To a Billion Sunsets..

 

A Detailed Guide of My Experiments with Teaching Cine Film Lighting

Chapter 1. 

Those Billion Sunsets...

I have no idea what it was about Sunsets and 'film' shoots. 

But, a Sunset in the City of Mumbai, the erstwhile Bombay, would be the time when something suddenly happened to film units on an exterior shoot in the city. Especially, when it was within their grasp to capture it on film. 

For posterity. For time immemorial. On Film.

Directors, Cinematographers, the whole damn unit, would go into some kind of a mad frenzy to get that iconic Sunset shot.

I am sure, similar excitement definitely 'infected' Film units all across the world, it wasn't a phenomena restricted to India.

 The Sun in its full magnificence, majestically sliding down  the sky, against the grand city skyline.

A shot to cherish. A visual to capture. A moment of a lifetime.

On Film, it was always a palpitating experience, calculating the number of filters,ND's, 85, fps, exposure, shutter angle, all to be compensated, set and done to perfection in just nanoseconds, while the camera attendants mounted the zoom in the slower-than-usual pace, while everybody around was screaming their hearts out at each other, everything seemed to go in slow motion, suddenly becoming surreal, and if you were lucky, the birds flew in at the right spot in the frame and you had got the 'piece-de-resistance', the crown jewel, the oscar of your lifetime!

Oh, What an adrenaline rush it used to be! 

The Sun had yielded! 

The excitement, the euphoria, the ecstasy of having conquered the impossible.

Because ninety percent of the time, even with full readiness, it just wasn't the day of reckoning.

The smoky clouds would gather all of a sudden, at the horizon, just at the correct time,like party poopers. The stock would run out, the battery would give up, just at the time the Sun took his final bow of the day. The focus would be all wrong, the camera shook, something ominous happened at the last moment and the shot was lost. 

Many times, even after you did all the right things, which most veterans managed easily with panache, and everything was done and finished, a day would come, when you sat in a cold, dark place, alone and devastated, as  you saw the film negative in the film processing lab and you knew you didn't have the cat in the bag. 

Not even a purr, let alone a meow..

And no 'post' (processing) that could save anything.

Film, as a medium was demanding, merciless, a wild horse, if you must say, that respected nothing less than complete dedication of at least a decade and a half of one's life, before it yielded, in any way, to your commands.

One mistake and you were gone.

Nerve wracking? Palpitating? Disappointing, at times? 

Yes, that is what working on celluloid was like. 

Always on the edge. Every moment of it. 

Life or Death. 

Till Digital arrived. 

 

So, here's to those Billion Sunsets that will never be chased like a dream, pursued like your life depended on it, and captured for posterity on the forever lost medium of film.

I bid thee farewell, pieces of my heart.  

To all those grand Sunset shots that will never ever be swooned over by generations to come, I dedicate the story of my journey, travails, trials & tribulations, of learning how to teach the craft and primarily the art of painting with light, the art of making visuals that spoke, discover and explore the unique signature styles of various renowned Cinematographers,  their command over the visual language of the medium and ultimately address teaching Cinema, in its very essence, to the young seekers and students of this grand Visual Art form. 

I dedicate all of it, to you, my lost Billion Sunsets.

 

Chapter 2.

Zero Light

 

But, the primary question is, Can you teach Art?

How can you teach anyone Cinema?

How can you teach something so internal, something so instinctual, so intuitive, almost like breathing, existing, to anyone at all?

The question was racking my brains, as I stood in front of these five forlorn students of M.A. Cinematography of Annapurna International School of Film & Media,(AISFM) in the March of 2013. Their desperation and helplessness  was oozing out of their eyes as they looked at me with such high expectations, as if I knew the Secret of it all, the answer to all their queries, as if i had the Da Vinci Code. 

Frankly, I knew, I did not. 

Till then, I didn't know of anyone else who did either. 

A standard methodology of teaching Film Lighting like Classical Music, Painting or even Dance?

No one I knew, had any idea about this, maybe because probably no one had thought that there could be a standard method to the madness. You just assisted some senior Cinematographer for a few years on end and basically got the gist, like a secret that could not be revealed. Because, it wasn't a secret actually. 

It was like God, here, there, everywhere, and yet nowhere.

