Chiaroscuro influence on Conceptualisation/Pre-production

As we are shooting in black and white we plan to use chiaroscuro lighting to convey the emotional progression of the character Dean as his suspicions and doubts begin to take root in the anger that will consume him. In the middle act Dean follows Jenny, fearing he is being lied to. As an exterior scene triggered by deception and suspicions this gives us the opportunity to include some dynamic shots reminiscent of iconic noir cinema whilst retaining a more contemporary aesthetic in realism. Whilst location scouting we sought out places that would present us with the opportunity to capture shots with a voyeuristic quality that would help offer the audience an insight into Deans perspective as he stalks his girlfriend, as well as locations that provide a degree of concealment for the characters with dramatic changes in lighting.

The First location we confirmed was an underpass, something everyone already had in mind, the particular one we found had minimal lighting with only a few patches at intervals. Though I'm well aware we're far from the first students to frame a Sheffield underpass before a lens the seedy connotations associated with it fits the tone of the scene well.

We shot some test footage to practice a camera movement that would swing between the two characters, as one stepped into the light the others face would remain shrouded in shadow whilst the light from the end of the tunnel silhouettes them from behind.

The tunnel shots are reminiscent of the iconic sewer sequence from The Third Man (1949) which has been largely influential on how I imagined the film to look, and it lends an air of claustrophobic menace representative of the inescapable path of thoughts driving dean further into his insecure suspicions.

This underpass clip from Harry Brown (2009) creates an eerie tension through the lack of light and the unknown threat concealed in the darkness.

The second location for the stalking scene was a high vantage point on top of a car park, where the camera will be placed, almost as if in surveillance of the characters down below. Momentarily this will take the audience out of the subjective viewpoint of Dean and turn them into the voyeur, which in itself should lend a further insight into his obsessive observations.

It is at this point when Deans fears are confirmed when Jenny meets Tom outside a restaurant. The camera positioning will allow us to show the two meeting whilst Dean lurks around the corner, before cutting to a close up of his reaction. The meeting point is a Chinese restaurant called Won Ting which is not accidental, and is a nod to the noir films that have been influential on the development. Chinatown has been used as the seedy backdrop of the criminal underworld in Bladerunner (1982) and unsurprisingly; Chinatown (1974), a milling hub for lowlifes illuminated in neon.

The protagonists in these films are both familiar with this environment and it is where they will eventually have to take their own personal course of action to deal with the crime they are solving that will force them 'to define his own concept of morality and justice' (Cawelti, 43), just as Dean will soon discover.

I've already shot from this location before, and helped a friend on a photography project which coincidentally was also an homage to Blade Runner and the original Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Posing as replicants

The use of shadow to convey characters doubts and uncertainties in Blade Runner is something that would work well in our film and I imagine Dean slipping further and further into darkness as his anger consumes him.  The same interior projection into the exterior is used in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), as previously mentioned, which would represent Deans loss of control and surrendering of his emotions when he beats Tom into a bloody pulp.

I had a friend draw a storyboard based on a modest stick-man outline I'd scrawled, with emphasis on the lighting, with Jenny remaining in the light whilst Dean and Tom roll into the Darkness.

Deans emotional evolution throughout the piece follows the framework of what I will call the Jedi Principle, or theory of the Dark Side. His fears lead him to anger/hatred which results in the suffering of Tom and Jenny and he himself succumbs to his darkness. It sounds a lot better when Yoda explains it...

Reference:

Cawelti, J. G. (1977) Adventure, Mystery, and Romance, Chicago: Chicago University Press. P.43