Quoting wikipedia, “from the theater, the French term mise en scène literally means “putting on stage.” When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting.[2] Mise-en-scène also includes the positioning and movement of actors on the set, which is called blocking. These are all the areas overseen by the director, and thus, in French film credits, the director’s title is metteur en scène, “putter on scene.”
April 27th, 2009
Umac Film Society’s Film Fest
The International Film Society at the University of Macau is putting on a French New Wave film fest. The information is below and at the film society’s blog. The French New Wave ushered in a playfulness with regard to the conventions traditional genre filmmaking and a renewed enthusiasm for the techniques involved in such productions. This films are definitely worth checking out for those of you in the area.
by tablecha | Posted in Portfolio | No Comments » |
April 23rd, 2009
The origin of light III: ratios
A ratio is simply a relationship between two things. So for instance, the 16×9 frame is a ratio between the width and height of the frame. In terms of lighting, it is often talked about as the relationship between light and dark in a given image. In portrait photography this might be the relationship between the light and dark side of a subject’s face. In landscape photography it might be the lighting contrast between the foreground and background. Different ratios relate to different styles and traditions of photography and portraiture. A higher ratio, or bigger difference between light and darker is often reffered to as a contrasty image. Film noir light is a classic example of contrasty light. Hard, dark shadows slice through the frame punctuated by bright highlights. Often though, even in film noir lighting, subjects are lit with a softer or smaller ratio when shot in closeup. Particularly women are given a softer light so as to smooth out the contours of their face.
When lighting ratios near a 1:1 relationship, lighting can be refered to as “flat.” This is due to the leveling out of depth that occurs when things are lit from all directions with an equal amount of light. Contrast, on the other hand, reveals contours and dimensionality. There are no hard rules with regards too lighting ratios, there are simply traditions and impression of dimensionality one gets from various lighting ratios.
by tablecha | Posted in Portfolio | No Comments » |
April 23rd, 2009
The origin of light II: the catchlight
Pete Souza’s official portrait of U.S.President Barack Obama on Jan. 13, 2009
Additionally, the shape of reflections in an image is an indicator of the shape and location of light sources. Harder surfaces, e.g. mirrors, windows, and metal objects, all bounce back light with a minimum of distortion. Such, so-called specular reflections bounce back in an equal angel of reflection to the angle of arrival. Surfaces that are porous or rougher, on the other hand, bounce back light in a diffuse manor, sending light this way and that. This results in a no specular reflections. So there aren’t normally specular reflections on a cotton t-shirt or a person’s skin, oily and sweat droplets aside. Interestingly, though our eyes provide specular reflections of the world in front of us. So in any given portrait one can simply look at the eyes and see what are called “catch lights,” so-called because they catch the light arriving to the eye. From these catch lights we can determine the size, shape, and location of the lighting in the scene. This is particularly easy with studio photography as often there are only one or two dominate lights in a scene. In the above example of U.S. president Barrack Obama, as we zoom in one his eyes, we can see that he is being light by an octobox to his right and a bounce board or more likely a softbox to his left. And as we can see in the full portrait, the octobox is stronger than the light to his left, creating a lightly ratio that is not extreme but still is enough to reveal the dimensionality of his face.
by tablecha | Posted in audiovisualIII | No Comments » |
April 23rd, 2009
The origin of light
Light comes from some place, just like people it arrives to us after a journey spent bouncing along amongst it’s peers and a world of hard and soft surfaces. Of course, much of the light we see comes form the Sun, hurled from on high. This light passes through the sky, the leaves of trees, the particulate matter of pollution, and bounces off beaches and sidewalks eventually finding it’s way to us.
When looking at a photograph or a film we usually don’t see the light source; these sources are kept out of frame to prevent us from being distracted to their intensity. We can still, however, look at the light in the scene and determine how it was lit. The shape of shadows, the ratio of light to dark, and the shape of specular reflections all indicate the way in which light has fallen on the scene and subject at had. The first indicator is the shape of shadows. Shadows fall in an opposite direct to the light source, so if there are prominent shadows in a scene it is a relatively simple task to determine the location of the light source. Of course, there are often a whole variety of shadows that complete or rather complement one other, each one spreading out in a opposite direction from it’s light origin point. The resulting complex of shadows can be harder to read. There is often, however, a dominant light or “key light” in a scene that represents that major source of light and thus casts the most prominent shadows in the scene.
continue reading
by tablecha | Posted in audiovisualIII | No Comments » |
April 22nd, 2009
headroom
< -- the amount of space left or not left
< -- above a subject's head
continue reading
by tablecha | Posted in Portfolio | No Comments » |
