American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 65

From left: Jones, MacDougall and director J.A. Bayona discuss Conor's nightmare scene
on a greenscreen-lined cemetery set.

complicated Monster scene at night in
the backyard of a house. We realized
that the integrated video of the film
camera wasn't bright enough to deliver a
good-quality image suitable to be
processed by the tracking-system software. A black monster in front of the
dark night sky is an extreme condition,
and that was going to be a very common
situation for us because in this story the
Monster [typically] appears at night.
Considering all the input we got from
the tests, we decided to shoot with the
Alexa XT Studio.
What was your general lighting
approach?
Faura: The lighting style has a
naturalistic motivation, and always tries
to respect the atmosphere of the northern England weather. During preparation, I dreamed about getting overcast
skies and a gray ambience, and when we
spent three weeks in Manchester in
October 2014, we got what we wanted
- clouds. I have to say we were lucky,
especially shooting the 'nightmare' scene
at the cemetery near the church, where
we had three continuous cloudy shooting days with almost no rain. The challenge came when we moved to Spain,
and we had to continue shooting the
most technically difficult part of the

scene during two more weeks while
avoiding the direct sun. The exteriors
were shot using primarily natural light.
We had more work subtracting light
using big, black frames as negative fill
than adding [any direct lighting].
For day-interior scenes, we
followed the [mandate] of soft, dim
light coming from windows. All the day
scenes were lit this way. Sometimes it is
tempting to use a bright beam of
sunlight coming from a window to
shoot a day scene, as you see in many
movies, but I preferred to create a
believable atmosphere by connecting
interiors and exteriors. There are just
two exceptions in this movie. One is the
[cafeteria] scene at the school. There,
the director and the previs department
had the idea of making the Monster
appear at the [cafeteria] using his growing shadow. That broke my orthodox
plan of gloomy days, but the idea was so
good that I accepted it. The other sunny
scene is the last one. I thought that it
was appropriate, ending the story with a
bright and shiny scene as a relief after all
that suffering - the beginning of a new
stage.
We also followed the rule of never
having practical lights on in houses
during day scenes. That was a way to
65



http://fjwestcott.com

American Cinematographer - November 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - November 2016

Contents
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - Intro
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 1
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 2
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - Contents
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 4
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 5
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 6
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 7
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 8
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 9
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 10
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 11
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 12
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 13
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 14
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 15
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 16
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 17
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 18
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 19
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 20
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 21
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 22
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 23
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 24
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 25
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 26
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 27
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 28
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 29
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 30
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 31
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 32
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 33
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 34
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 35
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 36
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 37
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 38
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 39
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 40
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 41
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 42
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 43
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 44
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 45
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 46
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 47
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 48
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 49
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 50
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 51
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 52
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 53
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 54
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 55
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 56
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 57
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 58
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 59
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 60
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 61
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 62
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 63
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 64
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 65
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 66
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 67
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 68
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 69
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 70
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 71
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 72
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 73
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 74
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 75
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 76
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 77
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 78
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 79
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 80
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 81
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 82
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 83
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 84
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 85
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 86
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 87
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 88
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - November 2016 - Cover4
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