Gordon Willis and Vittorio Storao

Although Martin Scorsese's camera movements is something that will influence my work; in terms of lighting my short I have so far been researching cinematographers who underexpose their films and use. Who better than Gordon Willis who has the name "The Prince of Darkness" by his peers, to now research upon.

His films that I have seen include, "The Godfather Trilogy" "All The President's Men" and "Annie Hall". Particularly in "The Godfather" series, Willis used a lot of overhead lighting which casts many shadows to help give the film its dark setting. The use of overhead lighting is noticeable with scenes involving Marlon Brando's character, Vito Corleone, as his eyes are covered by shadows which in Willis own words "When you saw this mysterious human thinking, you didn't know what the hell he was going to do".

Cinematographer Conrad Hill, who gave Willis his prince nickname, has said that Willis made "an art of underexposure". During the Godfather II scenes there are many examples of characters talking by a window which gives a great natural light and allows Willis to then underexpose the scene to make the characters silhouetted.

This video is where I got the quote's from and is also a great insight into Willis's work for "The Godfather".

What stands out to me the most in this video is Gordon Willis's final quote that "You can't just do one thing." The reason for his cinematography style being so effective is a combination of the dark lighting which matches the black/grey business suits, not only "The Godfather" but "All the President's Men" and importantly the story. Gordon Willis style would not be appropriate for say, 'Toy Story' because of the context. As I will be using similar lighting, my story to the film will also have to be quite dark.

His mention of colour, bringing out the yellows to create a brassy feel is what I find to be the icing on the cake, it is very visually pleasing. It also reminded me of Vittorio Storao's work on "Apocalypse Now" especially the scene involving Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz.

Here Storaro has, like Willis underexposed and used over head lighting, however he has gone a step further and seems to have put a yellow filter to gain an even brighter yellow colour than Willis went for.

On the whole, Willis's and Storaro's work is something I will be attempting to replicate. By previous research on Michael Chapman's cinematography for "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" will also be a major influence. Hopefully by utilising these three similar but different style I will be able to create something fresh amongst those who will use post-production extensively.