stuff into the lookbook and starting to formulate very immature patterns.

If you are from a photography background then the next step is pretty similar to grabbing the winners after a photo shoot. I go through and rank the photos from 1 to 5. 5’s are automatic keepers and any 1’s are out.

Despite my best efforts what inevitably happens is I end up with too many 5 stars so I do a second pass and start to allocate certain images to specific scenes and then see if the images I have allocated to each scene are cohesive enough to keep. If they are OK then that is great, if not I bin the ones that don’t coincide with the look and go back to the 4 stars to start to build something that is a bit more refined.

Showing the Director

Different productions work in different ways but if you can it is always best to keep the director updated with your thoughts as soon as you have them. Keeping the lines of communication open means you don’t waste your time researching or plotting a specific look when the director had something entirely different in his/her mind.

Tip for later: Showing a director isn’t as simple as attaching the files to an email and hitting send. For cinematographers the director is your client and just like the director won’t send a bunch of crappy stills plopped into an email attachment, you probably shouldn’t either. The director’s hire you. They like your eye, your past work, or they have heard good recommendations about you.

This early communication is going to set the tone for your relationship. If you have a look that you want to go with you need to “sell” the look to your client (the director). Take a little bit of time, organize your thoughts, and put it to them in a polished format.



Below you can see a page from the PDF that I send through.

It took me a few minutes in InDesign to set up the template and I think it looks a heck of a lot better than just having email typeface with attached images that people can never match to the words in your actual email.

Polishing the Goods

After sending through the first few rounds of ideas, making the cuts, and formulating the basic ideas we are ready to go location scouting. I like to take my guide with me.

I will plop all the stills into an InDesign Template and have a document for each different location/scene. That way when we are en route to the location I can quickly refresh the looks I am after, the key things I need to look for, and any possible issues I may need to discuss with the director.

Now I know what you are saying, “Hey Jack, that is all great but that is way too much work for each project. Can’t I just show up and make magic happen with my mad skillz?”

Maybe. But probably not.

Yes it is a lot of work the first time you do it but once you run through it enough it is super simple and very quick to do. I also find that going through the motions of creating the documents helps get me into the production rythm and helps promote idea generation as I get to see the images over and over.

Visual Lookbook – The Goal

The entire raison d’etre of crafting a Visual Lookbook is to help you make a better end product.

The more things you can get done before the actual production day the more freedom you will have on set to explore the possibilities the day gives you. For me this part of the process is one of my favorite.

Transitions: Project Evaluation

Lighting was key to this Project. One scene had an abundance of yellow light and one is an exterior night shoot. We were going to try and counter act the yellow light in the hotel room by using the rotalight on full power and bouncing it off the ceiling.  The night scene will open to darkness and the two characters dialogue will begin with the sounds playing on the outside. we wanted to experiment with lighting a bit more in this scene, but after testing the different light sources on a test shoot we found it didn't come out as accurately as planned. The red and blue lighting would be inconsistent to the rest of the shoot and would be difficult to recreate with every shot for continuity. Also, the scene would need to have a natural light source in order for it to make complete sense but there would be nowhere that the colours red and blue would naturally come from.


Overall I have found this unit to being really beneficial and a great way to explore different roles. With the pressure and workload of studio production and our commission pieces, working in a smaller group project and focusing on specific roles has been insightful. From doing this unit I have been inspired for things to come for my third year project i.e. learning how to light at night and further improving my producing skills, especially when talking about the project with contributors. This will be a short evaluation of what I have learned form this project, what worked, what didn't work and what I would do differently had I the chance to do it again.

When we first started this unit I was very worried about finding what job role I wanted to take on. I was stuck between DoP and Editor. In the end I decided to undergo the role of DoP which turned out to be a good choice and was a role I truly enjoyed doing. Whilst this was my main role, I also shared other roles with the team that we weren't specializing in (i.e.Transcribing).
Overall we didn't have very long to complete this project, and though stressful, I don't think it was a bad thing. It was genuinely really challenging and tested my resilience, resourcefulness and how to cope properly under pressure when things go wrong which they did on multiple occasions (the second shoot being the most stressful).

I hadn't attempted being a DoP before for any projects so i knew i was at a disadvantage before we even started. This didn't matter however as it just meant that i needed to do lots of research and find what "my own style" would be as a DoP. After looking at several inspirations i decided i loved the style Roger Deakins had in his work. There was an abundance of videos written material and columns on Deakins and his work, but one of the first things i saw and helped me was the video below.

 

The work we did on The Firm Awards has really helped me to on the set of The Wrong Mans through the way I've decided on colour, shots and the atmosphere we want to put forward in the piece. Although being two completely different projects (one corporate, the other television), both have helped my style and I feel in moving on from this transitions unit, I can collate all that I've learned and create a third year project I will be proud of even in years to come. In fact I have come to the realisation now I'm doing this evaluation and critically reflecting on everything that I thoroughly enjoy. On reflection looking back on all my work even to now I have always wanted to tell a story through the visual medium of Television. When I first heard about this unit I had very mixed opinions, and thought because of all the other work I needed to do this was just adding to the work load. However, now that I have experienced it and learned from it i can't wait to help tell stories through my work and be able to completely change the mood/intention of a scene by working as a Director of Photography. 

