Researching Lighting in The Love Witch

During research about The Love Witch, I've come across an article from The American Cinematographer, by M. David Mullen describing how he did the lighting for the film. Ultimately this article solved almost all of the questions I had about the making of this film, and most of the problems I was having trying to figure out how to create some of these effects in my own work have been answered. I've once again included probably too many quotes from this reference, but I've found all of these very helpful and would like to expand upon them in my own work.

"She asked me to shoot her latest feature in a retro style reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s color movies, in particular The Birds and Marnie [...] Other references were British horror films like Horror Hotel and Dracula: Prince of Darkness, and some 1960s Elizabeth Taylor melodramas. Though soft lighting had crept into movies around that period — even Marnie has some semi-soft lighting at times — we stuck to more of a hard-lit 1950s approach." Of course my own approach is more focussed on the 1960s, and while many of these techniques apply to what I will be doing, I'm aware that the goal is not to copy this style exactly but to take elements from it and adapt them for my own style. 

Mullen also described Biller's insistence on using film, but not because she was going for a grainy effect, as many filmmakers do. They were limited to the 4 film stock options available to filmmakers now. I had originally considered shooting my own movie on film, and ultimately with the current timeframe and low budget this just isn't possible, but what this article really helped with was how Mullen describes the challenges of film and the effect that it brings in comparison to digital. Using his more technical descriptions, I hope to use this as a reference for my own colorgrading, rather than simply guessing based on reference images. 

"I think the main thing I re-discovered in post was how much contrast there is — how dense the blacks are — when you print a movie from the original negative at high printer lights. The look is much richer than what most digital projection can achieve today. We did find that in the photochemical prints, maybe the greens weren't as saturated as with the digital version, and the deeper blacks came at the expense of some loss of shadow detail, but, in general, I think the 35mm print that is currently playing in festivals is closer to the Technicolor feeling that the movie wanted to express than the DCP will be."

Muller explains that when choosing the film stock he would use he decided on deeper blacks and higher saturation because he wanted the technicolor look. This is something I'll keep in mind during my own process.

One of my key takeaways was his use of diffusion filters used to create the glowy close ups. I've been wondering how these were done in old Hollywood films for a while, and now that I know how to do it I'll be trying to find a cheap diffuser filter to use in my next round of experimentation.

"The sets were all lit with classic tungsten Fresnel lamps, often a direct 2K Junior as a key in wide shots; a 1K or 650w Tweenie was bright enough for the closer coverage. On the second day, I tried using a 2K Zip as a key, which looked quite good – and was keeping with 60’s era techniques — but I dropped that approach by the end of the day as not being hard and crisp enough. The only area in which I “cheated” regarding the hard light style was in the use of fill, since that’s a light that’s not supposed to be seen, only felt. Even an older movie would have used something like spun glass on a large scoop light for a softer fill, so I didn’t feel it was inappropriate to bounce lights off of white board, or occasionally use a 1x1 LED LitePanel next to the lens."

"one idea I had was to reinforce the colors by using colored lighting in the background, sometimes splashing pink light onto pink tablecloths, blue light onto blue curtains, etc. In keeping with classic aesthetics, I avoided colored light on the faces whenever possible."'m not very good with lighting so unsure what most of this means, but I'll definitely look into trying out the idea of having coloured lights on coloured surfaces.

 "I used a kaleidoscope lens for one shot, and for a number of others, a plastic diffraction filter that created rainbow streaks around practical light sources in frame. I also created a red vignette by cutting out an oval in a red party gel that was then taped to the matte box." This picture was not originally included in the article but shows these techniques perfectly, and also answers some of my biggest issues I've been having when trying to figure out how to do these effects practically. Who knew there was a Kaleidoscope filter?! Me and a couple classmates were also debating whether or not the rainbow flares were done practically, and now knowing that a plastic diffraction filter will achieve this is great.  I was also intrigued by how he created the eye vignette cutting a gel, which hadn't occurred to me at all and I'd basically given up on that idea for lighting the eyes. I might still experiment with overlays, and digital effects, but knowing that three effects I've been so stressed trying to achieve all have concrete answers I can try for myself. I'll be looking for cheap products I can buy to try this or see which ones I can DIY, so that by the time my portfolio is due (right before Christmas break), hopefully I'll be able to have these techniques tested out so that I'll know that they work for my final film.