Title: 42
Director: Brian Helgeland
Producer: Thomas Tull
Written by: Brian Helgeland
Starring: Chadwick Boseman
Harrison Ford
Edited by: Kevin Stitt
Peter Mcnulty
Budget $40 Million
Box Office $97,470, 701
Release Date: April 12, 2013
Plot:
This movie, 42 tells the story of Jackie Robinson, and under the guidance of team owner/exec Branch Rickey, and Robinson signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African-American player in the modern era to break the color barrier. The story in the movie focuses mostly on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers season and somewhat on Robinson’s 1946 season with the Montreal Royals along with Robinson’s battles with racism.
Lighting: How did this technique contribute to the theme?
The type of lighting used within this drama genre type movie with sub-genre of action, is that of three-point lighting. “The lighting is used for in this case, dramatic scenes in the film portrayed. As with most drama type movies/films the lighting used will vary the intensity and positions of the fill and back lights to suit the mood or to simulate the sources of light visible in the scene”( Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2014).
An example of this is when the Dodgers are playing I believe the Phillies and the crowd is very rude and calling Robinson names as is the players and coach. Its a night time game so good lighting was needed to help bring this film to life and exclude any shadows from being seen. And again, anytime any lamps or street lights were shown in the movie. With this type of three point lighting, what it does or can do is this, shadows in particular can be made to sharper or softer by aiming lights directly at the subject, through diffusion screens or at reflective surfaces.
Had different lighting been used, it might have made the movie not seem as believable or could have took away from the movie altogether. This movie was about a baseball player and the idea behind this was to make it seem as real as possible and how it might have looked or did look back when Robinson was playing. And to take the audience back in time to that point and help tell the story. More lighting wouldn’t have done the movie justice. And not enough would have made it dark. This movie also used natural lighting, so the directors had to shoot at different times of the day to help tell the story, at different points, much like back in those days.
References:
Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2014). Film: From watching to seeing (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. This text is a Constellation™ course digital materials (CDM) title. Chapter 6.4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(film)
http://www.filmjabber.com/movie-preview/42.html
The Lion King 