Visual references

I don't have a great eye, or a great memory for visuals. My strengths lie more in words, I have to admit. Film, though, is a visual and aural medium, so if I want to make films I had better bloody well catch up on the visual and aural skills.

At some point, possibly quite soon, some camera student is going to ask me for visual references. We will have just found out that we are working together on the advert, and will want to develop a "look".

How can someone with a terrible memory for visuals, like me, give great visual references? By turning them into something that I DO understand and remember: words. Words conjure up visual images in my mind. So if I can just manage to convert some visuals into words then I will have a useful catalogue to refer to when asked for references.

From now on, every time I watch a movie I will add a description of its visual style to this list. I will begin with the films I have seen recently. Hopefully I will remember them correctly...

I Am Legend: Low angles that show how dwarfed the lead character is by the enromous, empty, New York environment. Tight close ups on the the main character and dog, to let us into their emotions. Shots on the Dark Seekers (or whatever they are called) seem to be sympathetic. They are shot straight on, like humans, rather than using grotesque horror-style close ups and sharp angles. The colour palette appears to be very yellow sunlight, giving a feeling of disappearing end-of-day light, with cool greys and bright greens.

Tristan and Isolde: Desaturated colours, accentuating the fact that it's a period piece - makes it seem more like an ancient time. Film becomes more and more drained of colour as the film goes on and the danger and sense of foreboding increase. The film is black and white in some parts of the end. Lots of silhouettes used. Slow motion used during battle scenes and love scenes.

Vertigo: Colours seem dull because of the old film stock. Gives every shot the appearance of a beautiful pencil drawing. Use of jade green as a motif in costume and lighting. POV track-zooms used to accentuate fear of heights.

Goodbye Pork Pie: classic late 70s slight brown tone to film stock. Greens and blues very muted. Yellow highlighted and used as motif in costume and car. Few wide shots - the film is about the characters rather than the places they visit.

Things To Come: Black and white. Fast-cutting, for its time. The old times have an elegance, despite the ruin of the environment. The future times are very bland - not much texture or contrast. Smoothness, hardness, and cylinders are all predominant.

Sione's Wedding: Even though I saw it last night, I can't really describe it. It wasn't very distinctive, although I guess you could say that the colours were predominantly dark when hope was low or the situation was negative, and bright when the mood was good.

Querelle: Fantasy-like. Predominance of striking orange and yellow sunset colours over background and set and creating a golden wash over characters. Creates a feeling of over-bearing heat; compliments images of sweaty-skinned bodies. Contrasted with a sickly jade green light used on characters at times, possibly to highlight times of jealousy and coldness, eg in scene with female character in front of mirror. Lighting is non-naturalistic - gives no indication of time of day or diegetic sources. Used to create atmosphere of other-worldness and oppressive heat. Vaseline (?) used to soften image during sex scene between Querelle and Nono.

Renaissance 2025: Black and white animations. No use of grey - gives very strong film noir feeling. Colour used only in the drawings of one character. Effects such as reflections still used despite black and white animation.

War Lords: Initially a predominance of greys in locations, costumes etc. Indicates cold and poverty and hopelessness. Predominance of brown colours when the bandits join the army. The red of the uniforms is slightly browned - looks like the colour of dried blood. Ending uses brighter colours, more beautiful, stronger constrast and saturation, to indicate prosperity. Camera movement etc are very stock-standard Holywood style.