Science Fiction DoPs: Their Work, Colour Palettes, and Lighting Styles
As I mentioned in my previous blog entries “The Minor Project: My Idea And Objectives“ and “The Sci-Fi Genre: Definition and Style”, for my further research within my Minor, and in term of the two FMP productions later this year, I decided to settle on a darker Science Fiction setting.
My Research
For this, I conducted research into three DoPs (Director of Photography), who have worked within that style in order to learn a bit about their darker Sci-Fi lighting styles and colour palettes. Thus, I especially looked at Hoyte van Hoytema, Wally Pfister, and Jess Young. This is because I admire the intricacy and execution of their lighting styles in tandem with their respective colour schemes, which helps a lot with the setting of the film and the genre of Science Fiction itself.
My Procedure
Since Science Fiction – depending on its sub-genre – can be a difficult style to portrait, I figured that this might be a good starting point for me to develop a feeling for the style itself by looking at reference images.
But how do you extract information from a reference image?
Analysing Colour Dominance
As I find it sometimes difficult to exactly pinpoint colour palettes within certain lighting scenarios (I always tend to go more intense in my estimates), I decided that I would look into online resources that would help me establish the colour as it appears on the screen. Because of this, and after recommendation by Lynley, I conducted research online and found two free websites that would do just that: Palette Generator and Canva Colours.
Now both websites have their strengths and weaknesses, which need to be pointed out here in order for a better understanding of my procedure:
With Palette Generator, you are offered a variety of different options regarding the numbers of analysed colours, analysing from 2 up to 10 dominant colours in any given image. While it is a helpful feature to have, I find that any number under 5-6 is usually too small in order to accurately measure the dominant colours in the image, and any number above is usually so detailed that you can quickly lose overview of the amount of colours presented. However, depending on the purpose of your analysis, it is still nice to be offered that option.
In addition to that, Palette Generator not only displays the individual images both in a pie chart (reflecting their dominance in the image) as well as in a colour palette, it also refers to each individual colour by the CSS 6-digit hex color notation, allowing you to retrace that exact colour in post for colour grading purposes.
In comparison to Palette Generator, Canva Colours proves to be a lot more restricted in its services. First of all, Canva Colours sadly only allows for individual uploads of reference images, which takes a lot of time if you have a bulk of images you want to analyse in terms of their colour palette.
Second of all, it only offers you the option of analysing the five most dominant colours in any given image. While this will be enough for my purposes at hand, more option would have been nicer. Lastly, Canva Colours does not offer you a pie chart display of the colours, but only arranges the most dominant colours in a colour palette, revealing nothing about the dominance or percentage of any particular colour in any given image.
Analysing Lighting Styles
While analysing the lighting style of any given scene and/or reference will be important for the course of this module, it will fall to another blog entry on lighting styles and setups, which will follow nearer the time. For the time being, I only wanted to establish that this is an important part of cinematography – especially in science fiction – of which I am aware I still need to analyse.
Science Fiction Cinematographers
Since you can only ever successfully understand a certain style by looking at other's work, I look decided to look at cinematic work by my favourite DoP’s, which are: Hoyte van Hoytema, Wally Pfister, and Jess Hall.
Hoyte van Hoytema
The half-Swedish, half-Dutch cinematographer is one of my favourites so far! I love his versatility behind the camera and in lighting, especially in film such as Her (2013), Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), and Ad Astra (2019). For my purposes though, I will only be looking at reference images of his darker Science Fiction films, which are Interstellar and Ad Astra.
Interstellar (2014)
With Interstellar, one important aspect that seems rather noticeable is the soft, rather natural lighting that is applied in many of the shots, as seen in the example above. Furthermore, not only the use of darker, muted colours, but also the dominance of browns as well as the shallow depth of field are rather obvious, contrasted to the usually deep focus that is often applied in Science Fiction and that goes congruent with the more naturalistic Sci-Fi style as delineated in my last blog entry “The Sci-Fi Genre: Definition and Style”.
Ad Astra (2019)
With this example image, strong, sickly colours like the green shown here give off a slightly tinted effect, underlining the artificiality of life in outer space. Furthermore, the applied three-point-lighting – in addition to the shallow depth of field – helps accentuate the main character from the background, singling him out, isolating him. Another noticeable feature is not only the lack of an eyelight, but also the use of bokeh in the background. This lighting style goes rather congruent with the cleaner lighting style of scientific Sci-Fi.
Wally Pfister
Wally Pfister is another brilliant DoP, whose work I admire, especially in regard to lighting as applied within the Batman Trilogy (2005, 2008, and 2012) and in Inception (2010). For my purposes, I will thus be looking at reference images of Inception.
Inception (2010)
Again, a noticeable feat, that is also visible within this example image, is the shallow depth of field and use of bokeh, much like in Ad Astra. However, in contrast to this, here, the dark colours – with a dominance of blues over the blacks – is enhanced by natural, rather motivated lighting that seems to only come from one source with a low intensity and without the use of a backlight.
