Other Influences

Another influence on my work will be "Kidulthood" (2006 Dir. Huda). Again this film is concerned with inner-city gangs. The cinematography in this film is done by Brian Tufano, who also worked on Trainspotting (1996 Dir. Boyle).

This film also has the harsh, blue lighting on actors and the sharp crisp images, similar to "Harry Brown".

The images are very well exposed and the scene has a strong, cold hue to it which combine to give the over all asthetic.

Refinement of my Cinematography Idea

What I have found with "Harry Brown" is that there seems to be a contrast between the light and day shots within the film.

When a scene is shot in day time there is a blue tint to everything, giving the film a cold and uneasy look. This adds to the idea that the film is set in a Britain where there is little hope or future.

In the above still from the film we can see that everything has a cold and metallic look to it. The image is very sharp and there is very little colour. The colour temperature is very low and the faces of the actors are very white to the point of looking almost washed out.

If we compare this to a still of the same actor shot at night time, it is obvious that the scene has a very different colour temperature. The lighting, whilst being artificial, has a warm tone to it, almost like natural lighting in daytime. This throws the audience as it isn't what they would expect. The same actor has a much warmer tone to his face in this shot, despite it still being quite white and exposed. I suspect that the reason for lighting and toning the scenes in such ways is to emphasis the dreariness of daily life for the main character, whilst the warm tones at night might emphasis this being the natural environment for these gangs.

I have decided that my cinematography work will explore the difference between day and night time shooting in the film.