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. 

Transitions: The Script

My experience writing the script

What I think about the script

Transitions: Risk Assessments

Why is it important?

Transitions: Shoot day 1 and 2

Day 1 

The first shoot day was a success overall, and although the hotel room location we organised wasn’t as big or luxurious as we originally intended for the scene, we were still able to use it for free and the manager was very nice and accommodating towards us.
Me, George and Connor arrived early to set the equipment up and drop everything off as there wasn’t enough room in the car for all the equipment and to pick Andy up from the station. We picked Andy up and took him to the hotel just in time for Alex to arrive. We introduced both of them and had a quick blocking session. This was a good way for them to practice lines and also start to bounce each-other.

Setting up the track

We had some small technical issues at the beginning; the hotel room lighting wasn’t very good to work with; the shots looked very yellow. We tried adjusting the white balance which didn’t really help that much as it looked too blue. We resorted to adjusting the color Kelvin which helped but overall we took a lot of time sorting the camera out to accommodate the lighting. I really wanted the shots to look clean because it makes it easier to play with colour in post. If the original filming is clean then we can do more with it. Its also better to have more light then no light; cameras operate of light so being overexposed can be fixed in post, being underexposed can be very tricky without losing quality and picture noise/grain was something we wanted to really avoid if we could.

Conor on sound

Once we were all set up for lighting, sound and picture we were good to go. Something George and I learned from the third year shoot we helped out on was how much battery the Tascams drain, and how handy it is to carry a pack of batteries. We brought some batteries for this shoot which didn’t work as well as we had hoped. The batteries kept draining rapidly and we got through sixteen overall, which was ridiculous and we need to invest in a power bank when shooting for the third year. A power bank is a better solution (preferably one with two usb ports) as they can take multiple charges. This was recommended by Ferg and something I will consider for my final third-year project.
The shoot went very well and the eye zoom filming was easy to do and didn’t take much time to set up thanks to our practice test shoot. We did have some issues with contra zoom; the contra zoom is typically used in horror and would be good in adding tension and a buildup of drama. When the door knocks I want dit to be dramatic. The following is a bit of research I did when looking into the contra zoom before filming:

Day 2

Todays shoot was very interesting and a great learning curve for us all I believe. Because we came across so many problems today, we had very little time to overcome them. This is very common in production and something we need to get use to in industry, but the purpose of university is to learn. I feel after the events of today I can deal with most things, and its always good to be prepared for something to go wrong.

The day started out when our main actor playing Stevens dropped out. I was concerned that I hadn't had a response to one of my latest emails so I decided to phone him to confirm everything just in case and he had booked himself in for another job role, and therefore can no longer do our shoot. This was very stressful to hear, but in trying to behave as professionally as I could I told him not to worry, and that I would phone him back should I not be able to find a replacement today and consider rescheduling to another shoot day. Rescheduling really wasn't something I wanted to have to do as we were lucky enough to be able to use the studios carpark at this time (when they have shows coming in we are more restricted and unable to film there). On top of this the other actors have booked today free, so cancelling would alter their arrangements and its difficult matching up another shoot day where they are all free again, especially as Andy has a show coming up soon.






Me and George searched all over and looked online to try and find a replacement actor at the last minute. After really keeping our noses to the ground we found someone who seemed perfect for the role as Stevens. Alex Donald responded to a post Jack put out and reached out to us. He looked really well suited to the part. The only issue was he was very well spoken and Steves is supposed to be cockney. However, we felt this didn't matter too much given this was our own take and bad guys are often cast as being well spoken British people. Take Tom Hiddleston for example. We went ahead and sent Alex the details of the production, script, call sheets and a clip from the original scene we would be re-filming so he would know his character.

So that was one thing sorted but another problem we began to encounter was the rain. This was something we had already planned for in advance as the weather this time of year (April), the weather varies so much. In planning this, Jack got hold of some umbrellas. We really didn't want the weather to affect our shoot continuity or aesthetic. Slight drizzle could be atmospheric but if it was heavy rain we would have to consider a backup plan. Our backup was to film it as though they are in a car between a henchmen. This was a last resort but luckily in the end we didn't have to do it.



Alex interrogating the cast


Another issue we encountered was timing. Because out replacement actor was traveling from South West London, his last train from Maidstone was 10:00. It didn't get dark until about 9:00 and it would take at least 10 minutes to get to the station. The shoot didn't go as well as I had hoped which was mainly due to the time limit we had. Ideally, I would've spent more time perfecting the shots and how the colour was coming through on the camera.