A thought struck me, and it evolved like a big question mark, floating right in front of me.

Why not?

But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. The question of creating a standard methodology framework of teaching the Craft of Film Lighting, did arise in my mind, but it was a little later that day. 

At this point, my concerns were more immediate.

It wasn't as if this was the first workshop in Cinematography, I was conducting. I had done various  theory lectures, Practical workshops and other such teaching activities since 2000, almost 5 years after passing out from the nation's premier Film School, Film & Television Institute of India, at Pune.

By 2013, I had independently shot 6 Feature Length films on 35mm Cinemascope and innumerable other stuff like Ad Films, Corporate Films, Music Videos, Television shows like Special Squad, and short films etc.

Most Cinematography workshops had a clear mandate. If you were teaching a beginner level group, you exposed them to basic 3-point face lighting, Contrast Control techniques in Day interior and Exterior, maybe some Night lighting set-ups. These workshops lasted no more than 2-3 days. In other cases, if you were teaching a specialized senior batch of Cinematography, you got into more detailed control of lighting situations, like Creating different Day looks and Night looks in Interior, studio,controlled-light situations.

At this 3 day Annapurna workshop, the challenge was completely different. 

The M.A. batch of Cinematography students were almost all BTech students, Post graduates. They had been sitting in the library, since almost an year, with no full time teacher, or any syllabus or even a studio space to practice lighting. The department was endowed with some tungsten lights such as 1K Babies, 2K Solars, etc., an AGF camera and some Canon still cameras, a track and trolley, assorted equipment for very basic work.

What ever they knew about photography was self-learnt, mostly, or some basic conceptual stuff from the adjunct Cinematography Faculty who was actually an Art Teacher, with some working knowledge of photography.

They knew nothing about Film lighting. 

And, they had just an year left to pass out of AISFM.

It wasn't as if the management at AISFM was negligent, or had an uncaring attitude, or lack of intention and will to provide their students with the wherewithal of a proper film education. The school, owned by the reputed Akkineni film family, was founded within the Annapurna Studios compound and was a top-notch professionally managed film institute, led with energy and verve by the Head of School, Ms.Geetika Tondon Higgins. It had just been a year, AISFM had started its film course and the facility was yet evolving. 

Any evolving private school grows as it goes ahead. It needs to justify expenses against revenue. It had just been a matter of luck that the Cinematography department was lagging far behind and attempts to put it on track had been delayed for various reasons.But the will, to make it at par with the rest of the film schools in the country, was evident to me right from the moment I landed there.They had been looking for the right person to set the entire department up, but probably hadn't zeroed in on anyone yet.

As I stood in front of these Five Students of Cinematography, I felt a tremendous pain within each of them, a fire to learn and a deep yearning that they were just looking for someone to guide them. There was no lack of energy in any of them. They were raring to go to battle, armed with just dreams and dedication, hoping someone would lead them there.

I had spent a full day testing their capabilities and knowledge in Theory, Practical work like Camera Operations, Focus pulling and Tracking. The idea was to structure the workshop as per their needs. 

Finally, I gave them a basic test in lighting, which they had completely failed in. They lacked severely in almost every area. 

:(

 As I saw all of them looking at me, like the young wanna-be student Samurai, Katsushiro looks at the Master Kambei, in the beginning of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, all in complete awe, I could see the absolute belief in their eyes that I would, with some wave of a magic wand, inundate them with all the necessary knowledge, skill and experience, they needed to know about Film Lighting, in just this One workshop. 

This pressure  was making me even more nervous. The tension rising as time passed.

I was no Kambei, my heart was sinking, I had no idea how to design this workshop. What can I teach them that will bring them up to speed  and make up for the 1 year gone by? Squeeze an entire year's learning and work in two days of workshop?

Impossible.That was too tall an order.

Maybe teach them something they can build on and continue even after I am gone? But what?

How do you teach something that has, for time immemorial, been left to self discovery and dedicated practice?

What should I do? God, please help!

I was really at my wit's end.

"Sanjay Bhai!", a familiar voice called out to me from behind.

My Gorobei, had arrived.*

(*Gorobei is Kambei's number two Samurai, in the Seven Samurai. The Proverbial 2nd in command.)

 

 

Chapter 3.

