Making of "From the lives of Boys"
Me on the set of “From the Lives of Boys”
Talking with the Director Louie
Crew working on the dolly track
Flagging and cutting light is very important
Visual References
The biggest visual reference of the film is “Malcom & Marie”. Both films share a lot of similarities, mainly both are two handers in one location talking about past life and trauma. I love the compositions and the variety of blocking in this film, and it is also where the high contrast black and white look is inspired.
“Real life is multicolored. Black and white offers a sense of detachment. It allows audiences and viewers to develop their responses and offers the space and depth to ponder and contemplate my ideas.”
Why Black and White?
I decided to shoot this film in black and white because the story is about young adult alienation, and the story also deals with death and lost friendship so the whole piece feels very desaturated. Another practical reason is that we locked the script and location only one week before the shoot, so there was very limited time and budget to have complete control over production design, especially color. If anything, color would be a distraction in this film instead of adding to the story.
Lens Choice
I shot on Zeiss Superspeed Mark II, rented from Evidence Camera. I saw “Malcom and Marie” is also shot on superspeeds so I had to give it a try. They are very classic lenses, and opens all the way up to T1.3. When they are wide open they have a glow to them, but cleans up very nicely when stopped down, which I did. I mostly shot around T2-T2.8 for the whole film and for some of the wides around T5.6-T8 for deep focus. The 18mm has noticeable distortion, but can be easily corrected in post. One thing that I did not know was that if you put clip-on matte box on these lenses they will weigh down the focus ring so much that it would become so tight that the focus focus would stop working.
Composition
The location has great geometry, more specifically a very clear linear motif, which served our story very well. Therefore I planned to use mostly wide angle lenses to take advantage of the space from the get go. I also tried to shoot the characters through frames within frames and mirrors to create a sense of alienation and isolation. Until the scene in the living room, I restrained from shooting any close ups, and the tightest I went is Medium Closeups for dialogue coverage. To create a sense of separation in the beginning, I only shot singles for the two leads, and no OTS because they are not really connecting with each other.
For the scene in the living room, I started to shoot OTS when they start to confront each other and I also want to show their power dynamic with the height and position of the characters.
Lighting
Shooting black and white is all about lighting and contrast, and I went with the high contrast look through out the film because I never liked muddy black and white images. I shot at 500 ISO on Red Komodo to give a cleaner shadow, and mainly worked around T2-2.8. The key is consistently one stop or a stop and half under because the skin tone of the two actors are very pale. To be honest, I mostly lit with my eye and never really followed any strict metering because I have a custom Dehancer Kodak Double-X LUT in camera and I trusted the waveform and monitor, so as long as the ratios looks good on monitor, I had confidence that it would turn out like I wanted it in post.
What I learned/What Could Be Better?
Overall I am really happy with what I got but there is a few things that we ended up missing.
some of the shot and reverse OTS coverage in the living room scene do not match very well with the actors’ distance to each other and the angle to camera. So in future shoots always measure the distance and height of everything if there is a reverse.
lighting on the two OTS shot outside on the balcony could be polished more because I was reluctant to shoot those two coverage, and not expect the editor to use them, which is a terrible mindset. If you shoot it, shoot it well.