An Experiment in Virtual Lighting #4

For this experiment, I've retired our Mudbox mannequin in favour of a more detailed model. Henry simply didn't have the detail nor the shiny eyes for this experiment.

I've also ditched the mathematical approach while trying to remember the lessons learnt.

We'll call our new model Bernie.

Bernie's a happy chap. He's an old model of mine. I've had to render him in Blender because Maya wouldn't play ball with his textures. The lighting settings are similar to Henry's last set up but we've moved away from the symmetrical composition and lighting that Henry was subject to.

Here's Bernie with a slightly yellow key light supported by a blue fill light (at one third intensity) and a barely noticeable back light. Arranging and capturing a catch light proved quite difficult as Bernie wears glasses. This is a broad light shot illuminating the side of the model facing the camera.

Tracking around Bernie and swapping the key and fill lights on the horizontal, Bernie is rendered in a far more dramatic fashion. The back light also comes into play defining his hat, neck, jaw and shoulder. Bernie's features are accentuated with a greater tonal contrast. His glasses reflect some catch light and there is also a suggestion in his left eye.

Exactly the same shot as above but with the lights rotated around Bernie (on the -ve Y axis in Maya terms). This demonstrates an extreme short light. The portion of the model that is most brightly lit is facing away from the camera.

As a demonstration of the dramatic possibilities of lighting, here Bernie is subjected to a low angle key light and a high angle back light which defines his hat and shoulders. This once friendly character takes on the persona of an interrogator, a stalker or... what else?

This was an easier angle for the catch light to take effect. Unfortunately Bernie only comes alive when he's in serial killer mode.

Sorry Bernie, under this lighting the grin only makes it worse...

An Experiment in Virtual Lighting #3

To save me the bother of calculating every time I want to find a complimentary fill light colour, I created a spreadsheet to do the job for me.

My grandly titled "Additive Light Calculator"

The colour tint values are entered as a base for the result of the additive mix. In this case, the chosen colour is white (R:255, G:255, B:255).

Key light values are entered. I chose a deep, warm tan (R:233, G:153. B:52)

These values are subtracted from the required colour tint and the result is the complimentary fill colour. This time, a dark blue (R:22, G:102, B:203)

Using tertiary colours (rather than the primary or secondary) is definitely an improvement. Subjectively, the light appears more natural, more subtle while offering contrast in tone and hue across the form.

This light set up is for demonstrating additive lighting. I suspect that using a purely mathematical approach is not the answer to creative lighting but we'll plow on and see if we can improve...

An Experiment in Virtual Lighting #2

Remember Henry our Mudbox mannequin? I've brought him back under Maya's virtual studio lights to test the Primary/Secondary colour mix theory.

Primary: Blue (R:0, G:0, B:255) Secondary: Yellow (R:255, G:255, B:0)

It's all gone a bit disco for Henry but the theory appears to hold up under our virtual conditions. As you can see, Henry is lit by 2 spot lights of the same intensity (1.0). They are acting as twin key lights at 22.5' and -22.5'. There are distinct areas of our primary and secondary colour lights (to Henry's extreme left and right) and, where they overlap most, areas where they mix to produce a white (or certainly whiter) light.

Primary: Red (R:255, G:0, B:0) Secondary: Cyan (R:0, G:255, B:255)

 Primary: Green (R:0, G:255, B:0) Secondary: Magenta (R:255, G:0, B:255)

Not entirely scientific (and not particularly useful outside 50's sci-fi and 70's disco) but we don't have to stick with these garish lights. If we apply the same additive theory to more subtle lighting, can we find a more subtle effect and use it in a creative way?

Sorry Henry, you're not finished yet...

White Light/White Heat

Taking the additive RGB model a little further, it's apparent that a white surface will appear white when the three primary colours are reflected equally and at full intensity.

In the case of Maya's lighting we can use the RBG model with a range of 0-255 for each of the red, green and blue colour channels.

