Bane: 800w Testing

Wally Pfister

A recent picture that has stood out to me is the promo which was released for ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ featuring Tom Hardy as Bane. Cinematographer Wally Pfister has worked on the entire trilogy as well having collaborated with director Christopher Nolan on ‘The Prestiage’ and ‘Inception’. His work is always lit very crisp and clean, as oppose to the gritty feel one might find in Daniel Pearl’s work (Texas Chainsaw Massacre original and remake).

 

For these promo’s, Pfister has lit the set up in such a way that Bane’s figure can be perfectly seen against the black backdrop, whilst also casting shadows on the lower parts of his body. This heightens the already menacing character. Following on from my last blog I decided to again test out the lighting to replicate this shot.

 

I rented both the 600w blondes and 800w gulvers, testing both to find that the 800w showed the harsher light I was looking for. Only one gulver was needed, angled high above and positioned directly onto his back. The reflection from his skin helped in show his figure against the background. I mimicked the composition best I could considering I don't know anyone of Tom Hardy's size! To make for the smaller subject I did a tighter shot however still making sure to leave enough dead space on the left. As I do not own the mask, I thought it would be creative to light only the bottom half of his face to keep the mysterious feel Pfister’s lighting had.

 

 

For the finishing touches I colour graded the image through after effects, adding in a title also. The main thing the colour grading helped with was darkening the background as obviously the wall should have been black as oppose to white.

 

This work was done on a Mac where the picture looked best as a Mac has many shades of black but now that i'm posting it on a laptop I can see I overexposed the white during after effects. Overall however when I'd finished this on the Mac I was quite happy. 

What I’ve noticed also is I appear to like creating dark atmospheric images when it comes to lighting, this, The Third Man, The Exorcist. I will keep this in mind as my assignment develops.