Cinematography in the ST - Influences, motifs, and techniques

Tell us about the use of the color red in the film.

Heinrichs: The way I perceived red entering the conversation was originally from Rian. He wanted it to be a significant part of the Crait battlefield scene. It was a combination of some of the tropes from The Force Awakens and some of the earlier Star Wars films. Red is used very sparingly in the original trilogy, but it usually has a very specific application — such as the Emperor’s guards in Return of the Jedi [AC June ’83]. We tried to do the same thing here without giving it any significance other than its intent within the scene.

This red was an intense, saturated and very specific part of the spectrum that Steve and Rian were after. So we were coming up with solutions that would work on the set as well as be something that the visual-effects could adapt to. It has a ceremonial aspect to it, which you see in Snoke's throne room — and a much more visceral and violent effect on the Crait battlefield. Star Wars is like a Western, with the black hats and the white hats; introducing red is another way of adding interest and a little bit of visual complexity while also keeping things simple.

"I did a lot of work in prep on our color science," the cinematographer adds.

"We're using a combination of camera formats to meet the practical demands of a big franchise movie," Yedlin explains, "But that wasn't a detriment to a coherent look because I don't believe that the camera model makes the 'look.' As long as you properly expose a high-quality professional format, the look comes from the lighting and from the mathematical transformations that prepare the captured image data for display. This film is a continuation of a cinematic discussion Rian and I have had over many projects together. Our goal is what Rian calls 'theatrical realism.'

For The Last Jedi lightsabers, Yedlin explains, "We went more with the traditional muted colors from the original trilogy compared to The Force Awakens, where the blades were a little more saturated, straight-on primary colors. We found the colors we liked by blending the RGB LED tape inside the sabers' blade — but that's mostly just for the interactive light, because the visual-effects team composited in the 'actual' sabers."

To establish the splendor of the opulent casino interior, Johnson and Yedlin envisioned a single, sweeping shot that would go from one end of the set to the other, skimming just above gaming tables and passing just between patrons. "The space-age casino set was about 120 feet long by 70 feet wide, and the shot needed to go right through the middle of the casino and [over] all of the casino tables," explains Hymns. "We couldn't get a crane in there because we were right up against the stage wall, so we laid 120 feet of track right down both sides of the set, put a dolly on each track, joined them with scaffolding — like a giant goal post, about 40 feet wide — and then mounted the camera [underslung] in the middle. I was on one dolly and a grip was on the other one, and we would push the dollies in sync along the length of the track."

Most of the Crait scenes involving principal actors were shot "on a huge set that Rick built on the Paddock tank at Pinewood, with smaller localized action on stages," the cinematographer adds.

Despite the magnitude of the production, Yedlin feels there's a strong sense of creative integrity to the finished film. "On the one hand, the bar is so high, and everything's got to be spectacular," the cinematographer says, "but on the other hand, we didn't want to fall into the mindset of, 'This is how they do things on big movies.' Rian and I wanted it to be strongly and classically cinematic — but in our own tastes, and not bowing to the pressures of what a 'franchise movie' is supposed to look like today. I think we hit both of those notes really well, and I'm excited about what we've done with lighting, texture and composition. Everything goes together."

Kylo Rey wrote:Appropriate to the discussion of the colour red in this film:

Tell us about the use of the color red in the film.

Heinrichs: The way I perceived red entering the conversation was originally from Rian. He wanted it to be a significant part of the Crait battlefield scene. It was a combination of some of the tropes from The Force Awakens and some of the earlier Star Wars films. Red is used very sparingly in the original trilogy, but it usually has a very specific application — such as the Emperor’s guards in Return of the Jedi [AC June ’83]. We tried to do the same thing here without giving it any significance other than its intent within the scene.

This red was an intense, saturated and very specific part of the spectrum that Steve and Rian were after. So we were coming up with solutions that would work on the set as well as be something that the visual-effects could adapt to. It has a ceremonial aspect to it, which you see in Snoke's throne room — and a much more visceral and violent effect on the Crait battlefield. Star Wars is like a Western, with the black hats and the white hats; introducing red is another way of adding interest and a little bit of visual complexity while also keeping things simple.

https://ascmag.com/articles/the-last-jedi-production-design

nickandnora wrote:So, I'm not sure whether to put this here or in predictions, but I decided on here in case anyone has any other film influences that they can draw on that I'm not thinking of...