You can see from this example that I've selected the RGB, 0 to 255 model. All of the RGB values are set to the maximum (255) and the additive result is a white. This is the same process as we see in the mixing of primary colours in the image above.

What of those secondary colours? The cyan, magenta and yellow?

If yellow light represents an additive mix of green and red (R:255, G:255, B: 0) then adding blue light (R:0, G:0, B:255) should produce our white light.

The expected result. A primary colour added to it's complimentary, secondary colour creates a white light. We should expect the same results from the mixing of:

But why should it stop there? If we can mathematically calculate the additive values to create a white light (or any other colour), we can choose the colours of our lighting and accurately predict the colour of the resulting mix. Or, conversely, choose the result, the required tint and calculate the colour of lighting required.

Worth an experiment?

Three Spots of Illumination

A very simple animation demonstrating the additive interaction of the primary colours of light.

I created three hard spot lights and coloured them pure red, green and blue (with a value 255 in Maya). They were pointed directly at a pure white plane. The lights were parented to a dummy cube object which was key-framed to dolly on the +ve Z axis. The penumbra angle was then keyed to display a fuller colour gamut.

Technicalities aside, I hope this shows how, even with virtual lighting, the primary colours add up to white (ish) light.

Exposure explained again

This is a simple overview of the factors that affect exposure. The presenter isn't shy of hammering home the basic principles and gives some examples of which settings are of most concern when shooting different subjects.

The second video in the series moves on to explaining the use of "stops" (in shutter speed and ISO as well as aperture) to maintain a balanced exposure.

Working with Mrs. Lewis

Mrs. Lewis is a professional gardener and is armed with nothing more than a smartphone for taking shots. I must have been boring her silly about photography over the last few weeks. She stopped work to take this photo because of the fantastic colours of the fallen leaves which the wind had carved into a path.

I took the liberty of cropping and colour grading it.

The Griffiths' Garden in Autumn, Jeannette Lewis, 26th October 2015

The colours of the fallen autumn leaves are amazing but the compositional colour balance is very awkward. The deep green of the hedges has no balance. There is also tonal asymmetry but I saw this as less of a problem and more of an opportunity.

The Griffiths' Garden in Autumn (Edit), Jeannette Lewis, 26th October 2015

Reduced to black and white, a purely tonal composition, the deep reds and greens become more harmonious and the darkness of the bushes less distracting. The path of leaves is now freer (supported by the bush) to force the viewer to the focal point of the porch.

In "reducing" to black and white I made adjustments in the tonal values of selective colours.

I get the feeling that a dark figure (or figures), a silhouette in the porch , would have completed the image. 

Autumn Windfalls

I took this photo a few days back. It's a very autumnal scene with windfall pears and fuchsia flowers.

I've just put it through Photoshop's RAW editor and cropped it.

Given that is was an overcast day and it's taken under a pear tree and dense fuchsia bush, the colours are very vibrant. I've really only corrected the white balance (to the "daylight" rather than "overcast" setting), gently massaged the exposure and contrast and taken out a little yellow.

I used my borrowed Nikon D7000 with a Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm lens (fixed) @ f/1.4, 1/1320s, ISO 100.

Original image

Corrected and cropped

This lens can be set to a very large aperture so I think this is how the image was acceptably bright even at a shutter speed of 1/320s and a low ISO. This meant that the DOF was very tight and I think I've missed some foreground detail that I'd have liked to have captured. Going by the 1/3-2/3 principle for DOF, I could have dollied out and caught more of the foreground.

The general focus isn't perfect either but with manual focus and these settings, it felt quite unforgiving. I could have fired off a few more shots and hoped for more.

Compositionally I quite like it. The bright focal point ends up being a little off the third mark in the leaves to the right. The line of yellow pears takes the eye around to where you find the in-focus fuchsia flowers.

More experimentation required...