The Magic of the Classical Lighting Form (Realism)

Rajesh Kumar Kathuri*, my Gorobei of 13 years, a resident of Hyderabad, had been my Chief assistant on various film and other projects, since the year 2000. 

(* The story of how Rajesh and I met is legendary, and is part of the last chapter, 'Not Forgotten'.)

I trusted Rajesh completely. He knew how I thought and felt. One could say, he had always been the executor of all my weird and crazy ideas about Lighting and Cinematography, and helped me make them real, since he understood my heart and soul with equal resonance.

It feels good to have a Chief, who believes in you more than you do in yourself.

It was obvious that I would meet him when I was in Hyderabad. Not knowing if I would get the time, I had called him in at the Annapurna Cinematography Dept., though not with any intention to ask his help for the workshop, just to meet. 

Luckily,  he had landed up just at the right time. 

There was an Ocean of doubts rising within me and there was only one person I could voice my doubts to at that point. As luck would have it, he was right in front of me.  

God works in strange ways.

We hugged and I introduced Rajesh to all the students and the faculty co-ordinator Mr. Ghosh, the adjunct faculty. Quickly, I took Rajesh behind this small flat wall, which had been roughly positioned for the workshop. I spilled my guts out and saw his eyes bulge, as they always did whenever adrenaline rushed into his whole being. I knew, I wasn't wrong to be getting tense. 

How to teach them the whole 'Gitopdesh' in two days? 

I decided, we should start small.

I introduced the characteristics of each light to them, how to centre them, check their spread, control them using barn doors and sharpen the cut using flags and cutters. 

I  tasked them first to learn, to centre each of these lights properly, using the wall behind us, as a guide to verify the centre.

Each student did it one by one, individually. 

At first, the light-man tried to help unconsciously to speed things up, but I shook my head and told him to be totally uncooperative. Rajesh translated everything in perfect Telugu for the lightman to understand.  If students say left, go way left. When they say right, go way right. When they ask to focus, or want to make the light 'hard', go little and not the full distance, if they wanted full spread or 'soft', to hold back and keep it 'hard', till they struggled and struggled and got it together.

Making them feel like they were trying to drive a car for the first time.As you know, the first time it seems to goes all over the place, till slowly, you are able to take control. 

Each kid enjoyed it thoroughly.

What next?

When you open the Fresnel lens of the light, you can make sharp shadows, though you lose intensity. 

So use the cutters or flags and make patterns on the wall, no leaks ! 

But first, start with centring the light, always. The kids were all energy and gung-ho.

As they made patterns on the wall, Rajesh and me were back behind the flat, about what we do next. Our heads were racing when out of blue, the door to heaven opened a little in my head and I said, let's do this, we don't have the time.

 

The kids had made a window slit, grilled pattern on the wall. It was neat and really good. No leaks. I went and stood right in the middle, between the light and the wall and said,

"But, there is a person standing here, the pattern should not fall on this person!"

The kids were flummoxed. Till that moment they had been very pleased at having made the window slit pattern perfectly. All the hubris disappeared in a second. Where did this googly come from?

 Rajesh smiled, he immediately knew what I was up to. 

"So, what should you do?", he turned to the students.

Pawan the shy and reticent one, asked in a low tone with hesitation. "Sir, can we shift the light?"

I nodded. They promptly shifted the light such that the pattern was retained but my position remained untouched by the light.

"But, I am in the dark! There is a window pattern behind me on the wall, but I have no light?"

The students hastily began putting a light, to light my face. 

"Two things! This light, has some rules to follow. One, it must seem to come from the same direction as the window pattern, Secondly, its shadow cannot fall on the wall. I prefer you make a frame with the camera first and do this."

As a student took my place.I looked at Rajesh and told him,

"Let's take all this furniture and position it within the flat walls."

While the students were busy struggling with the task at hand, Rajesh, Ghosh babu and me placed the available furniture and props around within the three C-shaped flats. 

 The setting we made with the available furniture.

 

We found a decent bed sheet and covered the bed. 

 

I was just going with instinct, not really with any plan. Making it, as I went ahead. 

 

The kids had struggled with getting a face light in place. 

The space we were working was no lighting studio. It was at that time called 'Production Space' and had a 12 feet high false ceiling, no cat walk, tarapa or truss to fix lights overhead.

