Cinematographer Rachel Morrison on the set of Mudbound, 2017. I wouldn't say "gritty," but the "less polished" feel of the film versus other period films, which tend to be very polished. The period wasn't a character in this film. Maybe even closer to 10.December 2, 2017 at 10:25AM, Edited December 2, 10:25AMDecember 3, 2017 at 9:39PM, Edited December 3, 9:42PM"I asked the production designer to cut a couple of holes in the ceilings so I would have more places to light from. She began her career working on series and TV movies for a number of networks. I think if you look at the Jackson story there’s a real wood theme and color palette to it. We put 18Ks through every space that wasn't on camera just to bring up the ambiance inside to be able to compete with how bright the farm was outside. To ensure the film is evenly weighted it’s a matter figuring out in this scene we want to lean into Ronsel’s voice, and in this scene do we want to lean into Laura’s voice. She is a Taurus and was born in the Year of the Horse.. Cinematographer who has worked on a variety of independent films and commercials. It was the hardest I've ever had to work to make natural light look natural. Before they get to the farm, the colors are much more poppy and saturated. Then we needed to put the rain tower inside of our blacks, and the lights inside as well so we could backlight it since you can't see rain otherwise.I would like to add that after watching the whole movie, much of it was difficult to watch precisely because of the lighting or post processing. Almost couldn't get through the first part of the film because there was no lighting. Which is I think why television miniseries and series are sort of where the character dramas are now, because people can take things at their own pace.Liam Neeson Blows Shit Up in Exclusive Trailer for Crime Thriller ‘Honest Thief’RACHEL MORRISON: I’m trying to remember if Dee called me directly or if it was through my agent, but Dee and I knew each other from the Sundance/indie world.
The other thing when you have multiple main characters is it’s not always obvious whose point of view should carry the scene. I also shot with a set of spherical glass that Panavision had rehoused. I felt like [anamorphic] would help sell the analog look of the film. Rarely have I ever been distracted by the way a movie was lit and processed to this degree.
And also to Whitfield Lovell, who’s a contemporary artist who does a lot of portraits on wood. I ended up shooting mostly anamorphic during the day and mostly spherical at night.In a perfect world, I would have shot film for day and digital for night, because I actually thought it was really helpful to have that extra latitude and stop at night. This article really puts into perspective just how much thinking has to go into lighting to make it look like no thought went into it at all.But I realized it was also really helpful to shoot with spherical at night, when we were shooting with real candles and doing a lot more practical lighting. I feel like for that last five years I’ve probably had that same conversation where somebody said, ‘It feels like it was on life support but then look at all these films.’ There was one year where I think eight out of nine of the Oscar-nominated films were shot on film. As a result, we had to load up the interior with a lot more light than I normally would just to get within range of the exteriors. We were mutual admirers and when she approached me with this project I read the first draft, which was Virgil Williams’ draft, and she talked about some of the changes she wanted to make but I knew right away. Maybe they were the only eight films shot on film that year, but I think it does kind of find a way to keep itself going because we need it. More post processing decisions than shooting or lighting I suspect.Hey Elliot, I watched the movie here on my TV and can't confirm your comments. As a result, Mudbound has … The whites and highlights were crushed and much of it was just too dark. I don't know how much the cinematographer had to do with the final look, but the end result was not a success in my view. I think Trump was a wake up call to all of us, but the amount of repressed or latent sexism and racism and all these things, you know when you live in a liberal bubble you start to forget what the rest of the country looks like and maybe not even realize that your bubble isn’t so liberal behind closed doors, I don’t know.So that was my one concern is how do you take this book that is just so big in so many different ways—it’s big in terms of the number of characters, it’s big in terms of what it’s trying to pull off, there are war scenes, there are fight scenes, and then there’s obviously quieter moments too and so how do you make that into a 90 to 100-minute movie?