Pre-prod. Research of D.O.P - Adam Arkapaw

As my chosen technique to focus on is being the Director of Photography, i'm now researching DOPs for inspiration & guidance of the skill. The technique is really composed of 4 main attributes, these include lighting, framing, camera movement & colour/tone, and with these attributes a films world is creating & conveyed across the screen. One D.O.P I will be focusing & researching within this blog is Adam Arkapaw. Adam Arkapaw is an Australian cinematographer, he's best known for his work on the TV Series Top of The Lake and True Detective, which he won two Creative Arts Emmy awards for. He's also known for photographing films such as Animal Kingdom, Snowtown, McFarland, USA and Assassin's Creed.

I'll primarily be focusing on his work on True Detective, as that work is relevant in regards to the aesthetic he captured in it and the aesthetic we would want to try and emulate within our project. 

Here is a specific scene within a episode that emphasises the amount of work that goes into all of the camera elements. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_HuFuKiq8U

SPECIFIC SCENE TO DEPICT
Here's a great quote I found from A.Arkapaw, speaking in relation to this 7 minute 'oner' shot. 
“We used half a day to light and rehearse it, and then shot it for the rest of that day and half of the next day,” he said. “We built replicas of the houses on our stage so the stunt team could rehearse it. Then we did a couple of scouts of the neighborhood to make plans, rehearse and see what equipment we’d need. The challenge of a long take is always to figure out how to light it without making too many compromises on the aesthetic you are going for. For that reason, we were pretty specific about what the camera would and wouldn’t see. There were small lighting units hidden almost everywhere offscreen.” Adam Arkapaw. I think you get a sense and scale of how much each element had been thought about. 


LIGHTING
The lighting he uses throughout the series is dark & naturally lit, resulting in not very saturated shots. The natural lighting with the dark gels, beautifully portray the point the director is trying to get across, which are the ominous & sinister overriding themes that are being covered within the narrative. Adam Arkapaw works side by side with the director to truly capture the narratives visual menacing tones, as they have to be singing from the same hymn sheet to bring the script to life & create the world that these characters live in.


COLOUR/TONE
This particular component i believe Adam Arkapaw really excels at, as he creates such an amotsphere through the utilisation of his colour palette, it's undeniable that in it's own way you get a sense of how the characters feel throughout this tense scene just by analysing the colours and tone. But this is not just applicable for this scene, this colour & tone analysis is applied to all of the episodes within the series, the colours signify & put emphasise on the struggles of the characters and their unforgiving lives. 


FRAMING/CAMERA MOVEMENT
You can tell that Adam likes to use his tracking shots, and likes to highlight key characters with very specific framing. Specifically with this scene stated above, the use of the tracking shot for the entirety of the sequence, keeps the audience gripped by the characters side, so we experience literally everything that the characters do. I think this is an amazing achievement to pull off such a shot, obviously I know he would of had to work side by side with the director, but he's captured something that puts the viewer amongst all of the anarchy & mayhem, producing a visceral experience. 



WHY RESEARCH HIM & WHAT AFFECT IT HAS HAD ON OUR PROJECT?
I decided to research Adam due to how much I loved the series True Detective, specifically the first season. Each element of the camera design was beautifully executed, and the world that was created within it was so captivating & organic looking. The aesthetic presented through the screen was something that I'd like to achieve if we were to actually create this hypothetical unit for real. The affect it's had on my input into this project is that i've wanted to dull down the colours, and to stylise the world that our characters would live in, to set a tone that would match the themes & topics within the script. Hopefully with further developed research of Adam, I begin to shoot with a similar ilk, which then might guide me to my own shooting style & aesthetic.