 

Rajesh thundered to the students, "Is sideways the only way to place a light, so no shadow comes?"

 

Subbu reacted immediately, asking, "Sir, can we raise the height?"

 

"No!", I said with a serious expression."The police will arrest you!"

 

The kids were confused, but lightened up the moment they saw Rajesh laughing. They raised the height and cut off the shadow from the background. 

"Is the character having any separation from the dark background?"

"No."

"So you need a cross back. 

 

And the problems of the cross back. 

 Is it too bright? Yes. 

How do you reduce it? Nets? Yes. 

Is there a glare on the lens? Then? Flag it. Yes.

Finally!

"Is the contrast ok?" 

"No sir, its very dark in the shadows."

"So, then?", Rajesh egged them on. 

"We need another light!"

"But what light? And from where?"

 

We exposed them to bounce light, and its shadow less character, specifically when placed behind the camera. 

Now the frame looked more balanced. 

 

It was 3.30 PM and the day was ending, I needed them to move to the 3 wall flat area fast. 

 

An artificial light scenario! 

 

I don't know why I didn't ask them to roll and record the shot on camera before we moved, guess I was too much in a hurry to move ahead. 

 

So we shifted in a jiffy.

We fired up the lamp on a 2K dimmer, and asked the students to make a frame that encompassed the entire room,
as I sat on the bed to give them a reference.

 

The Artificial light frame.

 

"So, now you know that each object is lit separately. But it looks like it comes from the same source, making it look realistic."

 

"Now light the background to create patches on the wall, as if they come from the lamp. But, ensure that it leaks no where else and doesn't create the lamp's shadow on the background, otherwise the cheating will be seen." 

The kids, placed the lights behind the 7.5ft. high flats, as well as  the flagging and cutting of the light from the unwanted areas effectively.

 

The Students lit up the background with 1K babies and cut it with black paper and flags.

 

 

Now, it looked as if the walls were lit by the lamp.

 

"But, What about me? Will I get any light from this source?" 

I pointed out to the students, while sitting on the bed. 

 

This had them in a muddle.

 

How do you light a person as if it comes from the lamp?

Pawan looked at me and pointed to a position across me, from behind the flat. 

 

I nodded and said, "Try it." 

Once they had done that too, I played the last googly.

"But, I am going to get up and walk, to sit on the sofa. What will happen to me then?" 

That the character can move and so that area also must be lit up hadn't crossed their minds at all. 

 

Here the Classical lighting form evolves to become more rule based.Each light that you add to simulate the source has lesser and lesser flexibility and more conditions to thrust on it. One, it needs to placed even more accurately, such that it does not interfere with already existing lighting, it adds to the illusion of the source and melds seamlessly into the visual scheme without creating new problems, which is difficult to restrict because the more lights you add, more variables to control.

 

Here we had been wise to place the source in a oblique cross angle, such that all the shadows created by the simulating system would be thrown away towards the floor without revealing multiple shadows on the face.

The next light was also placed such that it came from the direction of the source, from a height outside the frame  and was restricted to fall in any other area but the intended one.

The student crossed this hurdle too effectively, and finally when all of it was done, I introduced them to balancing the light levels of each light, such that the entire space looks as if it is lit by the lamp only. 

It was almost 5pm.

 

 The Final Artificial lighting design.

 

Aperture Set?

 

Yes.

 

Focus set?

 

Yes.

 

It is at that moment, the thought ran through my mind.

 

We can have a standard method of teaching the art and craft of lighting. Not adhoc, laissez faire, hands-off attitude of the Cinematography Departments of Film Schools, that prefer to hide behind deep, technical jargon based, elitist, knowledge of cameras and lenses. And, instead of internally addressing the core syllabus issue, of teaching Cinematography as a Visual Art form, in a systematic manner, like Art, Music or even Dance, they unnecessarily engage in calling for more and more unstructured, random camera workshops from Industry veterans, which actually serves no purpose at all, but offers some broad-strokes knowledge, of random styles. 

 

Here, it is also important to state that Cinematography, in its specialization semesters, in film schools, is very far removed from Film Theory, Film History, Film as a Language,  and then reduces and becomes a 'monolithic, technical craft-dom universe' of its own, completely bereft of any relationship to Film as an Art form. This approach is heavily flawed since most Cinematography students and alumni will admit that, most of their learning in the art and craft of Cinematography, was only after having worked in the Professional Industry on live projects for x number of years, but not having been equipped with the same knowledge and skill fully, at the film schools, which should have been the primary source of all learning.

