N.1 | "Jurassic Park" (opening scene), lights and skin color plus more

JOURNAL ENTRY

Aug 17, 2024: I’m working on a new micro film. It’s inspired by a scene of Leon: The Professional. Although it’s such a short film, maybe 2-3 mins, I know it’s going to be challenging to put all the pieces together.

I doubt myself a lot. Any art form is difficult to master, most of all when you have little time. But the only way to do the thing is to do the thing.

FILM STORYTELLING

Jurassic Park (opening scene)

In this first beat of the film, we’re shown a very important part of the story. The audience is asking “what scary reptilian monster killed the worker?” or perhaps, “I’m liking this … what’s gonna happen next?”

Also, this opening scene has all the elements of a good hook. A good hook opens the film with 1) characters, 2) action, 3) movement, 4) not showing anything about the backstory, and opens with 5) setting the tone.

TIDBIT I’M PONDERING

While Christopher Nolan was making Inception, he found that there are two genres that work particularly well with the audience; which make them sit forward and listen intensely.

One is the heist movie, in which people want to see what the team looks like, and hear the plan and the jargon. The other is the courtroom drama. These two genres together are very winning.

Nolan incorporated the two genres in Oppenheimer as well. Besides the film’s origin story, there’s the Manhattan Project as the “putting together the team” race against time. And in the third act, the courtroom drama unfolds.

Source: From Sight and Sound magazine (March 2024)

PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS

Team Deakins: COLOUR - 100th Episode Special - with Donald Mowat & Greig Fraser

1. It’s important to get skin tone right when making a film. You can guarantee good skin tone with tungsten film stock designed to work with tungsten light. The bulb filament is the same all across the world.

2. We have a lot of lights out there, not just tungsten light. Lights are evolving so fast that it’s difficult to keep track. Led lights work differently from tungsten light.

3. Makeup artists can have a difficult time getting skin tone right in this complex environment.

4. It’s helpful to have a calibrated monitor on set to see how the skin looks like in the end.

5. Roger Deakins mentions that film forced you to be exact on set in the past. You were forced to shoot what you really wanted and needed. Film pushed you to do more rigorous tests.

6. Greig Fraser gets reference for skin tones from 1970’s films, because they have gone through the process of film to print. The skin tone has the most complexity and depth.

7. Led lights will render a different skin tone depending on the camera that is used. For example, moving from an Alexa to a Sony camera will give a different skin tone.

8. Roger Deakins mentions that working with tungsten lights requires using gels to get a different color. Led lights save you an enormous amount of time because you can get the color you want when you need it.

9. Greig Fraser says he fights hard to get the right lights on set for the project (and do tests). This is important for him because of what comes out of it. Because when you need to fix something that doesn’t look right it’s hell on earth.

10. Roger Deakins talks about what they did in Sicario during the interrogation scene with the Mexican drug baron. That yellow color makes the scene impactful, raw (and creepy). That was achieved with fluorescent tubes.

11. Greig Fraser says that while he was in Jordan shooting Dune he would watch Sicario over and over every night after work for inspiration.

Source: From The Team Deakins podcast

FILM STORYTELLING

The establishing shot

The establishing shot is a common visual element to open a scene or an entire film.

It's wide enough to establish the geographic, the time of day, the project tone, it shows the scale of the subjects in relation to their environment.

It's also often used to transition between scenes to mark the transition to a new location or introduce crucial details about the location or world.