N.3 | "Romeo + Juliet" (inciting incident example), telling the story with the shots plus more

JOURNAL ENTRY

Aug 31, 2024: I’m working on my next short (micro) film inspired by a scene of Leon: The Professional.

I caught up with Alexy last Sunday. We tested for several hours in his garage. We set up the lights first (1 tungsten light and a LED light) and started shooting with my Sony A7 IV. It looked good.

Then we started test shooting with Alexy’s camera, a Sony FS7. This is a Netflix approved camera. Everything looked much better than what we achieved with my A7 IV. We decided we’ll work with the Sony FS7 moving forward. Alexy also has 3 prime lenses. I only have one 35mm.

We settled on the shoot day, too, the 22nd of September. We also found the other actor, Tung, who’s a friend. He’s gonna play the mafioso Asian guy in the film.

I'm a little more tired than usual lately. I feel like I wanna do a lot of stuff but I have taken it slow. I really enjoy writing this journal. I read once that writing is therapeutic. I find that to be true.

FILM STORYTELLING

Romeo + Juliet (inciting incident example)

This scene of Romeo + Juliet is a very good example of the inciting event. Director Baz Luhrmann uses blocking, music and production design, particularly the fish tank, to highlight the incident.

The two characters meet, but they're separated by a fish tank. They're close in the scene, but cannot reach each other. This is a call for adventure, mostly for Romeo. He's now in love and must find Juliet at all costs.

TIDBIT I’M PONDERING

Strive to make a silent movie

In the book On Directing Film, David Mamet says something very interesting on storytelling in filmmaking (paraphrased):

The perfect movie doesn’t have any dialogue. So you always should be striving to make a silent movie.

If you can learn to tell a story, to break down a movie according to the shots and tell the story according to the theory of montage, then the dialogue, if it’s good, will make the movie somewhat better; and if it’s bad, will make the movie somewhat worse.

But you’ll still be telling the story with the shots, and if they take the dialogue out - when for example the film is subtitled or dubbed - a great movie is hardly injured at all.

Source: From On Directing Film by David Mamet.

PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS

Team Deakins → Episode 4: Practical Lighting

Anything can be a practical light

Any light source that looks like is lighting the set can be called a practical light. A table light, a tungsten light, a fluorescent light etc. You could say that even daylight is a practical light.

Justification for the lighting in the scene

Roger Deakins mentions that he likes justification for lighting in a shot. It adds a realism to the scene. The audience should believe the lighting is real.

You should first think about the scene from the script and then think about the space you want to shoot in (location or set). After that, it’s time to talk to the director and the production designer about the space and the blocking of the scene.

Justification is crucial. If the audience doesn’t understand where the light is coming from and why it’s there, they’ll likely be taken out of the film.

Be flexible with what you do or don’t have

In a hypothetical situation when you have a big chandelier but you don’t want to use it as a source, you have to either find a way to get rid of it, or be flexible and shoot around it.

Lighting and practicals the last priority

You want to give priority to the script and the scene. You never want to go to a location scout thinking primarily where the light is coming from. You really want to be prioritizing what works for the feel of the scene, try to image the actors in the space, the blocking and how you’re going to shoot the entire scene.

The practicals and lighting come later.

Challenging scenes to set up

Practicals have always been an important thing for Roger Deakins. The cinematographer very often adapts and modifies what he has at hand. In the movie Sicario, during the immigrant detention area scene, Deakins had to make changes to the “horrible” lights already in the shed (part of a fertilizer factory).

He asked the set dresser to make 50 large conical-shaped entry fixtures where Deakins put 2k blonds and a little diffusion at the bottom. The ceiling had 50 of these.

Deakins mentions the scene from Sicario was a big challenge, but so was the hole in the ground scene in Prisoners. A key fob was the simple and practical solution in this case.

1917 bunker scene practical lamps

While shooting the first bunker scene in 1917, Roger Deakins had to do some custom work on the period oil lamps.

First, he asked to have some glass put at the front of the lamp. This is because he couldn’t shoot directly at the point source (bulb), as it was not a candle like they would have back then (world war I).

Then, the cinematographer put two bulbs in each lamp. One dimmed down (to mimic the candle light temperature) and pointing at the camera. The other facing away was brighter. The glass had a little frost that didn’t flare the lens.

As the camera came around, the two bulbs were reversed to maintain the same effect.

Always be looking at lights in the real world

Roger Deakins always looks at lights wherever he is. He might be looking at how the sun is kicking off a tree, or how lights in a restaurant lit the environment. Looking at lights is an exercise that helps to train the eye.

Source: From Episode 4: PRACTICAL LIGHTING of The Team Deakins podcast (paraphrased).

FILM STORYTELLING

The wide shot

The wide shot positions the subject(s) far from the camera to visually represent their relationship to their environment. This is different from the establishing shot, which is about location.

The wide shot is mainly about the scale of the subject and it's used when you want to make your subject look lost, lonely and/or overwhelmed. It can also be used as a comment on the subject's relationship to the environment.

You can make statements using distance, depth or size.