A huge motif is obviously the opposite lined up lightsabers. In TFA they were lined up as they fought each other. In TLJ they were lined up as they fought together. So... what's the image going to be in the last film? Anyone have any ideas or any sources they can draw on for ideas? I really love that motif.

How to: Rey & Kylo vs. Snoke’s Elite Praetorian Guard wrote:
The moment Rey and Kylo Ren take on Snoke’s Elite Praetorian Guard’s is one of the many highlights from Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi. I’ll have more on how Industrial Light & Magic crafted Snoke soon, but here’s overall visual effects supervisor Ben Morris on how that lightsaber fight scene, which was overseen by ILM London VFX supe Mike Mulholland, came to be, including the curtain of fire surrounding them and the weapons used by the guards.

Ben Morris (overall visual effects supervisor): On paper it was an incredible thing, and you can feel the dynamics. To me that took the roof off of the LA premier. People were just screaming when they went back-to-back. What we always knew was, we had this amazing throne room set on Q stage at Pinewood. Rob Inch, who’s the stunt coordinator, had rehearsed for ages with Adam and Daisy, and Adam is a force to be reckoned with as an actor, as a physical actor as much as an emotional one, and Daisy worked very hard.

We knew they’d put in the hours, and Rian always had this vision of this red throne room that he designed with [Lucasfilm Design Supervisor] Kevin Jenkins, that he wanted this incredible boudoir to just, at some point during this fight, set on fire, and reveal that epic space outside.

So we sat down and said, ‘How much of this are we going to be able to do physically?’ We had the active LED sabres, which were far more reliable this time, more or less the same thing that, we’d dialled down the saturation of our sabres enormously in this film, which I think is a good thing. We spoke at length with [special effects supervisor] Chris Corbould and his special effects guys, and what we realised is Chris could provide us with some ember-y atmospherics that were basically fanned cardboard embers that lasted just for a brief period. Also, he could do the odd piece of burning wad, or red fabric soaked in isopropyl alcohol, so it’s a very cold burn. But that was it. This entire curtain thing going on had to fall to us.

Cutting it together for the first time you realise the energy of it, but the great thing about it is, it’s a sloppy fight, and Adam’s scraping his sabre on the floor, and it’s like a welding arc gouging out and throwing stuff up. The new weaponry that those new guards have got is great as well. We had to work out what to do with those weapons, and how they’ve got these sort of truncated lasers to make the edges more dangerous, the whip. Ultimately it was an awful lot of incredibly meticulous body tracking in roto.



The other thing we inevitably discovered is the red suits reflected all sorts of things. We were replacing helmets, arms, all sorts of stuff, and augmenting. We actually had to body track the majority of the highly reflective surfaces. The floor ultimately needed the full set of reflections.

I think everything layered on top of itself, great idea to start with, amazing stunt execution, super powerful sim work and body tracking, and then compositing. It was great. The thing where the guy pulls in the whip and pulls Rey towards him. He mimed the entire thing. There was no whip, and Daisy was pretending, just holding on to her stub of sabre. I was terrified that we weren’t going to have the right physical continuity of space as he was doing over there, but he’d rehearsed lots of times with a practical, and it worked out really well.

Going redder wrote: For the red crystals being thrown up from the ski speeders, ILM visual effects art directors Kevin Jenkins and James Clyne had done some early concepts of what it might mean, and the idea of these rooster tails came up. I think, as with everything in the film, Rian had a story that he wanted to tell through pictures and words. He wanted this thing that this red was secret, and there was a serenity to this incredible plain and this sort of massive door at the end.

We talked about the fact, it’s kind of like when an ice rink has just been freshly cleaned, and then the first skater gets out and starts gouging and slicing. That’s what he wanted these little ski speeders to be. Then slowly their crashes and the Tie Fighter interactions cause more and more of these red streaks and lacerations, as we used to describe it. That builds up and builds up until the cannon ultimately wipes a long line of this red, and then ultimately Rian wanted the red, almost a sort of Kurosawa bloodbath at the end, that they’re standing on, is this red plateau of, ‘What on Earth has happened there?’