Hence we do, desperately, need a complete step-by-step guide of how to paint with light, delving into studying varied individual Visual styles, in depth and practice.

 

It is urgently needed and it must be done.

I was lost in my own thoughts,  when i noticed that all present in the production space had been looking at me, for the last few minutes, waiting for something.

Pavan mustered up the courage and asked. 

 

"What next, sir?"

I was still in the moment. 

"Sir..?",  Sidhu asked.

"Nothing." I replied looking at the entire lighting.

 

 "It's done."

 

 I looked back at them. Their faces were yet in some strange, numbed state.

 

I reiterated forcefully this time, "Your shot is ready, guys!  Roll!"

 

"Take the first shot that you have lit up from zero."

 

 

 ___

 Chapter 4. 

 

The Classical Lighting Form (Realism)

- A short summary

 

I have always found that, in Film Schools, the syllabus is drawn as per the knowledge of the teacher and faculty, which is not any particular standard, but a random, unilateral and limited approach of designing any syllabus. Here we cannot blame the teacher because, they too, have been taught the same way for the past 60 years.

 

To give an analogy, say if the syllabus was about teaching students 'Chinese Cuisine', these limited approach syllabus designs will expose the students on how to make 

1.A fried rice preparation, 

2.A Chicken Manchurian dish, and 

3.Some noodle dish. 

 

That is about it. 

 

This is not teaching Chinese Cuisine, in any manner whatsoever, and not the practice of any professional Catering College, whose expertise it is to teach varied cuisine styles.

 

I believe, If you need to teach students the Cuisine style of the Chinese, you need to start from taking them to the market, and teaching them how to choose vegetables, teach them classical sauce preparations and variants of each style of sauce, Manchurian, Schezwan, the works, the way Cuisine is taught in Catering schools. Even in Art schools the syllabus is well defined, in styles, forms and mediums. A method to the madness.

 

But, sadly Cinematography has never been taught in this in-depth, systematic manner, in any school. Why? I guess because there exists no method, just random, individualistic approaches.

As I would later realize, that to be able to standardize education in the Art form of lighting, it was essential to categorize varied styles and approaches of Cinematographers over the years, with specific characteristic traits, and then build a clear and defined structure, that is able to make the aspect of studying them, more precise. The forms, that I propose are not written in stone, but drawn from my knowledge of Cinema, Film History, Film Theory, Film Lighting, Art and visual design. It is possible to add further details and improve the structure, to form a more evolved approach. No such approach exists in any syllabus, till date as per my knowledge.

 

Here, I am drawn to give a short summary about the Classical Lighting Form (Realism) and its characteristics, as observed by me, it is just a glimpse of the more detailed explanation of how I arrived at it in a later chapter.

 

The Classical Lighting Form (Realism), as I prefer to assign the nomenclature to it, probably began when Benjamin Christensen, the Danish Director, who began exploring and experimenting with visuals that simulated source lighting, sometimes the door opening, sometimes a lamp light, etc. creating a directional, lighting source idea, with defined contrast and visual depth.

 

Till then, exposure being a premium, since Film stock was barely responsive, most of the lighting was for getting an exposure, not to give designed feel of any sort. Hence, you can see that most of early attempts at film making like those of Georges Méliès, in a Trip to the Moon (1902) etc., and those of Dada Saheb Phalke in Raja Harishchandra (1913), are mostly shot in bright daylight, maybe with some diffusion though. 

Later, we see a flat, though slightly softer look, even in films like  The Birth of a Nation by Grifitth in 1915, with Billy Bitzer's use of Cross Backs and Vignettes to create some depth.

 

The Classical Lighting Form (Realism)'s  primary objective was to achieve a realism, even though the film stock was extremely restrictive in terms of sensitivity, and had an extremely narrow Contrast bandwidth, at the time. 

 

Exposure made it mandatory to use Direct, Hard Sources during that period. You can imagine the state of the artists facing such harsh lights at that time.  

