What happened to the theatrical look?

B

bclighting

Well-known member
Pardon my sort of stream of consciousness post, this was something I was talking to my wife last night.

I was sitting watching Raiders of the Lost Ark the other day and thinking about how the theatrical lighting setups of the past seem to have been lost. It made me wonder what has happened to that "look". I have been trying to put my finger on exactly what created the look of the movies of the past. One thing I have noticed was the hard edge and eye level lighting. Today it almost feels like everything has gotten soft. I also noticed that there was much more backlight, hard and intense backlight at that. I miss the look of those older films. There is something warm and intrinsic about them. They invite you in to a time when the movie experience was something special and valued.

After Raiders was on, the new Crystal Skull one was on. I felt like they tried to somewhat reproduce the look of the old ones without much success. Aside from the overuse of CG, I felt that the lighting was almost distractingly wrong.

So with that in mind, I am curious what else was involved in creating the look of the older films. What am I missing and is it still possible to create a film that looks like they do? If so, why has everyone abandoned the techniques of the past. Maybe someone can point me to something new that could pass as a film from 1981.

One again, sorry about the rant, I just has to express what was rattling around in my head.
 
I'm with you on the preference. We use hard light almost exclusively. Once in a while the roll of 216 will come out, but you'll never see a soft box or a fluoro on our set, ever. Logistics of the shot means sometimes to can't use a rim light, but if there is any way to rig it (and the time) we always use one.

The diffused look has become very popular. I don't know if it's what they teach in film school now or not, but personally I don't care for it.
 
soft light (quite often) = zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..

I'm raised on a steady diet of Hammer films- to me, hard light is what makes movies look like movies. The worst part of the soft light look is the low contrast look of many night scenes. Wally Pfister and the big hollywood boys can pull it off, since they often add edge light and light the background to create contrast (white areas, basically) in the frame, but when I see a short film with that dull, muddy, boring, low-contrast night look (often just with blue added), I want to scream- its such a lost opportunity to create atmosphere. In hard light, night scenes really POP.

ill say it again: I hate hate hate this look, since its so clearly a huge loss of art in the supposed service of "realism"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z6xGU2_g9s

The trend towards naturalism in movies (especially horror movies) needs to die a little death, the genius of Nolan notwithstanding. Thank goodness Sam Raimi came back with Drag Me To Hell to remind us how important expressionism is to horror movies.

The horror movies ROOTS are in german expressionism!

So yeah, join the club, and make it fake with us, at least it'll be interesting!
 
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Blame it on digital cameras, At least I do. I have ranted on this subject like crazy in the past. I see lots of people telling guys that are buying their first cam to get a dslr, and to me, with going that route, they dont learn to light because they dont need much light to get exposure. And thats the problem, they only light for exposure, and not for motivation of the scene. I learned to light more working on a camcorder with a dof adapter because it eats tons of light, and that made me really think about how to light a scene in a way to get exposure, but with motivation as well. I'm so glad dslrs wern't out when I started, because I just might be one of the many that dont have a clue as to how to light a scene for mood, ambience, motivation, ect... The other plus, was I needed hard light, I couldn't really get the look, and lumens I was going for with soft boxes, although I do on occasion mix the two. But I agree, I love a 2k fresnel with a tungston lamp. It's so warm and inviting compared to these blueish greenish kinos and leds. I only will us them if I have to. I prefer tungston.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
I'm with you on the preference. We use hard light almost exclusively. Once in a while the roll of 216 will come out, but you'll never see a soft box or a fluoro on our set, ever. Logistics of the shot means sometimes to can't use a rim light, but if there is any way to rig it (and the time) we always use one.

The diffused look has become very popular. I don't know if it's what they teach in film school now or not, but personally I don't care for it.
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To defend the 'defused'... look... Most 'natural lighting' is not hard edged, and so, the defused look maps more easily into 'practicals' with support.

I personally have never liked 'hard light' relative to my own image formation, and accept it as a 'style of yore' for films. The only exception is if someone is trying for a 'vintage' look, then I'll evaluate it relative to the vintage antecedents...

For example, I think "Chinatown"(1974) sort of 'fails' relative to B&W Film Noir, but not so much as to be a total failure... but it doesn't quite get there... And it's not just because the use of 'color' film... most of the sets are lit way above 'film noir' levels...

But anyway... for me the 'softer' lights tend to be more realistic... which I think is a dominant element of the current aesthetic.