An Experiment in Virtual Lighting #1

What better way of finding out about lighting than flinging around 8000W of red hot cans? Not having an 8000W lighting rig, I settled for some virtual spots in a Maya scene and a Mudbox mannequin (who we'll call Henry).

One Spot...

I started with the basics. One key light, a spotlight directed along the Z axis (0') at an intensity of 1.0.

Henry is certainly lit but it's pretty uninspiring, very symmetrical and overexposed.

Moving the light might add more interest. I moved this single light by 45' and then 90' on the Y Axis.

At 45'

At 90'

A definite move away from the tonal symmetry. The light is at the same intensity so Henry still suffers from overexposure in the highlights. The effect is certainly more dramatic. The contrast between light and shade becomes increasingly stark as we move to 90'. We do however, lose all sense of form in the shadowed areas.

Two Spot...

Time to add a fill light to give us back some of that form.

Both the key and fill lights are at 45' (and -45') on the horizontal. As both lights are at an intensity of 1.0, Henry is very blown out. The highlights have taken over and we're back to that tonal symmetry.

With that single key, moving towards the 90' added more drama and removed symmetry. With both lights set to opposing 90', we do have a dramatic contrast but Henry is back to his symmetrical self. If we're looking for some interesting asymmetry, the lights are going to have to be asymmetrical in position and intensity.

The key light is now at 45' (Intensity 1.0). The fill light remains at -90' at half the intensity (0.5). We have that tonal asymmetry while retaining form in most of the shadowed areas. Henry's highlights are still suffering from overexposure and his silhouette could do with some attention.

Three Spot...

This is the same setup as the two spot with the addition of a back light (intensity 0.5). This has the effect of picking out Henry's silhouette. Note the crown of his head and the form of his shoulders.

The key light has also been dimmed (intensity 0.5) to address the blown out highlights. To retain the asymmetrical tonal balance, the fill light has also been dimmed (intensity 0.2).

Up to this point we've had Henry under some pretty hard lights. An adjustment in the penumbra angle value softens the edges of the spots' light cones.

More

That's a basic 3 light rig but where else can we go? Some light from below?

This image has an additional low angle fill light at an intensity of only 0.1. It has quite an effect on the result, more evenly lighting Henry overall.

By changing intensities, we swap the roles of the key and low angle fill lights. This creates low angle key (intensity 0.7) and high angle fill (moved to 45' on the vertical and intensity 0.1) lights. This dramatically alters the image and accentuates Henry's under brow. His crown and shoulders retain some form by use of the back light. This is a look reminiscent of horror and thriller films as the subject takes on a looming, ominous appearance.

While every image was taken from exactly the same, neutral angle, it's very obvious that the lighting set up has a profound effect on the resultant images.

ISO terms - The Mysteries Of The Borrowed Camera & The Basics Of Kitchen Utensils

A good friend lent me a DSLR camera with the caveat that "If I lose it, break it, scratch it, I have to sell my car to pay for it".

I signed in blood.

In his kindness, I have received a suitcase of lenses, filters, flashes and a scary number of bits and bobs.

Having not figured out the ISO thing, I thought I'd try out the camera with the lens that came attached and just fiddle with the that ISO thing...

So... I wander around the house with this fantastic piece of kit....

A Nikon D7000 with a Sigma 18-200mm lens @ 98mm, f/5.6 and 1/160s.

The pictures were taken under a poor fluorescent light which tested the sensitivity between 1250 and an amazing 25600 ISO.

 1250 ISO

 4000 ISO

 6400 ISO

 12800 ISO

25600 ISO

Without bothering about white balance, the full resolution image does get "grainier" as the ISO rises. Given the resolution of  the original RAW images (4928 x 3264), you would have to consider your target output before deciding whether grain would make a difference. 

Selective reasoning

I'm in the process of converting from Blender to Maya and one hurdle has been the change in component selection methods (and keyboard shortcuts).

