Final Major Project Unit: Research

Cinematic style

An amazing documentary of a very different style is The Imposter (dir. Bart Layton). It's very much narrative driven, and investigative with a cinematic style. It tells the story through interviews, archive film and photos, and a film-like reconstruction which cleverly ties in with the interview of the main character by using an actor within the reconstruction mimicking his expressions and the way he talks. 

Here are some stills of the interview set-ups, they aimed to shoot in their houses to better reflect them. In the behind the scenes, they tell how they interviewed the private investigator in a car driving because they felt it would be more fitting as he was always on the move. I've studied the lighting and grading in the film because I always feel it's such a subtle but often forgotten process, yet it can really make a film. In The Imposter the grading is very fitting with the narrative, as the dark look and the blue undertones in the reconstructions conform to the crime genre. Each look was created to show the different timeframe, the mood and the location. 

varying shot sizes

whole different look for main character

extreme close-up

Here is a really good write-up on the technicalities behind the film: website
It even mentions that they used a Canon 5d, and some issues they had in post with focus and using grading techniques to highlight the mood in the scene. They shot on various cameras and in the end made the film 16:9 to get that 16mm film look. They even added grain tests, as it was all shot digitally, to make it look more filmic.

before

after

The website also talks about light and shadow, and how the DP Erik would work to a subtractive rather than additive approach. Whereby he would aim to use any existing light rather than designing an artificial set-up and try to take away light. From previous research in my own interest in photography, I've read this countless times and I completely agree with it. My new camera is built especially for this and can capture more information in lower light, so there's more flexibility in post to manipulate looks. 

I've also noticed that all the above shots light one side of the face more strongly than the other, as if they all have a dark side.