Background
The movie was shot on, "a combination of 35mm and Super 35mm film (Kodak Vison3 250D 5207 and 500T 5219) with Panavision Panalex Millennium XL2 cameras. The remainder of the material — principally night exteriors — was shot digitally on Arri Alexa XT Plus units" While I myself have already decided that shooting on film isn't practical for my own project, as I mentioned in my post about The Love Witch, there is still lots of valuable information to be taken from filmmakers that have decided to go with this approach. “My references were [classic] Technicolor and Eastman color films. The color treatment feels bigger than life — it’s not entirely realistic. My specific references were films like Peeping Tom, The Collector and Black Narcissus." Once again with these films we see technicolor as a reference, and I will look to emulate this in my own work. However, as I have mentioned before, I'm not necessarily looking to take reference specifically from hollywood films of the time, but also the more experimental independent projects made by the likes of the Merry Pranksters. I think it will be interesting in my own experimentation to try both of these approaches, and see whether one, or a combination
of both will speak more to my own creative vision, and see whether this more mainstream aesthetic will be able to fit into this experimental style.
Lighting
As Machliss describes it, "the lighting in this film is almost its’ own character", which is quite similar to how I see the role of light in my own film, which I'm hoping will evolve from being a symbol into its own entity that plays a role as important as the characters. I was intregued by the cinematographer's description of how one of the lighting effects was done, "to achieve a shifting-color effect when Sandie dances at a seedy locale. 'Using an electric drill, a small flashlight and a multi-colored gel, I created a kind of color wheel so that the colors on Sandie were constantly changing,'" I have been considering a similar approach
and may try this myself. Watching the behind the scenes there was another interesting tool used. As seen on the left, they had a ring of lights around her to light her from below, with the lights spinning around and changing color. I might try and find a cheaper option to recreate this, and will try and do more research on this lighting setup, as I'm unsure how common this is.
Another scene in the club, with Sandy and Jack looking at each other, is very similar to the stained glass lighting I'm trying to achieve. As seen on the right, this shows up as a very saturated mix of colors that create a very striking effect. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything online about how this was achieved, but looking at the lighting from what we do know I assume this was achieved with multicoloured LEDs similar to the ones seen above. This may also have been achieved with gels, but I'm unsure how they could have gotten such saturated color by doing that. My ultimate goal for my stained glass experiments is a very similar one to this, but with the colors being slightly less saturated and being able to see the background. I'll be doing some more experimentation trying to achieve this, and if I can find some LEDs to do this with that might be my best bet.
Editing
While I've been looking at achieving a kaleidoscope effect practically, I'm still interested in seeing how modern filmmakers have achieved this digitally. The shot seen on the left has the rotating psychedelic effect that I've been looking for, and the difference in sizes of the reflections leads me to believe that this was digitally done through the use of several overlays all moving at the same space. I've been looking at creating this effect with bigger, more clear images, but seeing different itterations of it has made me consider more seriously how different approaches to it may create a different effect. While the 5 person shots such as in The Love Witch or Psych Out create a very dreamy effect, having this many shots all moving so quickly and at different sizes creates a sense of unease, and is much more threatening. I also looks to me like the reflections may have been filmed separately, as the faces doesn't seem to move in the same way as the one in the middle, which adds more to this sense of disconnect. In my ongoing tests for this effect I'll be trying to see how the amount of reflections, placement, size, and movement change the effect for the viewer. I will make a case study of this to explore it as fully as possible.
These psychedelic shots seem achieved digitally, and the combination of overlays and bright light is what mostly signals distress or inebriation. As seen on the right this is not always the same formula for this effect, as it changes based on the situation. Avoiding too much repetition when creating these kind of scenes will be key in my own work to keep the audience engaged. Also relying too much on the same few techniques won't create a final product that shows a wide enough range of technical ability, so while I've been focussing a lot on the kaleidoscope and stained glass effects, as I'm trying to perfect these I must also start to focus on developing more scenes for the film rather than the key ones I've identified, and see what other concepts and techniques can be implemented within my film that will expand on my current research and style.
Sources:
American Cinematographer
Frame.io Insider
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