It may not be immediately apparent but a proficiency in selecting and navigating a mesh is a necessity if you want to;

• Create anything more complicated than a primitive mesh,
• be able to edit that mesh in a deliberate and meaningful way,
• model at any speed above "painfully slow",
• maintain desired form and clean topology,
• understand why component loops and rings are important and
• avoid destruction of personal property in a fit of pique and frustration.

I finally managed to find this video (which is aimed at people converting from Soft Image to Maya) but it describes Maya's selection tool set very well.

You can't have it all... but you can bloody well try

I want a high angle (but suggestive of a surveillant POV) with a veeeerrry slooow creep zoom ending in a long, tracking, two shot.... OK?

The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola, 1974

Yes, of course Mr.Coppola. Will there be anything else?

Well.... if I'm honest.... That's just the titles...

The Basic Panoramic - A Robyn Amongst The Pigeons

Just a simple shot of the common Robyn amongst the local pigeons.

The perspective is totally out of whack. This partial panorama gives a fish-eye effect on the horizontal to the shot. Apart from the moment, I love the almost-tropical feel of the image even though it was taken in Brynmill Park, Swansea in late summer.

Cheating the DOF

In lieu of using a genuine DSLR camera, I've been taking shots with my camera-phone. I've got a HTC One M8s which has the odd ability to take photos that include depth information via a "duo camera" set up. The benefit of this is that you can post-process depth of field (DOF) in the camera's own software.

I know it's probably not the done thing but the results from a tiny lens, tiny aperture, tiny sensor machine are pretty impressive to my eye.

A simple eye level, over shoulder, two shot. Focal point is the far character in both composition and focus. Light from the window is over exposed but the contrast with the subjects draws the eye from screen left to right maybe?

Another eye-level, two shot. Again, focus is on the far character. His eye line suggests that we look out towards the secondary character but the DOF defies this. A better tonal balance in this shot.

A very close up, eye-level profile shot. Strong tonal contrasts assist the perception of form and add a little drama at the expense of detail in the darker areas.

A low angle, mid shot. The focal point is assisted by the defocus effect on the foreground and background. The composition is not traditional but the darkness of the subject's clothes help to draw the eye to his face and hands.

I have run these through Photoshop for colour correction and cropping but the DOF is the product of the HTC's secondary depth sensor and software.

You can find a brief description of the technology in this video (and it is the least cheesy I could find!)

One of my friends with a beard did bring along a Canon Eos with a fixed 50mm lens which we took loads of photos with. If I can get hold of some digital copies, I'll post them here.

The 30 Camera Shots Every Film Fan Needs To Know (Thirty! Three-Zero!!) - Part Two

Five more examples from the Empire Online article:

Establishing Shot

You could choose the carefully crafted opening shots from Blade Runner as an example but this is a fine establishing shot from a superb film.

Handheld

This is a great scene from Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973). The handheld begins when the bar brawl begins. There are tracking handhelds following the action with cuts to (almost) over shoulder shots of specific action points. The scene as a whole is chaotic, believably ad lib in appearance and the handheld camera supports this.

Low Angle

Why the low angle shot here? Empire's recommended shot was of Darth Vader stalking the Death Star. That's clearer in concept. The low angle exaggerates an on-screen character's height and presence. This scene largely comprises a low angle two shot from the point of view of the viewer. Are we all below these men?

High Angle

I think that this video demonstrates the extreme of high angle shots (referring to it as the "God's eye view"). It does display a very powerful viewpoint. As with my previous comments on chiaroscuro, it's not something to be used lightly (hmm!).

Locked-Down Shot

You'll see this shot at around 4:10 in this scene. The actors wander off screen left while the dialogue and the environment carry the story. For me this works well. It's understated and that suits Allen's style and storytelling. The characters are part of the environment, the characters are a product of the environment. Above all, it strikes me as the way I might observe this scene in real life if I was not watching Woody Allen and Diane Keaton.

How clean are your whites?

Cambridge in Colour finally comes into the frame with a top hit on Google!