Then even to have the white fallout of salt slowly settling to effectively cleanse it. For a while we had the white cleansing happen, but then we realised it didn’t have such drama as keeping the red. We knew from the get-go we’d have to work out how to make those speeders create these rooster tails and tie that to the animation. The great thing about rooster tails is, it’s like sports skiing, and you get those sort of banking sprays, and the curtains that we created with the two speeders. That was all in the original previs and ideas.

It was amazing, Eddie and his guys, Dan Pearson, the CG supervisor, spent a long time trying to work it out. One of the challenges for me there was, Rian always wanted redder, redder, redder, go red, and I think where we’ve ended up is something that is believable, but still reads as very vibrant red. If we’d gone almost too far it would’ve turned into sort of caramelised toffy apple and you might not have believed it, whereas there’s just the right amount of specularity when you need it. You get to see the really lush crystalline structures when you go inside on the Falcon chase. It was a lot of work, and trying to work out how to also have the beam of the mega-cannon clean that red stuff off the terrain.

At the end of the fight, Rian literally said, ‘Come on, this is full opera now. We’re in space, I want Wagner. This is a bloody big movement, and let’s bring the skies down and lets do all of that.’ The red just gave it that, and that’s why I think, again, Rian’s really clever. He sprinkles red through everything in the movie.

Mana wrote:I don’t know if this has been posted here before, but I found this interesting article:

How to: Rey & Kylo vs. Snoke’s Elite Praetorian Guard wrote:
The moment Rey and Kylo Ren take on Snoke’s Elite Praetorian Guard’s is one of the many highlights from Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi. I’ll have more on how Industrial Light & Magic crafted Snoke soon, but here’s overall visual effects supervisor Ben Morris on how that lightsaber fight scene, which was overseen by ILM London VFX supe Mike Mulholland, came to be, including the curtain of fire surrounding them and the weapons used by the guards.

Ben Morris (overall visual effects supervisor): On paper it was an incredible thing, and you can feel the dynamics. To me that took the roof off of the LA premier. People were just screaming when they went back-to-back. What we always knew was, we had this amazing throne room set on Q stage at Pinewood. Rob Inch, who’s the stunt coordinator, had rehearsed for ages with Adam and Daisy, and Adam is a force to be reckoned with as an actor, as a physical actor as much as an emotional one, and Daisy worked very hard.

We knew they’d put in the hours, and Rian always had this vision of this red throne room that he designed with [Lucasfilm Design Supervisor] Kevin Jenkins, that he wanted this incredible boudoir to just, at some point during this fight, set on fire, and reveal that epic space outside.

So we sat down and said, ‘How much of this are we going to be able to do physically?’ We had the active LED sabres, which were far more reliable this time, more or less the same thing that, we’d dialled down the saturation of our sabres enormously in this film, which I think is a good thing. We spoke at length with [special effects supervisor] Chris Corbould and his special effects guys, and what we realised is Chris could provide us with some ember-y atmospherics that were basically fanned cardboard embers that lasted just for a brief period. Also, he could do the odd piece of burning wad, or red fabric soaked in isopropyl alcohol, so it’s a very cold burn. But that was it. This entire curtain thing going on had to fall to us.

Cutting it together for the first time you realise the energy of it, but the great thing about it is, it’s a sloppy fight, and Adam’s scraping his sabre on the floor, and it’s like a welding arc gouging out and throwing stuff up. The new weaponry that those new guards have got is great as well. We had to work out what to do with those weapons, and how they’ve got these sort of truncated lasers to make the edges more dangerous, the whip. Ultimately it was an awful lot of incredibly meticulous body tracking in roto.



The other thing we inevitably discovered is the red suits reflected all sorts of things. We were replacing helmets, arms, all sorts of stuff, and augmenting. We actually had to body track the majority of the highly reflective surfaces. The floor ultimately needed the full set of reflections.

