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Filming an Interrogation Scene part 1

Question from a k m khan is what do you recommend as some of the greatest examples of cinematography in terms of movies and series titles such a big question it's funny and my my spectrum of likes in this life together like enormous I mean I love movies that I've already referred to in the last few days and all for what I think uh I've got a really horrible, horrible memory one of my favorite films of all time was lends his first english language movie which was a movie called kaldor sect which is shot in black and white it's a very simple film but it was just a lovely idea on dh you did such it was the first film he made in english after he made knife in the water which is the polish film that got him recognized obviously is you quite a while ago it's a beautiful film protection or detail and really, really cool film another film I mentioned the road to tradition was a beautifully shot moving like conrad hall and I think it is his last movie I could be incorrect about that but he was ...

about seventy years old I think when he shot it and it's just an absolutely beautiful film and I love them two thousand one convicts two thousand one he's one of my favorite pps geoffrey on dress shop there I've got a lot of really favorite movies everything gil dreamed in the chat room would like to know when you talked about watching a film without sound, can you recommend some other exercises that improve your eye vision, imagination, detail oriented skills and give you a better chance to work with professionals and that's kind of like two questions in one, I think on this is there's, a book called painting with light. It was written by filling dp called john bolton, and I think it was actually written in the forties and fifties, and quite a lot of the information, and it is a little bit dated. A lot of the principles still apply on it talks about how interesting it is, for example, just to sit in a room and just sit there. And observers today, who goes by just watch what happens to shanda is watch what happens to kala. Watch what happens to, you know, just the whole feeling of the room. Having room change is given the changing life, given the warrant in the afternoon. So the starkness of the light, the clarity of light in the morning and, you know, and just being observant, is kind of the key to getting seeing interesting images and knowing what they are, and also knowing the dangers that await you. If you're not paying attention, you know, such as being aware or of delicacies and you can get into trouble very, very quickly if you're not observant and you know like the story we're telling you the other day but you've been telling your name the other day about how you know suddenly noticed an actor's face was very orange on my first assistant cameraman it come up beside camera with a very bright orange waterproof on because it was like it was going to start raining and then suddenly you notice that the actorsfaces very orange and it is just like being aware of everything that's happening around you just literally separating your brain your rental company thank you, thank you go another questions from I gotta know who says love the tone in color on your block for jack full can you walk us through how you arrived at that pillar tells engine that was a television project. You know, when I first started shooting movies, you have very, very little control over what you could do with your caliph palin basically, you could go lives, you could go down can or you could shift towards one of three primary colors I mean, since those days now you go film in film at where you couldn't go into I'm very sophisticated keller programs such as what we use on houses a program called new coda, which is a very sophisticated kellum timing program this enables you to window things when I say with no set it means separating out an area of a picture, controlling it independently of the rest of the picture. So for example, you can track an actor's face and change the color of it slightly. You could track on an area of the sky on a panning shot, too de emphasize the brightness of it or to darken it down or to change the cover or two nowadays what you couldn't do, it imposes incredible compared to what used to be able to do in the old days or it was, would you under dark and light a red or green that was kind of it and and that's when it was just literally negative being printed on the british stock on before we had all these wonderful tools that we now have on them, I mean, you could even go in there and get underneath an actor's eyes or an actress his eyes and just get rid of little lines by just develop your signal that's and then tracking that window along with their movement just so that you get rid of potential problems because, you know all the actors get tired and will be times when you're in a rush on the life force in the best and you end up with things in shot it's not going to make you mr popular with your leading lady if you're in russia and so on and so forth, so those sorts of things you can often yes that's him post these days and make it look so much better. I would say that in the world television, at least half of my work happens in post because andi, again, I'm the risk of repeating myself it's much faster to do something imposed with one person in ten minutes that intends to correct an issue or said where on an exaggeration of this, like two hundred people might be standing around if I take five minutes with two hundred people it's, a lot more expensive and ten minutes with one guy, so the economic seven dictated that you've let quite a lot of things go in television and in movies nowadays and which you know, that you can correct easily imposed, you know, so much is done in paris to mean buildings removed all kinds of elections, you got rid of all kinds of things, thanks go well, I think they're ready. Oh, removal on way. Well, what we basically got going on here is and way set up a sort of, um a fairly I don't know cliche, and she I suppose I'm really