I was looking up "white balance". Hopefully we can avoid problems caused by auto white balance because we'll be using manual balancing techniques but what's that about?

According to Cambridge in Colour;

White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "color temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources

It's a peculiar process because my eyes (and brain) adjust to different colours of ambient light without making any fuss with my conscious thought. It just happens. Stick me in candlelight or moonlight, my brain is going to interpret "white" as the lightest colour and all other colours will be relative to that. It's automatic.

The "unrealistic colour casts" may, in fact, be entirely realistic but the camera doesn't have our eye and brain. When we view those images, we are back to the eye/brain combo though. Food for thought.

Skipping over the technicalities of "blackbody" temperatures we find a chart describing the relative "temperatures" of different light sources.

Image source: www.cambridgeincolour.com/

As far as I can make out, this takes us from a relatively red light at low values to a bluer hue at higher values? A balanced "white" light lies in the 5000K to 6000K region.

....aaaaanddd this means what exactly?

I guess this is a matter of consistency across a number of shots. A deliberate shift in white balance might be desirable where a change of mood or time-shift is being portrayed. Where consistency is the requirement and ambient colour temperature changes, white balance is what we need to consider.

Image source: www.pitt-pladdy.com/blog/

Having used Photoshop-like programmes for a long while, I'm intrigued to find out the pros and cons of post-colour grading versus the use of a neutral reference. It would appear that in anything other than a "colour-critical" project, the comparative colour temperature will be as effective as the absolute.

The main thing we need to worry about for general photography is white balance. White balance is simply a matter of adjusting the levels of RGB to ensure that white objects appear white in the photo. For example, when things are lit by tungsten, we need more blue and less red, else the photo would come out looking very yellow/orange. So for the examples above, we can compensate and get reasonably good colour back:

Source: www.pitt-pladdy.com/blog/

Image source: www.pitt-pladdy.com/blog/

Of course, "colour critical" could apply to anything which involves more than one shot, taking place across any period of time and possibly by a team of more than one person.... which just about covers it.

Best to learn it properly and then try an informed comment?

Very probably.

A Fine Bokeh

...soooo, the size of your lens' aperture affects your depth of field. What about the shape of the aperture? Welcome to the concept of bokeh.

Digital Photography School - How to Achieve Better Bokeh

Yes, the shape of those fuzzy highlights in the defocussed areas of your perfectly crafted image is dependent on the shape of the aperture.

Image from: www.meh.ro/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/

Image from: cdn-7.nikon-cdn.com/Images/Learn-Explore/Photography-Techniques/2012/Bokeh-for-Beginners/Media

The quality of the iris diaphragm can vary in number of segments and quality (straight or curved) between cameras. Higher end cameras tend to have a more segments and a more rounded aperture. Some people even want to build their own oversized versions... for demonstration purposes only I hope...

And, supposedly, you can customise the bokeh by carefully taping a stencil to your precious and expensive equipment!

Image from: digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/

Image from: www.everkelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/

I thought I was getting some sort of handle on the relationship between the fixed physical attributes of  the camera/lens and the variable bits. Trying to understand how a stencil over your lens can be beneficial has knocked that into a cocked hat for the time being.

The 30 Camera Shots Every Film Fan Needs To Know (Thirty! Three-Zero!!) - Part One

This is an article from Empire magazine's website (link below) and details 30 different types of shot, citing many examples and providing a few along the way. I've followed their example suggestions and gathered the first ten here.

Link to article here:

Empire: THE 30 CAMERA SHOTS EVERY FILM FAN NEEDS TO KNOW

Aerial Shot

It's over in a flash. You don't have to listen to the song.

Arc Shot

This also includes a tracking crane (pedestal) tilt combo. Given that the dance floor looks impressively crowded, it's a surprise a that they didn't crush any extras. 

