This is an exercise in creating two short scenes with the intention of imbuing each scene with a particular atmosphere.

I chose to do:

Atmosphere 1: A depressed teenager at home

Atmosphere 2: A warm sunny day

Atmosphere 1: A Depressed Teenager at Home

This exercise ended up resulting in two different videos, one that I felt achieved the atmosphere I had set out to create and the other resulting in something slightly different to what I had originally set out to  do, but nonetheless worth reflecting on and trying to understand why this happened.

I chose to create the oppressive, sad atmosphere that surrounds a depressed teenager. Although I stuck to the word ‘depressed’, I did find myself tending more towards an atmosphere that was more akin to the broody, pensive and slight sullen mood of teenagers as opposed to the extremes of depression. I think it was this lack of clarity in my mind about what I was trying to achieve that led to mixed result of the first video.

To show the learning curve I went through, it is best to start with the ‘failed’ video clip.

I chose our sitting room as the location because I wanted an external shot where I could show the reflections in the window and my actor and then easily move to an interior shot of her staring thoughtfully out the window. The plan was then to have her flop down onto the couch and stare into the mid-distance. There was sufficient lighting coming in from the left side of the frame to not need any additional light sources, in fact it was the opposite; I needed to drop the exposure to get the effect that I wanted when she flopped onto the couch.

I filmed the scene and this was the result:

Reflection

I realized fairly quickly that I had not created the a depressed teenager at home atmosphere – it was the something else that had been causing me to not be clear about what I wanted to achieve. The lighting was far too bright for a depressed mood – it was more thoughtful. The sunlight coming through the window in the second shot and falling onto the actor and the floor in the third are more indicative of hope than hopelessness.

Even with the addition of the non-diegetic sound, the atmosphere is still not depressed. I also realized that I had given very little consideration to the type of shot/s that would enhance the atmosphere – I had been thinking about location but not too much about the type of shot – in fact most shots are eye level shots – very boring. On the positive side, I had considered framing, props and other elements of the mise-en-scene, so clearly I have retained the learning from the previous section.

The exposure on the last shot was not quite correct – too much of the background detail was lost in trying to highlight just the actors face.

I also realized that the third shot; a handheld pan to the right was not stable and should have been done on a tripod.

As a last resort – I changed the title of the atmosphere to reflect what was filmed – but of course this was not the point of the exercise, so I set about doing it again.

This time I concentrated on it being a depressed, hopeless atmosphere and to keep it short and fairly simple. The location was the stairs in our house. In terms of lighting – I filmed at night so that it would be dark and I would have control of the lighting. I elected to go for harsh side lighting with a few small backlights on the stairs. The idea was to create the feeling of the actor hiding what is going on in her head but also clear enough that what is going on was dark and unsettling for her.

With one side light, I was getting some reflected light onto the actors face from the white wall on the opposite side of the light which was sufficient to not need a dedicated fill light.

Although the exercise did not call for music, it did not exclude it either, so as a final touch I added music – and wow, what game changer – it made all the difference, so I’ve left it in.

This is the result:

Reflection:

This was a far more successful video and I believe it does create the atmosphere I set out to achieve. In the first shot, there are two effects that work well. The first is the shadows that appear on the wall as the actor walks down the stairs and the second is that her eyes are in darkness when she sits down, although it is possible to see that the side of her face is lit and the outline of her face is visible in silhouette. This helped to give the sense that she is closed and hiding her thoughts.

In the second shot, the tilt up that goes from the actors feet to her face is very effective in giving movement to a static shot. I was not as satisfied with the final result of the camera movement from tilting up to zooming in; the transition between these two movements is too noticeable. I tried these movements a number of times but could not get a smooth switch between the two movements. The tripod I was using made it difficult to control the tilt and so getting the zoom started just before the tilt was reaching its end required coordination skills that I clearly need to develop.

I was very satisfied with the end of the second shot – the close up of the actor with very little lighting on her face, but just a small glint of light reflecting in her eyes, and because I am eternally hopeful, a small backlight (almost just a spark) to the side of her head to signify that the world is not always dark   – exactly what I wanted.

If I had the budget, I would have done the same last shot but with a tripod and dolly that allowed me to smoothly pan the camera up (instead of tilting) from the actors feet to her face and then instead of zooming in, I would have used the dolly and pushed in on her face instead.

In conclusion, although the first attempt at this exercise was not successful, it was in many ways a very positive experience because it forced me to understand where I was going wrong and refocus on what I wanted to achieve. The end result is one that I am satisfied with.

Atmosphere 2: A Warm Sunny Day

This was another exercise that resulted in two videos, although for a completely different reason to the first exercise.

I wanted to have an atmosphere that was the opposite to the dark, somber themes that seem to be coming out in some of my previous exercises. I realized that I am tending towards the darker scenes because I have better control of the light and because, I have realized, I simply enjoy working with light. So for this exercise, I went towards a more positive atmosphere.

