Barry Lyndon and Stanley Kubrick interview

This is a fantastic article and I would anybody who enjoys films in general to watch it. I would also suggest anybody who is interested in cinematography, camerawork or the work of Stanley Kubrick. This has been hugely inspirational to me to a level I find hard to explain but has really made me look at lighting in another way like I have never done before it really has allowed me to considered the lighting of a film like a piece of constant and ever changing piece of art like a painting. One of the things this article talks about is how Kubrick looked at the Dutch masters paintings when considering making Barry Lyndon and this can really be seen in the piece as it all feels like a painting. The cinematography is wonderful and you can see how much they considered the lighting approaches of art to make it and how they applied cinematography techniques to recreate this look. Another thing I found amazing about this article is how they used only locations for shooting and no sets as they wanted to keep Barry Lyndon as realistic as possible I also read in another article how they bought actual suits and dresses from the period at auction to heighten the realism rather than make dresses and such something which is obviously replicated through only shooting in manner houses. Another thing I almost found dumbfounding is how he wanted to shoot with almost all natural light and use lights from windows and candles to create the exact look that would be of that period and how he would use huge reflectors on the roof to bounce this light back and he made a camera fit 0.7 lens which was used for space photography to allow the camera to capture enough light to create a candle lit look. This level of commitment to create a look of the time in the most natural manner astounds me as does the result of this. This is something I have given great consideration to for the filming of the raven so much so I have tried to ensure we get the canon 5d mk 2 to shoot with as its sensor size is bigger than my camera and will hopefully pick up more light. I really want to create the look of the film by only shooting with candle light and a light coming from the window to represent the moon. I know this is going to be a huge challenge and until I get in the complete studio I will have no idea how if any this is achievable. Nevertheless I want to try and achieve the most natural look possible and so have built my own reflectors as I may have mentioned earlier I hope to rig this above the set to hopefully bounce light back up from the candles to attain a natural look although, again, until the studio is finished this will not be possible I hope that the set when it is built doesn’t take too long as I would like several days to light it, in case some of the ways I want to light it doesn’t work. But going back to the interview about Barry Lyndon It really has made me consider art and artwork as I way of looking at an approach to lighting. I am in the fortunate position to have two friends who are interested in art and are both illustrators and I use their knowledge and books to look through to help inspire my thinking. This as well as going to art galleries around Yorkshire has really helped me consider light and how it hits people, the effects it has in terms of light, shadows and texture and I find myself looking at artwork imagining how they was seeing the image in terms of light. I have also bought some cinematography and art books to help my knowledge and understanding.

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/2001a/bl/page1.htm