good at cliches, by the way, which is basically a good cop, bad cop and stay in the night suspect and I'd love our wonderful cast here to introduce themselves if if the cameras can come around on to everybody and you will say hi to the audience is about fifteen million people out there apparently hi I'm julia christine creative live a few times saying that special actress here in ceo via los angeles and happy to be here I'm carl hall I um an actor here in seattle this well from greeley colorado what's that oh yeah unexpected productions I guess and my name is derek van mosul from unexpected productions here in seattle washington yeah unexpected productions is an improper company based here in san we've been uh we've been the south for twenty eight years way have what nine shows a week I think at this point uh our our flagship show is theater sports which is akin to whose line is it anyway do that since nineteen eighty three so classes for people who wanna play with unexpected production now where do we start? I think wonderful cast introduce themselves and so welcome two great live basically what we've set up again azad mentioned this slight please a police station into the room this is our good cop here on dh a lady of the night and a bad cop basically so we just basically just set up a very sort of uh based kind of lighting you know sort of as in your head you might imagine a police interrogation room there's really no police interrogation room in the world that looks like this but in every movie that there is so we're going with that it's a silly thought anyway um what we basically got going here is a very small amount of feel like coming from behind here back up behind here which is basically just putting a tiny bit of ambien sit into the set got a lot of it's coming from the ceiling and bouncing off that this ambien coming into the set bouncing off that white wall up there but a cz you could all see the key light in this scene at the moment is just basically a one hundred fifty what light bulb justin hanging practical lives here and that's really doing most of most of the work in this scene so we asked him to stop too work out a little scenario um let's just try a little rehearsal first of all to see how it works and then that might you know exactly the same way as we do on house the way used up with the scene is on the direct to the right term on the actors of course tend to do a prat private rehearsal when basically you know we have a script in this case we don't have a script but so weaken to ad lib it to a certain extent to make it up as we go along so basically the idea would be that derek being the bad cop has been watching through this one way mirror of'em ritual whether that photographs or not is another issue but he's been watching this and losing patience with the fact that him I'm sorry what's your market is not really making much progress with getting the information that's needed so he'll come bursting in and use a much more aggressive tone you know, to try and get the information that's needed here, so we'll basically try that scene so what did we decide your crime was apart from? What do you think you're doing here? Well, I think that I was loitering, but they seem to think it had something to do with me accepting this gift from the mayor game okay, go. All right, I love that cool. All right, so, um now at the moment let me just have a look at the camera over here and see where we are tonally actually good quite a lot of contrast going on here, but it's kind of interesting I'm just using the marshal false kelly and to see where I am exposure wise, we're probably we're on the edge of being a tiny bit clipped um um but not quite clips, so I think we're actually in a very good space here that seems to be a very good exposures nice shadow, you know, we're down to again on light blues and dark blues here attendant twenty percent which is fine and this plenty of detail in paris you can see when I go back to actually you don't see this change on the big monitor in fact, any way of seeing this that you are you reading it on that camera any way of seeing it is it doesn't it doesn't transpose to any other monitor it's only available on this actual monitor on dh you can see by dialing up and down this door poet basically changes on dh you know but this is a fairly low key scene where we just know stable realtor just wait again that's pretty good you're like yes that's pretty nice actually and begin don't be too afraid of being a tiny bit under exposed on digital it's exactly the opposite of them exposing film negative where it's nice to have a tiny bit more exposure so let's sit again today I'm sure we're going to have a lot of very disappointed viewers that we're not going to take a lot of time to build in camera movement because we wouldn't get very far if we do so we're gonna tend to shoot this as standing shots this master shots here it would be very nice to have some foreground in this which might be a bookcase or do we have anything that we can put him for grand? Maybe I mean obviously in an interrogation room is generally not an awful lot of stuff there certainly not a bowl of flowers that might be it another table that might be maybe a little bit of shelving or something like that with a couple of law books or something on them you know, just just something so that we can create foreground background and create some death which generally I think is terribly important and just so that you could have something out of focus in the foreground just tio like we did the other a perfect the shelf great here comes the shelf s o you know what would be really nice into being that right in here and really for ground that guy and we'll keep it out of that camera all and that's a look at this that's um you know what? Maybe we'll just use the shelf just by itself what god somebody help me with this cameron just raised the camera up a fraction just get a little bit towards you that way just so that we're just skimming over the bottom of this sorry guys this is golden the really boring technical stuff on inside cheat so I think