I think everything layered on top of itself, great idea to start with, amazing stunt execution, super powerful sim work and body tracking, and then compositing. It was great. The thing where the guy pulls in the whip and pulls Rey towards him. He mimed the entire thing. There was no whip, and Daisy was pretending, just holding on to her stub of sabre. I was terrified that we weren’t going to have the right physical continuity of space as he was doing over there, but he’d rehearsed lots of times with a practical, and it worked out really well.

https://vfxblog.com/2017/12/30/how-to-rey-kylo-vs-snokes-elite-praetorian-guard/

The Searchers takes place on the threshold of that choice, in the abyss of various borderlands, external and internal. And for some of the characters, going in or staying out isn’t a choice at all, it’s just the way things work. Everything you want, everything you search for, is “out there”, or, on the flipside, everything you want is “in there”. There is a giant gap between in and out. Characters are seen standing a bit away from the house, with people clustered in the doorway, and it seems like anything, anything can happen in that gap. There is no white-picket-fence safety of a little front yard. Slaughter can happen in that 20 foot gap, swift and terrible. So you must choose. As the terrifying Judge shows in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, there are things that happen in life, choices you make, that forever banish you from the cozy world of the indoor, from civilization itself. There is a point of no turning back. Looking through doorways, into something going on through yet another doorway, is an image that repeats throughout the film. Whatever happens through a door, whatever is glimpsed, is the truth of the matter, a truth usually unspoken and private.

Q: What are the values of film that you particularly like?
A: I love the complexity and cinematic richness of the “look” that’s associated with traditional contact printing (i.e. camera negative directly contact-printed to print stock) – the long toe in the shadows and the long shoulder in the highlights, the complex skin tones and the color rendition that is so artful. But, there’s no out-of-the-box solution for scanned film to yield that contact-printed look. That’s partly why we did the rigorous color science in prep to make sure we could bring all stocks and cameras seamlessly into a single neutral space and, from there, create our show look inspired by traditional contact printing.

Q: Are there any scenes that you are particularly fond of from a cinematographic point of view?
A: There are so many shots/scenes that I love in the movie that come from beautiful collaborations – not just me and my department, but also because of Rian’s vision, the amazing artistry of ILM and the brilliant work of production designer Rick Heinrichs and his team.

But, just for my part — for the lighting I did with gaffer Dave Smith — I think my favorite scene is the Mine Control Room (after the hole has been blown in the door). I love how the particular drama of that scene plays out in that setting: with the dim dank light of the Control Room’s own internal illumination juxtaposed with the blazing sun pouring in from the hole in the door.

Xylo Ren wrote:Look at how these exact same camera angles were meant to contrast!

I never realized how removing the helmet was shown from the exact same angle in both movies. Whenever you do that it's to show a parallel, to show difference the second time.

Look at this wonderful contrast: in the first one he's confident and proud while in TLJ he's broken and beaten! One he's before Rey and the other he's before Snoke. Brilliance!







credit to 1captainswan1 on tumblr!

LadyHa wrote:I'm sure that others noticed this before, but I didn't until I got the digital version.  When Kylo closes his gloved hand at the end of the second force bond scene, there is a fade over to a spinning blue ship that starts right in the middle of his fist. It recalls the blue amulet tracker that is often shown in Leia's, Finn's, or Rey's hand and represents a connection to Rey.  It happens pretty fast, so I made a slowed down GIF to show it alongside Rey making a similar motion:

LadyHa wrote:I'm sure that others noticed this before, but I didn't until I got the digital version.  When Kylo closes his gloved hand at the end of the second force bond scene, there is a fade over to a spinning blue ship that starts right in the middle of his fist. It recalls the blue amulet tracker that is often shown in Leia's, Finn's, or Rey's hand and represents a connection to Rey.  It happens pretty fast, so I made a slowed down GIF to show it alongside Rey making a similar motion:

SoloSideCousin wrote:

And on another point, wow ... his hand is lot wetter than I thought it was, lol. HD is king!

LadyHa wrote:

SoloSideCousin wrote:

And on another point, wow ... his hand is lot wetter than I thought it was, lol. HD is king!

@SoloSideCousin

Hee hee. I hadn’t looked that closely, but now I see it- his hand is literally dripping wet.