Bridging Shot

Meant as a means of signalling a change of location or the passing of time, it's not the most subtle of shots. Other examples? I suppose we could use the hands of a clock whizzing around, a montage of changing seasons or fluttering desk calendar pages. It is a fun shot in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981) and it feels like a reference to a much earlier film but I can't put my finger on it. A Saturday matinee from around the WWII era? That's going to annoy me.

Close Up

Medium Shot

Spot the medium shots and two shots in this trailer for John Ford's The Searchers (1956). There are loads of 'em!

Long Shot

Omar Sharif arriving from a very, very long way off. Pointedly setting the scene and building anticipation in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Cowboy Shot

Literally shooting from the hip. You'll see a classic example at around 3 minutes in to the video. Taken from Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966).

Deep Focus

Dolly out from an exterior (extreme?) long shot to an interior knee shot and mid shot, this displays an unforgiving, long depth of field. Every element is in focus with the dark figure of the young boy framed by the window and in stark contrast to the bright snow. Taken from Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941).

Dolly Zoom

A favourite of horror and suspense, the dolly zoom is unsettling, intense and dizzying all in one unnatural movement. I suspect that this would be easier to pull off with a virtual camera than it's real-world counterpart.

 Dutch Tilt

I thought that "tilting" the camera on this axis was called "roll" but a Dutch roll would be something else. You can see an example near the beginning of the clip as Dr. Frankenstein is throwing switches. It's not as extreme as the type of shot you'd get in, say, a 60's era Batman villain hideout, but it is just enough to mess with the normal lines of the set (particularly at 0:21s in).

Depth of field. Three things: Aperture, focal length and distance from subject?

The video is a little cheesy but demonstrates the individual use of aperture size, focal length and distance from subject and their effect on depth of field.

I was aware that the "distance from subject" might actually have been affected more by the cropping of and distance from the background. I'm sure there are more technical demonstrations out there but it is a brief introduction.

Churchill by Sutherland

Portrait of Sir Winston Churchill, Graham Sutherland, 1954

Source: http://www.nrc.nl/handelsblad/2015/10/24/familiealbum-van-een-natie-1548359

Listening to Simon Schama doesn't often inspire me to anything. Tonight he was presenting a programme on portraiture (The Face of Britain by Simon Schama, BBC2).

I was blown away by this portrait of Churchill by Graham Sutherland (1954). Churchill had sat for Sutherland and asked, "Cherub or bulldog?" meaning, "I have these two faces. Which do you choose?". Sutherland was determined to chose his own portrait while Churchill was more determined to smoke and be uncooperative as a sitter.

After its very public unveiling in Westminster Hall in November of 1954 where Churchill proclaimed it "a remarkable example of modern art", the painting was taken to the Churchill's country home at Chartwell and never displayed in public again. He hated it and it is said that Lady Churchill had hidden it and ordered it destroyed only a few months after her husband's death in April 1955.

At a glance, it is quite a familiar Churchill image. Looking at the face though, in the eyes you'll find something that was, I suspect, far too human and fragile for Churchill's liking.

Absolutely fantastic portraiture.

Excuse me, which way did the camera go?

Tricky thing all this terminology but when you're talking about just one element (the camera) moving around multiple axes, everyone needs to be speaking the same language.

Picture from: help.sketchup.com/en/article/1220896

1. Dolly
2. Pedestal
3. Truck
4. Pan
5. Tilt
6. Roll

There are further hows, whys and some guiding principles on the VideoMaker website.

There are loads of examples from film in this video. I think the terminology differs and there are combinations of camera and lens movements but it demonstrates a good variety including the possibilities of the "virtual" camera.

Shots? Cuts? I think you meant transitions. Did I?

I know that I noticed a number of clever moves from shot to shot in Quinn's Body Beautiful but, let's be honest, I didn't really know what I was watching.

I've just been looking around for some information on "cuts" as I called them but a cut is just one method of moving from shot to shot via a transition.