it's rather nice to have that lip up here and it just it should be sort of fairly fuzzy so cool so now now we've got a little bit of foreground going on which gives us a little bit of depth we go to him just a book or something that we can put down here to just give us a little bit of text you that might be nice to give us intentionally dark ways that yeah that's nice. I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense this could be, uh, this this could be so that we don't now now we've got now we're starting to build an image we've got I'm going to come in just a fraction why them nice going in on this? We were starting to get something going here, obviously to have a sort of anti books in a police interrogation room doesn't make an awful lot of sense, but it's just three idea of using foreground that'd be something more out that could be here. That might be a tape recorder that might this could be an observation window with the reflection of the face in here that that's basically watching this scene, I'm seen by our suspects, our suspect inside. So now let's let's think about a little scene let's um, just hang in the room for a second, derek, while we work out the actual scene. No, sean, what I'm I think we've lost just a tiny bit too much champions I'm feeling that derrick's just a little bit to dogs, so should we maybe just raised this tease and just a fraction let me go on I can't on this and maybe try that yeah, anything is what I'm saying is I'm saying the shadows above the top and I was hoping to killed them by just taking that up a little bit yeah, there you go. In that sense that's better and let's try playing the other one too. You might have been right let's that's better now we got a little bit more phil on derek a little bit more phil overall in there and not quite so much contrast. Okay, so let's, think about think about what you might be ah asking instead of trying to get information and all very nice you're the nice cop and all of that stuff, so we'll play that for a minute or two and then let's have the feeling that directs me marching through the window here and then you you basically burst in and then you lost your patients. I mean it's game that cops play all the time. Every time I've been in an indian interrogation room and normal on I think just because of the way we're staging this and the two cameras are over there, be aware of the angles that could work quite nicely I think it might be nice to get right in your face for you like that, so you play the lines a little bit you know, sort of work with it like vance and them be quite aggressive and then then you know, maybe but might get up on pace around so just just ad lib something is a starter we'll see how that goes we're going to go out yeah let's let's start out and you know it'll start off kind quite pleasant and nice and then it'll build into something that's really quite him quite a grass if you know that again that's uh let's give it a shot so we already on dh action trixie my name is officer real soon swim hands s o uh you are entitled to an attorney andi you can you can have them anytime you want. We can appoint one to you as well. I want to let you know that I'm going to be recording this. Okay, so I'm starting right now choice on the recording uh, choice on this not being recorded. No, you don't. You don't. Uh this well, if my attorney was here, he would say she'd rather not be recording hey could say that I can I cannot record it but I'm not an attorney. I should probably just stop fighting for that right now. It's your choice I can also write it down if you don't want it recorded video attorneys but both of their wives had enough of this so this is officer spice enough of what we just yeah getting let's get down to brass tacks here all right what do you do with the mayor in that car ok, we're getting we're getting to be doing there I was learning about his issues his issues your breath is horrible okay so why don't we just back that it too is horrible I've been day I've been very cooperative you've been nothing like that now tell me what you were doing in that car now breathing down my neck yes, I can't so what did you stop beating around the bush states? Can we back up his theory? I think that's cool that there's probably much of the scene that we want but I think that's basically working any nice thing that's really cool I mean that's fun on what would be lovely mark is instead of playing it all in profile it might be nice to kind of come around here and sorry I mean direct ever so that when you know rather than just being a completely bro fallon and sometimes you can stand up like that then just come back in again so there's some dynamics to your movement ten things like that so you know what? You can come in with force kind of like that and you know them there might be a moment where you think you know dairies tactics not gonna work in my hair you know, like that stand up and pays a little bit and then come back and sit down. You know, so there's a bit more movement in general. Ok, let's, just try that once more shwee shwee trying to record this one and see what happens. But that was shown generally really sweet guys him? No, just before we go any further let's, see if there's any suggestions from first of all, our class here and from the internet about what was heading up here um, why we're doing some things and, you know, there's like a comment from prada decay khun gail do a close up when he gets all in her face, that would be nice. Oh, that's certainly on the books. Yeah, can we can manage? Sure, I'm dying to do a close up there's. Just a one second delay, so we'll just wait for the comments to come in any classroom, have ah, suggestion. I think so. I think it's always of lead. You can, um, you know, like have the interaction between the actors rather shooting it cold unless I mean, sometimes when you shoot a single a devoid single, it makes somebody kind of rather lonely and frame, and that can work as well in this case because it's kind, especially when derek gets involved it so on top of that you really want to can put