Having grown up in a warm sunny climate, I miss the endless weeks of clear skies and the feeling of warmth on your skin. I wanted to create the relaxed and calm atmosphere that goes with the arrival of a warm, sunny day. There is a period during the morning when the sun is high and the air is warm but it hasn’t become stifling hot (yet). It is during this part of the day where there is a sense of calm anticipation of a another beautiful day. I recall the scene in the 1987 movie White Mischief, where Alice de Janze (played by Sarah Miles); a glamorous but aging socialite, wakes up with yet another G&T fuelled hangover, sits up, looks out over the vast and beautiful Kenyan landscape and declares, ‘Not another beautiful %$@#! morning” and  promptly goes back to bed. Wonderful.

Of course, one of the problems with this choice is that you really do need to at least have a sunny day in which to film, if not particularly warm. I have been waiting in anticipation of this day and must admit that I had begun to wonder if I should choose some other atmosphere. And then, finally, the weather forecast announced a weekend that was going to be clear.

This was the resulting video:

For the location I decided to use our conservatory and the small patio outside of it. The main reason is that it has an open feeling and there is a lot sunlight coming in through the windows therefore I would not need any additional lighting equipment. The view from the conservatory is also quite pleasant and would enhance the warm comfortable atmosphere that I would try to create. The colour aspect was an interesting one to consider. A warm sunny day where I come from can also look quite washed out with the strong sunlight making everyone put on sunglasses or squint through half-closed eyes. So when I set up the camera and realized that there were parts of the frame that were over-exposing, I wasn’t overly worried as this is quite realistic for the type of day I had in mind. It would also create that sense of a hot, bright day.

I waited until the sun was high, but not overhead – it was about 11h30 and the sun was still behind the conservatory.

I also made a choice to use only diegetic sound because I wanted the quiet and calm atmosphere to come through in the scene and therefore natural sounds such as the birds and the odd lawnmower would support the stillness. I wanted the audience to feel the warmth of the outdoors and felt that music or similar would detract from this.

As the lighting was so good, it was unnecessary to supplement with reflectors or additional lighting. As a result of the good lighting I had very low contrast and as said previously, a slightly washed-out look – which is exactly how it is supposed to look on hot days. I had the option to reduce the opacity in post, but decided against it.

The actor worn a red shirt to make him stand out from the rest of the scene (I’m starting to like red) but it was more than just standing out from the background, it is also meant to signify a hot colour.

Reflecting on the filmed scene:

Using a wide angle lens, there was some distortion visible when looking at the door frame. I had to decide whether to line up the horizon with the top of the door frame or the bottom. During my first attempt I lined up with the top of the door frame. Looking at it in post, it was immediately clear that I had made the wrong choice because it made the floor and bottom of the door look canted and a bit disorientation – which is precisely what I didn’t want. For the second attempt at this shot, I lined the horizon up with the floor and then made sure that top of the door was not visible.

I did also briefly consider over-exposing the scene to create an effect similar to what was done in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? which was filmed in summer with a lot of greenery and then, in post colour corrected to yellow tones and over-exposed to create the dust-bowl effect that was needed for the context of the movie. Another movie that over-exposes some scenes is Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 movie Traffic, about the drugs trade, where all the shots in the Mexican desert (usually to do with the drug traffickers) are over-exposed and quite harsh looking. In the end, I decided to leave the colour/exposure alone as it already looked the way it should.

 

If time and budget were not an obstacle, I would have chosen a more open and dry location where it would be possible to get the heat effect coming shimmering off the land and creating a heat haze.

Overall, I realized that although I achieved the atmosphere I had wanted, it wasn’t too difficult to do because it was pretty much down to waiting for the right day, as opposed to manipulating the light and colour in ways that built up the atmosphere.

I decided to relook at the same footage and see if I could change the atmosphere by manipulating just some of the elements. It did not want to re-film the shots, just change the feeling of the same shots. This was mostly done just for a bit of fun.

Since my actor has a slightly odd gait, on account of the brace he wears, it can give him a vaguely Charlie Chaplin walk, particularly when on uneven ground or, as in the case of this video, an area that has a lot of steps and potential places to trip. So, I tried to manipulate the colour to enhance this slightly comical aspect of the video. It was not only a case of changing the video to black and white, but also trying to get the correct sense of old-film over-exposure and scratch. I found some 8mm scratched film that I mixed with my video. It didn’t take very long to realize that music was essential to the mood of this type of movie – without it, the audience would not get the association with Charlie Chaplin but at the same time I didn’t want it to be a copy of the Chaplin music, but rather a hint at a similar catchy type of music. This was the result and if I could do it again, I would have had another actor walk in at the end of the scene and pore water over the head of the sitting actor – just because it needs a bit of slapstick humour. But I doubt my actor was going to agree to this – even if it was a warm day.

Although the exercise was really just a bit of fun, it was interesting to see how the same footage with different lighting, film quality, exposure, colour and a bit of music can go from being calm and relaxed to silly and contrived.

 

Bibliography

For Atmosphere 1 v1, an excerpt from the music Long Road Ahead by Kevin MacLeod, and

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100588

For Atmosphere 1 v2, an except from the music Friday Night by Kevin McLeod was used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)