A brief outline of transitions can be found at Elements of Cinema - Types of Transitions and this led me to another of their articles on juxtaposition and The Kuleshov Effect.

Kuleshov discovered that depending on how shots are assembled the audience will attach a specific meaning or emotion to it.In his experiment, Kuleshov cut the shot of an actor with shots of three different subjects:  a hot plate of soup, a girl in a coffin and a pretty woman lying in a couch. The footage of the actor was the same expressionless gaze. Yet the audience raved [sic] his performance, saying first he looked hungry, then sad, then lustful.

Gabe Moura, www.elementsofcinema.com/editing/kuleshov-effect-and-juxtaposition/ (July 1, 2014)

On another note, I recently watched Hitchcock's Rope (1948) as it was mentioned in a book I was reading as being remarkable for only having 10 transitions throughout the whole film, many of which are disguised.

Alfred Hitcock, Rope (1948)

Image from: www.ifi.ie/wp-content/uploads/06431THUMB_edited-1LRG.jpg

If you haven't watched Rope, I can recommend it. It's claustrophobic and intense.

Watch it before you read The 10 Hidden Cuts in Rope.

Not that all of them are "hidden" but it's amazing to me that the straight cuts (of which there are only a handful) don't feel out of place, completely jarring to the senses, just plain wrong when they are so sparse.

I suspect there's some mastery afoot.

Body Beautiful, Joanna Quinn (1991)

I think it's the dialogue that really gets me in this animation. There's a fair range of shots and cuts in there too.

Body Beautiful, Joanna Quinn (1991)

I don't know why I love Starlight

I remember being awe struck by this music video when it was released. It's not the slickest piece of animation. It's got no gloss. It is jerky, quirky and downright ugly. For all of that, it is deliberately all of those things. That's why I love Starlight.

The Supermen Lovers, Starlight (2001). Animation by Numero 6

Some cheeky foley going on throughout as well.

Chiaroscuro - the light, the dark, the drama of it all

Chiaroscuro - the light, the dark, the drama of it all

An Italian term literally meaning "light-dark", chiaroscuro describes the use of strong tonal contrasts. The effect is one of heightened drama, an exaggerated depiction of form and an unforgiving focus on the subject.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist (1607-10)

Image from: http://www.wga.hu/art/c/caravagg/09/57salome.jpg

Joseph Wright, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768)

Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Experiment_on_a_Bird_in_the_Air_Pump

Two famous paintings from two extremely accomplished artists. Over a century and a half separates them but they both employ the same trick of the light. The lighting is strong, highly directional and from a single source.

Caravaggio draws the eye to the face of the male figure with both strong lighting and composition (more on the golden mean another time). His eye-line directs us to the (strangely cold?) figure of Salome via his arm and the grotesque severed head of John The Baptist which is being thrust into the foreground.

Wright's use of lighting is unusual in that the single source of light is present and centre in the scene. The eye is drawn immediately to the light source and then whisked away to the children, visibly upset by the plight of the bird. The father figure comforts and explains. He literally points us towards the titular bird in an air pump (a vacuum vessel) and on to the scientist who now appears to be engaging directly with the viewer. His eyes are fixed on us and his hand extended in explanation.

All very effective. Why don't we do this all the time? What are the drawbacks?

In both of these images, the background is a casualty of the technique. Wright paints us a suggestion of a drawing room, much less fine in its rendering than the focus of the painting. Caravaggio loses any thought of a background. Who, after all, is looking at the scenery when there's a head on a plate in front of you?

It's also a question of subject and mood.

Mad Colonel in jungle hideout? I think that could work

Marlon Brando as Col. Walter Kurtz, Apocalypse Now (1979) 

Maniacal, homicidal, green haired villain? Check

Brian Bolland's depiction of The Joker in Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) 

Shooting a happy playground scene? Maybe not....

Image from: http://img04.deviantart.net/b8c7/i/2012/296/4/d/evil_playground_by_rafalpawlewicz-d5iqtm7.jpg