 

The The Classical Lighting Form (Realism) began with the practical necessity that once you have a source in frame, you had to solve the exposure issue. If you exposed for the source, the rest of the frame went absolutely dark. If you went for the shadows, the source blew out. 

 

So, a compromise was arrived at by having, frame-externally placed sources that added to the exposure on the surrounding zones, or work from bottom up by having absolute control on the intensity of the source within the frame itself, through dimmers, papers etc., i.e. creating a 'Sunlight' from a window source and also boosting the faces, and/or objects around, accordingly with other sources. All of which was good, if you didn't get caught doing it, but with hard sources that was a tall order.

 

 The Classical Lighting form (Realism),  used other hard sources in the early years, from outside the frame, to simulate a source within the frame, creating an illusion of realism. Each aspect of the frame, would be lit by other controlled, specific sources, outside the frame, that were used to boost the exposure and replicate the characteristics, the angle, and the fall-off of the original source seen in the shot/frame.

 

During the Black and White era, the biggest challenge was of achieving separation between subjects, objects and the background. At places, one can observe a very finely placed, low intensity, cross-back light, for this purpose, though it was completely antithetical to the realism the Cinematographer was trying to achieve. In the beginning, a through-the-satin fill, from the camera angle, was preferred, since bounce light barely contributed to the exposure. But, even that wasn't as diffused and shadow less as it should have been, hence many times, one can clearly observe secondary, fill shadows, in shots during that time.

 

 

The Classical Lighting Form (Realism), was seen to be used, using Hard Sources, all over the world, right from the beginning of the studio system, by Hollywood Cinematographers, and even by Gunnar Fischer, and Master Sven Nykvist in their early works with Bergman, also can be seen in the over powering 'lamp' scene in R. D. Mathur's work in Mughal-e- Azam, etc. The The Classical Lighting Form (Realism) style was keenly followed as a basic style of Realism, by most Cinematographers across the world, almost till the Late 80's/ early 90's, when 500 ASA/ISO film stock appeared in the market and light didn't need to be hard, for the purpose of exposure, though the style remained the same, A simulated realism.

 

Here it is important to state that, the Realism approach of Nestor Almendross, Raoul Coutard is very different from this Classical Lighting form, in the primary intent that it considers the Classical Lighting form (Realism), as more formalist and pretentious, than a 'real' Realist. 

Their approach is more in tandem with the philosophy of Dogme 95. It is a Purist and Ultra Realist approach, at the time, to the Realism Lighting form. Hence, I categorised this style more as Ultra Realism Form, rather than place it in any sub-category of the Classical Lighting Form (Realism). In definition then, Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon shot by John Alcott, would fall in the same category, an Ultra Realist approach to the Visual Form, specifically in the Candlelit scenes.

 

The direct complementary system of the Classical Lighting form (Realism), is a 'Stylised' system of the same, but devoid of Realism. It follows no source and has an accentuated back light. Most Hollywood Studio productions like 'Wizard of Oz', 'Singing in the Rain',  followed this system. Hence, I prefer to call it the Classical Studio Lighting Form*. It derived its style from the 3-point lighting system and the classical portraiture lighting system. It is not Realism, in any manner whatsoever. 

(* How I arrived at the nomenclature/s will be dealt with, in a later chapter.)

 

The Classical Lighting form (Realism), is also very distinct from the formalist styles of V.K. Murthy in films like Kaagaz ke Phool, Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam etc and others like Gregg Toland's work in Citizen Kane or Gordon Willis' in The Godfather, and other such Hollywood Cinematographers for Film Noir, Musicals etc, whose purpose was to create a specific dark mood, or beautify the visual, and not follow any particular realism motif. There is a clear distinction between the two. Some of these can be categorized more as Expressionistic Formalist Styles, rather than any aspect of Realism.

The Classical Lighting form evolved and developed as technology grew and Film stock became more responsive. 

 

Some Cinematographers, Masters like, Subroto Mitra , Sven Nykvist, didn't wait, and extended the same Realism style, but used diffused and bounce sources, to create a very naturalistic realism, we can see in films like Charulata and Winter Light, which more than challenging, seemed impossible at the time. Actually even now, their work looks unbelievable, specifically considering the period it has been done in.

 

But, more in detail on lighting systems and categorizations later in the story ahead.

___

Chapter 5.

Base Fog