"Sin City"(2005) had quite a bit of sharp stylized hard lighting, but that 'style' has not been carried by many other 'major' films... In that regard, "The Spirit"(2008) did not do so well...
 
arri_studio_t24_01_det.jpg



Big studio fresnels, this one is 24KW tungsten with a 2 ft diameter lens. Nothing else looks quite like them. Hard and soft qualities to the light depending on how you use it. I love fresnels. They are like big optical paint brushes.

Those 70's and 80's negative stocks were not all that fast. Typically 100 ASA or so and maybe 9 stops or so of usable DR.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
To defend the 'defused'... look... Most 'natural lighting' is not hard edged, and so, the defused look maps more easily into 'practicals' with support.

I personally have never liked 'hard light' relative to my own image formation, and accept it as a 'style of yore' for films. The only exception is if someone is trying for a 'vintage' look, then I'll evaluate it relative to the vintage antecedents...

For example, I think "Chinatown"(1974) sort of 'fails' relative to B&W Film Noir, but not so much as to be a total failure... but it doesn't quite get there... And it's not just because the use of 'color' film... most of the sets are lit way above 'film noir' levels...

But anyway... for me the 'softer' lights tend to be more realistic... which I think is a dominant element of the current aesthetic.

"Sin City"(2005) had quite a bit of sharp stylized hard lighting, but that 'style' has not been carried by many other 'major' films... In that regard, "The Spirit"(2008) did not do so well...
Click to expand...

I'd argue that most old hollywood films AREN'T lit realistically, and that's what gives them the charm and the romance. Rarely is anyone in real life situations lit with 3 point lights... only in photo studios and hollywood backlots.

That's the problem with lighting for realism... it isn't particularly romantic. Realism is boring... just look around you...
 
Clearly though, each quality of light has its strengths and drawbacks, its pretty silly to say one is overall better than the other.

I mean, who wouldn't want to make something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4kO99Sg1fs

I still haven't figured out how to make hard light work for me, as mentioned in another thread- I can make a room look pretty atmospheric (using a dappled key), but I haven't figured out how to light my dames yet. So I might, for my next short, end up using my small softbox and just trying to get some contrast in there. I do truly hate that super-low contrast night look.
 
In "Rider's" times the look you speak off wasn't really a look yet but a way of lighting drama comedy adventures. You however trying to get the same look in 2012 will be making it into a "look" - meaning something artificial and imitating the past. Although you are partially right that "Skull's" lighting was wrong - if they were simply trying to replicate the past they too would be doing something wrong mostly because of the "look" comment above. As always when you try to do something new - and here the new of the "Skulls" was simply trying to avoid the past - you risk failing.
 
Im a soft light man but thats just taste (and practicality)

I think a low ISO stock, (and therefore the need to use lots of light) would tend to create the look you are after, or a lot of ND to create low ISO stock

Its an expensive approach however!

S
 
Raiders is very much classical studio lighting, but done very well. Sometimes it can get too "studio-y" for my taste, with double shadows everywhere and so little diffusion it just screams fake.
First things first, classical lighting started out in black and white, where everything was "unnatural" and it looks great there, as contrast is the only separation, but with color... Well I'm not as keen on it.
Because while too soft light lacks definition, it is also unreal, unmotivated and a lot of the time very unflattering (like the look of very hard light with a lot of lens diffusion). That is not to say to never use hard lights. Quite the contrary. To me, the big difference is to keep the fill and ambient light soft, with the key somewhere in between (and changing depending on the mood) and making use of hard spots, like kickers, but to keep them motivated (perhaps a window letting in hard sunlight?).

Here are to start with a great article breaking down Slocombe's work on Indy (and also explaining why it is hard):
http://provideocoalition.com/index....the_wind_the_making_of_a_mime_music_video/P2/

And another amazing by the same man (Art Adams) explaining the difference between hard and soft light:
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/lighting_strategies_soft_light_vs._hard_light/

I'm going to lend an example from him about both. That is Star Wars. The first film was shot by Gilbert Taylor, BSC, a great old school British DP. He shot Dr. Strangelove which is one the best looking B&W movies out there. But his work on Star Wars is very classical, using a strong hard light that moves from shot to shot completely unmotivated and counteracted by lens diffusion. The second film was shot by Peter Suschitzky, BSC (today famous for his work with Cronenberg) and is absolutely stunning. He was a more modern DP, using mostly soft light. Gone was the unmotivated, ever moving keylight in favor of big, soft sources. It is a film that could essentially have been made "yesterday". It was more real and to me it is beautiful.
 
berylium said:
I'd argue that most old hollywood films AREN'T lit realistically, and that's what gives them the charm and the romance. Rarely is anyone in real life situations lit with 3 point lights... only in photo studios and hollywood backlots.

