#danlaustsen

http://chimeralighting.com/shape-of-water/  

#DanLaustsen, ASC:  It was a small movie so we had a lot of problems with that. I think it was roughly 19-1/2-million-dollars budget and a fifty-five day shoot, plus everything is shot in one camera. There are a lot of camera movements, of course, so everything is shot on a Steadicam, or on a dolly, with a hot head on. We also couldn’t afford to to have catwalks around the sets, so that was just kind of a drag, especially because the sets were so tall and wide.So all the key lights had to come from above. What I was doing, a lot, we would try to track the camera with handheld lighting from the camera’s axis. We’ll be starting with a big wide shot, like the first time Sally is coming in to the lab, for example, and the fish man is going into the tank. That’s a big, wide Steadicam shot, which comes in to a close-up of her.So we are carrying an LED light, together with the camera, at a 45 degree angle to keep the close up of her lit very, very nicely. On Crimson Peak, we had the money, so we could put lights in the frame and just paint it out later on. We didn’t have those monies for the Shape of Water, so we had to be more practical with our lighting, and more straightforward.We would carry some of our key lights into close ups, and I think that worked pretty well. I’m using negative fill all the time, too. That’s more so that we can come in closer. The brakes would come in, and flags, so a lot of negative fill. As much as possible we wanted to have this “direction” look of the light. The light had to have a direction, and that can change from shot to shot.Sometimes we were using an old fashioned camera light, just above the camera. You know, a small 300w, with diffusion on, just to lift up her eyes a little bit. We used that in the bus, for example, where she’s sitting there and she feels happy. We had this small 300 camera light just above the camera to lift her up a little bit. Read full article with @dan.laustsen on Chimera Lighting Chasing Light blog. link in bio.http://chimeralighting.com/shape-of-water/

Read the article with @dan.laustsen on Chimera Lighting Chasing Light blog. link in bio. http://chimeralighting.com/shape-of-water/ @dan.laustsen ASC DFF Cinematographer talks about the @shapeofwatermovie that won Best Picture at the #Oscars. The production also stayed as mobile with lighting as they did with the camerawork, which was largely handheld. While they relied on elaborate computer graphics for a few of the key underwater scenes, there was also a lot of real world work with water tanks. Wholly embracing a definitive color palette, Laustsen made extremely effective use of color, coupling subtle touches like bright red exit signs and bright, shocking splatters of blood with sickly green hues, even going so far as to desaturate entirely during an imaginative dance number. Even more challenging to light, del Toro mapped out the entire film in his head. From one fluid shot to the next, this required extensive single takes that would traverse around the actors and the scenery as if dancers. These continuous camera movements helped to propel the two hour romance into an action film, but from a practical standpoint, literally, lighting for 360-degrees of motion can be difficult, to say the least. Laustsen previously won the prestigious Golden Frog at Camerimage for the film I Am Dina. Born in Denmark, he graduated from the Danish national Film School in 1979. A member of the Danish Society of Cinematographers as well as the ASC since this last summer, Laustsen is currently slated to film a remake of the 1947 film Nightmare Alley with del Toro next.

Read the article with #danlaustsen on Chimera Lighting Chasing Light blog. http://chimeralighting.com/shape-of-water/ #danlaustsen ASC DFF Cinematographer talks about the @shapeofwatermovie that won Best Picture at the #Oscars. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival in August of 2017, where it won the prestigious Golden Lion for Best Film, Shape of Water has gone on to receive a massive 13 Oscar nominations, including a nod to cinematographer Dan Laustsen, ASC, DFF. Known for highly stylized blockbusters like John Wick Chapter 2, Silent Hill, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Brotherhood of the Wolf, Laustsen made heavy use of practicals to to meet the many challenges he faced on Shape of Water, like neon, which surrounds the sets with color while establishing the epoch of the late fifties in which the film takes place.

Congratulations to @dan.laustsen ASC DFF Cinematographer and #GuillermoDelToro @realgdt Director for @shapeofwatermovie Best Picture at the #Oscars. Set during the height of the Cold War in 1962, the Shape of Water applauds and at the same time subverts the classic film genres of science fiction and romance. At times frightening and at other times absolutely heartbreaking, the story updates The Creature from the Black Lagoon for modern audiences through a humorous, tense, and at many times absolutely adorable exploration of the heart, fear, and trust. In a love letter penned by director Guillermo Del Toro and cowriter Vanessa Taylor to the hallmark days of classic American science fiction, Shape of Water follows the silent Sally as she discovers a forbidden love with a creature unlike any she’s ever known. Read the article with @dan.laustsen on Chimera Lighting Chasing Light blog. link in bio. http://chimeralighting.com/shape-of-water/

I’ve just seen Guillermo del Toro’s new film! It’s beautiful and violent at the same time. I love the colour of the movie. The film ended with a interview with the danish cinematographer, Dan Laustsen. #stockholminternationalfilmfestival #guillermodeltoro #theshapeofwater #danlaustsen (på/i Biograf Skandia)