Cinematography-Theory-And-Practice

Figure 3.10. Chiaroscuro lightinguses light and shadow to createdepth and focus the attention of theaudience, such as this frame fromApocalypse Now.Linear PerspectiveLinear perspectivechi.In film and video photography, it is not necessary to know therules of perspective, but it is important to recognize its importancethe rigid nature of French society in Figure 3.9, a frame from Paths ofGlory; he uses similar geometry in Barry Lyndon (Figure 2.2) and Dr.Strangelove (Figure 3.21) for similar storytelling purposes.ForeshorteningForeshorteningthat are closer to the eye appear larger than those farther away, whenpart of an object is much closer than the rest of it, the visual distortiongives us clues as to depth and size.ChiaroscuroItalian for light (chiara) and shadow (scouro, same Latin root asobscure), chiaroscuro, or gradations of light and dark (Figure 3.10),with lighting is one of our major tasks, this is an important considerationin our work. Figure 3.10 is a shot from Apocalypse Now. Seealso Figure 5.1 at the beginning of the chapter Visual Storytelling: amasterpiece by the painter Caravaggio, one of the great old mastersof chiaroscuro.Atmospheric PerspectiveAtmospheric perspective (sometimes called aerial perspective) is somethingof a special case as it is an entirely “real world” phenom-his paintings. Objects that are a great distance away will have lessdetail, less saturated colors, and generally be less defined than thosethat are closer. This is a result of the image being filtered throughlong (warmer) wavelengths, leaving more of the shorter, bluer wavelengths.It can be recreated on set with haze effects, scrims and lighting(Figure 3.11).cinematography44