Let's take a look at some of the excellent cinematography/lighting from HBO's "True Detective: Season 1" to learn how "atmosphere" is actually achieved in a dark and really damn cool story - - -
In this scene, Russ and Marty are sitting in a bar discussing the case.
Russ is focused on the case and Marty is trying to forget his problems, their body language demonstrates this perfectly.
The key to great LIGHTING (and ultimately cinematography in general) is...
S E P E R A T I O N in layers of the frame.
We can break the layers of the frame into foreground, middle, background.
FOREGROUND: BAR COUNTER
MIDDLE: MARTY/RUSS
BACKGROUND: BACK WALL
Lets talk about atmosphere and list the lighting elements that help to create SEPERATION in the frame of this shot!!!
I have broken it down into a chart below and this list:
FOREGROUND:
-Tungsten (warm orange) overhead light above them which gives us "motivation" for the...
- Soft tungsten (warm orange) light on the far camera right side of Russ, creating shadow on his camera left side of his face. Also, it further creates shadows on Marty's camera left side.
MIDDLE:
-Haze or smoke behind Russ/Marty created by a smoke machine which both picks up the light and creates depths and seperation between layers
-Soft (cool blue) hair light or edge light hitting Russ' back/shoulders to give him a very very subtle seperation from the background
BACKGROUND:
-Tungsten (warm orange) China ball on camera right side of Russ
-Neon (cool white/blue) sign directly behind him to create seperation from him and the back wall
Lets also look at the reverse shot on Marty
Okay! So this is really all the same setup with a MAJOR change, you will notice that the soft TUNGSTEN source has reversed sides and now hits Marty on his camera left side. This DOES NOT match the angle of the light in the last frame but clearly the lesson here is that consistency of lighting is NOT THAT IMPORTANT! STORY and creating intrigue on Marty's face with shadows is the primary goal of the filmmakers.
FILM VALOR is planning on recreating this scene soon when our latest equipment package arrives, stay tuned to our youtube channel to see this soon:
FILM VALOR CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYMpC0IdUggTr1xMMEqsCPw/featured