to bed in the same frame but you know but it's you know it's it's very much again I'm not a director of a dp and so there's probably if any of my directors from house to watching this that probably laughing they got chanting you know but anyway so but I think it's working generally very nicely nicely put together by you guys so let's let's try and shoot one and why didn't our students men the cameras here and g o through the check the focus if you feel you want to you can add a tiny bit of attention to a shot by just allowing it to flow to tiny ben is really kind of quite an interesting technique so you know just just so that for example the camera isn't absolutely locked in concrete it it's just floating a tiny business it makes you feel that maybe this is a p o v through a window it just gives that tiny suggestion that it's goes up sorry just a little out of it no no no I'm talking about just a tiny bit of camera movement you know just just I mean just very very chinese something more like you know it just came out of breath you were like we're keeping it kind of but it's really shuttle it's all myself that you don't see it you can just help in terms of you do I'm creating a tiny bit of tension few team that's how you guys good tio yes ok he just had on me that copter seven wait so how we all think so we're all good this is your working for everybody all right? So let's roll cameras okay um wait way running everywhere gay and action okay trixie s oh you know what we brought you in here? Um trespassing yeah ok so we're going to talk a little bit about that I do want you know this is being recorded and this shouldn't take too long probably about twenty minutes I'm going to just ask you some questions my name is officer william I said well, you know it is a first name or last williams is my last land yeah it's tim williams tim yeah my partner is officer spice it's liam spice and he'll be in shortly I just wanted to make sure that we had a couple of minutes together first why don't you love trixie? He was just going to ask me a couple of questions I'm gonna ask a couple questions now could I just get started just get started what were you doing in the mayor's car? My car broke down your car broke down you have a car you're on that core every night don't have a car because it broke down ok so what what were smart aren't you and there is my real smart that's? What? You grow some brain cells and tell me while you're in that car with the mayor stuff staring at my brain cells. Okay, so we have we have a couple pictures here of you in the car it's on mercer and twelve with mayor collins. Um, I want you, tio, to see if this guy prints were for a very long time. Three minutes of friendship is not a friendship. When you sit down, you're there are reasons. Is this legal? This is totally oh, is it? And it's just so being recorded as well? Where? He's threatening me, pushing me out of the chair? Not anymore. Okay, so lost a legend that should count there. That was really great. Let's cut cameras. Now I'm sorry. This is getting to be a director. Um, I'm really going to be rude and not pay attention too much to the performance because I think this is all working really well, because this is a lighting exercise. Can anybody suggest here what we might do to improve the lighting on this scene? What? Slightly, um, you know, should have, you know, there have a couple of things on the internet. Uh, fresh beetle has said would love to see a different color temperature on her on the actress. What would justify that? Four different color temperature in the foreground there's a little delay in between gay all right? I mean, my my anything here is that what I'm having a problem with is that derek's not getting really much separation for the background he's kind of almost stuck to the wall, so the way we might solve this is we might put up we gotem stand with the four by four or a three by three bands card that we could raise up over the top of the water, then shooters source for up into let's take the time to do that, and what that will do is it will put a little bit of a rim on derek, I don't put a little bit of hair light up over on these two guys, and that should improve the scene someone and also thie idea we had of just putting a little bit of light down here would be rather nice. So okay, so we're using three hundred just to cut and blow this up we go terms I mean, I could fall by for I can shoot a source for into and that that could be maybe a court in blue or seventeen that just to give us bit of hair lights here also online gail the scott lynas has said, when the interrogator stands up, we're losing his light he's going into a shadow yeah, he is but I mean that's something that you wouldn't live in this wide shot for all that long you know and I was getting to talk to derek about that anyway you know that's the only thing maybe just just play it a little bit lower so you you don't go out of this guy quite so yeah that's it yeah wait so just a few minutes and we'll be at it again you know what it is that is that three hundred on it on a demo sean can you deem it right down so it's just literally a glow fraction more yeah but there that's nice that's cruel and then all we need now is a little you know, like a four by four bound something nice and high well source for a quarter blew into it just give these guys a nice little bit of a back edge and I think it's really nice and you know what you know what might help is just bring your chair down this way a tiny bit that'll give you then it'll give you lean ability on the table so you could be you know yeah, that should go yeah that's good. So this sorry it was uh what's up for the men was abounds okay all right and this should work okay, cool all right, very enough wait, you want tio bank that bound shot for chinese betton just so it's not yeah there we go on can I can we take the source for actually down the side here, eh? So that we don't have to deal with all this bill from the lens andi hit the guard from about here so that you know this sort of this yours for coming over here way probably