Jess Hall
Lastly, UK-born Jess Hall has massively impressed me with his work on colour and lighting in Ghost in the Shell (2017), a film which I have come to love after watching the original anime from 1995, despite it’s obvious and cringe-worthy whitewashing. Despite that, however, I will take a look at a reference image from this film for my purposes of study.
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
With Ghost in the Shell, there is also a dark colour palette with a variety of dark blues and a shallow depth of field, much like in Inception. However, there has been a more elaborated lighting style, consisting of a motivated three-point-lighting on a low to medium intensity and an eye-light. Furthermore, there is a predominant use of a shallow depth of field that enhances the feeling of being in the darkness and being unable to see very far; a lighting style that is befitting the sub-genre of (post)apocalyptic and dystopian Sci-Fi.
A Change of Plans
During the course of our FMP preproduction meetings for Pillars of Creation last week – and the subsequent design ideas and choices of our art director Eline – we settled for a more futuristic, rather bright design that not only entails indirect lighting, but also a colour palette of whites, warm greys and lighter browns, only intermittently broken up by red emergency alert and dark colours.
Since this now clashes with the initial idea of a darker science fiction style dominated by blacks, blues, and dark greys (apart from few selected scenes) – and applied by the abovementioned DoPs Hoyte van Hoytema, Wally Pfister, and Jess Hall – I decided that I need to conduct further research into different lighting styles and colour palettes for Science Fiction to see whether I could make this work at all.
For this, I conducted research pertaining to bright colours in science fiction and quickly came across a blog article with the title “20 Churches That Look Like Spaceships”, deciding to have a quick browse through the images. And I was rewarded well beyond my imagination. For some of the images not only reflected the style Eline wanted to use for the set…
… they also reminded me of a Science Fiction film that I had considered looking at, but not really thought that I would end up applying in greater detail during my Minor Project: namely Arrival (2016) shot by the DoP Bradford Young.
Bradford Young and Arrival (2019)
With Bradford Young, I admire his restricted colour palette and very controlled, softer but nonetheless natural lighting that reminds of an overcast day. There is a dominance of greys, darker whites and browns, while reds are sometimes reduced to browns or auburn. Also, there is a lot of silhouetted lighting and the focus even shallower than with, for example, Inception or Ad Astra.
I like the compromise of his imagery that manages to incorporate whites, browns and greys by still giving the film a darker, futuristic look. It fits both purposes of my Minor and FMP and will thus help me in understanding and applying more intricate lighting situations.
Defining and Settling on a Lighting Style
With the current state of my research, I will now have to see how many lighting styles I can sensibly fit into my schedule for Minor Project. While two different lighting styles does not seem like much on the first glance, it will become massive given the extreme restrictions on time and studio space. Since I can only ever conduct convincing comparative camera tests by using the same lighting scenario, two different lighting setups would be required every time I go for a camera test, which would crunch our schedule even more than it already does and allow no time for reshoots, in case we run into difficulties with equipment.
Hmmm... Time to get finally settled on the lighting style then, eh?
References:
Canva Colours (2019) Homepage [online] Images taken from: https://www.canva.com/colors/color-palette-generator/ [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
Gray, J. (2019) Ad Astra [Film] USA, China, and Brazil: New Regency Pictures et.al. Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2935510/mediaviewer/rm1935774465 [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
IMDB (2019) Bradford Young [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2284226/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1 [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
IMDB (2019) Hoyte van Hoytema [online] Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0887227/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1 [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
IMDB (2019) Jess Hall [online] Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0355722/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1 [Accessed on 18 October 2019] Image taken from: https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/jess-hall-bsc-30-minutes-or-less/ [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
IMDB (2019) Wally Pfister [online] Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002892/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1 [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
Jonze, S. (2013) Her [DVD] USA: Annapurna Pictures Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/mediaviewer/rm2079969280 [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
Meier, A. (2013) 20 Churches That Look Like Spaceships [online] Images taken from: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/churches-that-look-like-spaceships [Accessed on 18 September 2019]
Nolan, C. (2005) Batman Begins [DVD] USA and UK: Warner Bros. et.al.
Nolan, C. (2008) The Dark Knight [DVD] USA and UK: Warner Bros. et.al.
Nolan, C. (2010) Inception [DVD] USA and UK: Warner Bros., Legendary Entertainment, and Syncopy Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/mediaviewer/rm973442560 [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
Nolan, C. (2012) The Dark Knight Rises [DVD] USA and UK: Warner Bros. et.al.
Nolan, C. (2014) Interstellar [DVD] USA, UK, and Canada: Paramount Pictures et.al. Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/mediaviewer/rm2214672896 [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
Nolan, C. (2017) Dunkirk [DVD] UK et. al.: Syncopy et.al.
Oshii, M. (1995) Ghost in the Shell [DVD] Japan and UK: Kōdansha et.al.
Palette Generator (2019) Homepage [online] Images taken from: https://palettegenerator.com [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
Sanders, R. (2017) Ghost in the Shell [DVD] USA et.al.: Paramount Pictures et.al. Image taken from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219827/mediaviewer/rm2772119552 [Accessed on 18 October 2019]
Villeneuve, D. (2016) Arrival [DVD] USA, Canada, and India: Lava Bear Films et.al.