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seven cinematography

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Joe Cage

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Hello,

I was rewatching seven (its been a while). But how do you reckon the following was lit? What light is hitting morgan freeman in the face, its not from the practicals, but it is flagged off so good that you dont see any spill anywhere on the walls. I did something similar on the spot a year ago, was just run and gun. But this looks 10000 times better then what I came up with.
It looks like 2 practicals, and 1 hard light(or is it a soft light) hitting his face flagged off properly, and then another soft china lantern or something lighting up the room?

Especially interested in the face light.

Su75Ljyl.png

Thanks,
 
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Joe Cage said:
Do you think it was a kino lighting this face. But wrapped in a lot black wrap then? or a curtain? As there is no spill, and kinoflo's spill allover due to its size.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, or any small fresnel snooted with black wrap or a leko.
 
Se7en is my favorite movie, and I loved the look of it as well. Just to add to this, there is this excerpt from the book "Conversations with Darius Khondji"

https://ascmag.com/articles/book-excerpt-conversations-with-darius-khondji

And some relevant quotes:

"Well, if you look at the interior scenes — for instance, the scenes shot inside the car — you can see that there are usually very bright exteriors and very dark interiors. That comes from Frank’s photos. What we did on Se7en was underexpose many of the interiors by two stops on a film negative that was quite contrasty. And underexposing by two stops really made the exteriors come alive, whether in the desert or the city, so that the brightness is always coming from the outside. In many of the interior scenes, there’s hardly any light except for a few fluorescents, with reflections running to your eye through all the shiny surfaces. If you look at Frank’s photos, such as the one he shot in a bar in Las Vegas, you can see the same thing. "

"Combining the warm light of Chinese lanterns with the colder light of Kino Flos was essential to the look of Se7en, and in a way they represented a crossroads for me: Kino Flos were the lights of the future, while Chinese lanterns were the lights of the past and present... It’s funny, because when you’re working on a movie like that, you don’t really know what it’s going to look like or who it’s going to interest. I mean, you see the dailies and parts of the edit, so you have a certain idea of the final result, but you’re clueless that it might be a hit. You’re just following a path — and you don’t even know if it’s the right path. You have no idea if it’s going to be influential, or anything… Even recently, I was watching the first season of True Detective and it reminded me of what we were trying to do back on Se7en. But when you’re shooting, you never think about those things. It’s only after the shoot that the film takes on a life of its own, almost as if you were never involved in it at all."
 
Just rewatched Se7en last week. Really noticed how Darius played textures, often with raking light angles and dark surrounds. I thought it reflected the importance of details, which was also a story beat in Morgan Freeman's veteran detective approach to investigation vs the facile ineptitude of Brad Pitt's bull in a china shop modality.

Also noticed how pervasive the rainy exteriors were and the unrelenting portrait of decaying, vermin infested urban blight. Fincher and Khondji essentially held our faces to the dark, rancid atmosphere in which the characters were trapped. Huge props to all involved.

Cheers - #19
 
To answer your actual question you can see the light fall off on his shirt, and the real hint is the tip of the pillow to the right of his head (his left), it's a hard light source flagged really tightly on him. There is a 2nd hard light source coming toward camera across the bed on the left. There is also a vertical reflection on the lamp to the right, but that could just be the shape of the lamp and the source on his face.
 
Christopher S Johnson said:
To answer your actual question you can see the light fall off on his shirt, and the real hint is the tip of the pillow to the right of his head (his left), it's a hard light source flagged really tightly on him. There is a 2nd hard light source coming toward camera across the bed on the left. There is also a vertical reflection on the lamp to the right, but that could just be the shape of the lamp and the source on his face.
Click to expand...
Thanks, what kind of hard light do you think it is? Looks like it could be very valuable for my set.
 
Could be two small hard lights above the lamp on the left, one to hit Freeman and one to hit the sheets on the left side. Or it was one Kinoflo just above the lamp flagged off of the walls aimed sort of diagonally. But I suspect it was two smaller tungsten lamps. Could be anything, maybe 150w-300w fresnels for example.

With the ENR printing in mind, some shots were flashed with a Panaflasher, otherwise there might be some dim ambient overhead fill for the room that dropped off to almost nothing once the silver retention printing was done (later home video transfers are from the negative, so this look would be created in digital color-correction by crushing the blacks a little.)
 
Would an aputure LS MINI20D give similar effect. Looking into buying LEDS, as its more convenient (dimming, not as hot, longer life). Or what LED lights would you recommend for something like this? Not sure if these give enough output, but I think a 120D would be a bit overkill, but could be wrong.
 
I use classic Dedo lights for scenes for that. Actually I just shot a feature film with basically 3 Dedos, a china ball and 2 Flolights.
 

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wow the aputure ls mini 20c is kinda expensive though. Its the same as the 120d. Now I am in doubt wich one to get. I thought it would be half the price of the 120d.
 
Joe Cage said:
Would an aputure LS MINI20D give similar effect.
Click to expand...

The thing you're looking for here is really control, more than power. There are a number of different ways to arrive at essentially this look, so the difference is in the nuance you can get with different tools. Is the beam hard enough to effectively cut on the Aputure mini light? (I see that it comes with barn doors, but these often are terribly effective on COB lights that don't have optics in front of the light).

Even if the 120D has more power than you need, it's really nice because there are a lot of accessories that allow you to shape and nuance the light effectively, such as the fresnel attachment (the new one is a much better design than the original) with barn doors. And for the ultimate control, you could use the leko attachment, which makes a very clean, precise, well-defined beam. It's also the light I'd choose if I were buying this to keep, since it can also be a used as a key or fill, depending on the situation. You can always dim it down to 2%.

As Frank suggests, rent or buy Dedolights (the new LEDs are very expensive, but you can find used tungsten ones) for the ultimate control in a small light. And you can often find Source 4 lekos really cheap, too-- though you'd probably have to dim them for this task, so factor in a solid dimmer.

If you're set on buying and want to go cheaper still, I think Nanlight makes a 60w light that looks pretty good, accepts similar accessories to Aputure.
 
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