just up here yeah, we forty five degree that then we should I think you're probably right show one probably get enough as if it will put a quarter in blue on this and then we won't have to worry about any spill light in this ad just just do your best to fill the card as much as you can way ask you a question about you're so choices story can we ask you about your eyes? Awfully for this situation? Yeah lots of folks in the chat room asking about yeah war child what higher? So guys and we ended up with a I was actually more thinking about the lighting the fire so so far way six fourteen, twelve fifteen again here we are twelve fifty and one stop away on him I'll tell you what let's go down tio it's let's play some shallow depth of field especially on this camera let's go down to what is that that's a four letter so that means we could go to six forty on that one anyway yeah it's like a little silver cross something back from that show no absolutely yeah wait do we have any then suppose anybody has a little silver cross or jump the line that's a pretty absurd your request we were just him just for the sake of the exercise it could be some coins or way could put a rat like the department no show on we might well have to add another lamb to that is not quite giving us enough shall we shall we on another leak ode to it towards you wanted to use a red head up just behind the door there or really that was that was probably a bad choice of mind to use that you know they probably won't even see it from the artifact from the stream so well we're just sorting that out so I'm sure if you could just give me a bit more star power to that would be great and then we'll be there in the meantime are there any other questions that well just like to let you know that the internet was really excited about uh using a more shallow depth of field right? Absolutely they're also they said thank you wow and awesome so am something's out thank you. Thank them for reminding me because I am that's what's great about the interactive it's difficult normally I just like I don't think about anything else doing this just kind of like him suddenly I'm sort of you know distracted but it's fun well gail was going to ask him questions but he got sidetracked so come right back picking up no yeah that's nice that's nice yeah well there that second golden visual oh my god it should let me do is that quarter that's that lamps a lot can you double it here because it's a lot warmer in that the other one yeah that's better go boy now we're just beginning to get a little bit of lies happening here can we see that everyone see what's beginning to happen him it's a little bit a little bit down minutes workable especially on the back of mark's head because she's got paler colored hair andi it shouldn't do so that's some let's start over and let's go back to number one's everybody and we'll try this again so now we're on a shallow depth of field okay, so they were just about that and then yeah that's that's a nice shot yeah that's cool okay and then give this shot I think it could be it's really quite gentle on them once once mark enters that it could be a little bit more energetic so why don't we have somebody I'm help on pulling focus on this camera because it's something going to need it I think way that we can stick up there to give someone kicking I think it's just ok it was just all right actually pick it out you know what we couldn't do let's see that's just didn't this guy down a little bit and then we'll maybe put up yeah and then then it'll probably it's probably a bit too much just split the difference on that there we go that's nice. Okay okay so I think we're ready for him another rehearsal let's try another astle against everybody said everybody their stations game all right, so if we're ready let's say roll camera okay and action so wait just start from the beginning you why don't you take me through your night last night starting out after about five p m I wass planning I'm meeting up with some friends my car broke down okay, where were you in your car broke down and where were you coming from? I was coming from uh uh my apartment on east like ok what's uh in your car broke down where I don't know the exact street it was it was generally listen had enough of this start talking now she's answering the questions we're just getting this not fast enough. You know what you start telling the truth now why were you with the mayor last night? My car broke down and I was why are you with the mayor? I don't need to ok let's just slow down a little bit we don't we're not getting to that yet okay why don't you tell me exactly where your card program that whenever men it rough like me they don't get what they want is that right? I got a whole rap sheet says men rough with you know so we're getting to that ok so what so where did your car break down exactly it was uh just off maybe boston and uh fair of you to tell you what why don't you put this on he put this on out you don't put it on let's count there guys that's great that's probably as much as we need to to go for so no suggestions for where we would go from here from the internet first we had a question are a suggestion about going through the blinds have lost as ah establishing shot through the blinds on the right wall that would be very nice the trouble is that that's just solid mirror there so that one unless we have some kind of make free lens we can't do that today with all right good idea but it's a very nice idea because that would suggest that mark had been watching this and it's probably a natural shot that you might do but in this case it looks like the window is actually a solid mirror so we can't do that I've been a very nice idea but sorry another suggestion from still, hutton point of view, should at same height as a table with a really shallow depth of field and focus on the hands. So getting to the same height, it's the table, focusing on the hands. Yeah, we've yeah, that's, a nice idea. So whenever we want to do now, anyway, we want to move in. So let's, move in, and we'll try and incorporate that shot.