That's the problem with lighting for realism... it isn't particularly romantic. Realism is boring... just look around you...
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I disagree.
Naturalistic lighting is often about cheating an ugly light into a beautiful light, without making it appear unnatural. You need to imagine images, see beauty in unexpected angles and "help" existing light. Sounds much less boring to me than just pointing a few hard lights towards the subject and yelling "Action!".
I also doubt that anyone out of the professional film/video world would ever call hard light "romantic". Softish light doesn't exist just because. It is the look of dawn and dusk, the look of the large window, the subtle look of the great paintings: half-tones and wrapping light suggesting shapes, not simply revealing them outright.
This is not to say that hard light is bad. On the contrary, it can be striking, beautiful, and, of course, realistic.


If you watch the old movies carefully you will see that DPs take great care to make hard light appear soft when lighting ladies. Both through frontal positioning to minimize shadows and skin texture, and through on-lens diffusion to minimize skin imperfections and add glow.

BTW, War Horse is a recent example of multiple hard unmotivated sources.
 
@cpc: Very well said. It's a great idea to know and understand hard light, but soft light, being more natural is always about motivating light. That light can then be hard too. It's just that if you look around you, there might be a hard sunlight shining into the room and then bouncing off the floor, into the roof and back down, creating a soft ambient level inside, but having a hard source too.
 
I am really enjoying this thread and everyone's insight and thoughts. I find it very interesting to see how things were done pretty much the same for 40+ years and then within a decade or so they seemed to have changed so drastically.

Since I started in theater I have always been intrigued by the unmotivated sources of the old movies. It reminds me of theater, which makes sense since that is the birthplace of it all. I agree that fast film stocks and now faster digital sensors are partially to blame. There is nothing like lighting a set with 100,000 kw of light just to get an exposure. Lighting not withstanding, I have to wonder if also the lenses used have changed and become sharper.

As I was looking up some of the other films that popped to mind, like The Sting, I saw that most of these DPs have long since passed. Could part of these techniques (if they could even be called that) have been lost as that generation left?
 
"But anyway... for me the 'softer' lights tend to be more realistic..."

There's where we get into aesthetics and no "right" answer. The LAST thing I want my shots to look like is "realistic". I'm very much into "Hollywood lighting". On my first film I told my DP to go watch lots of 1940's Warner Brothers.
 
cpc said:
If you watch the old movies carefully you will see that DPs take great care to make hard light appear soft when lighting ladies.

BTW, War Horse is a recent example of multiple hard unmotivated sources.
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this thread just got deep:

It's funny you say this- Ive been researching hard light techniques for awhile and one secret I discovered, is that, done well, a scene lit in hard light doesn't look too "sourcey", or obviously lit- in other words, the lighting, while not strictly realistic, is CONVINCING. You do, sometimes, use the idea of motivation, and often use multiple lights (often lighting the background seperately, and often in sections) to build up an organic effect that looks like it could be a natural part of the environment. So, at best, hard lighting is done somewhat naturalistically (although our idea of whats natural has changed with time).

Pulp Fiction DP Andzrej Sekula lights in hard light, and you can see here how the hard light feels like a natural part of the environment:

(warning- language):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-7f7vVCqvI
 
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CallaghanFilms said:
This....And this.
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Yes. Much as with the movement of 24 fps, there's a certain unreality which makes things cinematic.

If you want things truly natural, walk around with a camcorder. Boom. You're done.

If you want things cinematic, do the work which gives it to you.
 
I have always preferred the look of the soft lit "naturalistic" movies in the 70s. Don't get me wrong I love those classic "Hollywood" lit movies from my childhood. However, I prefer the lighting found in Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection and so on much more. One new film that I think replicates the look well is "Milk". Part of the reason though is that it's supposed to take place in the 70s so it LOOKS like its from the 70s.


Although, as stated before, hard lit sources can also be done well to be part of the environment like in Pulp Fiction. Another one of my favorites being "The Thing" from 1982.

 
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