cinematography Silence of the Lambs

ussinners

ussinners

I just saw a behind the making of Silence of the Lambs documentary on Biography, and they made this big stink about the final scene in the dark. They talked about how that day of shooting took 23 hours and that they had a hell of a time setting up the lighting so there were no shadows. Because in darkness there would be no shadows. Then Jody Foster said "But there is this one shot" and they show the shot and a glimpse of a shadow.

Anyway, I watched the movie (haven't seen it in years) and the amount of shadow in that scene is incredible. Her shadow is everywhere. I never thought about it ever. Never even occurred to me there would be no shadow. But, after pointing it out, I couldn't help but think "What the fuck are they talking about!" If it was suppose to be shadowless, they failed miserably.
 
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I created this thread because it had to do with film making, but I guess I was wrong. So, I'm going to leave this (unless someone says something really stupid).

1. I love Silence of the Lambs. It deserved every award it won, and has not dated itself at all.

2. If you like BTS stories, this is a good one. Gene Hackman owned the rights originally with Orion, and he planned on directing and starring as Hannibal Lecter. Thank God he dropped out.

3. If you're anywhere near a normal human being, the following should apply:

You're watching this special and there's all kinds of good movie making talk. They get to the last day of shooting and it takes 23 hours to complete because they couldn't have any shadows in the shots. Because she's in the dark. So there's no light. Then there's a big story about how one shot with a shadow got in. They show this piece on the show. Any normal person who is interested in movie making stuff would (or should) be in awe of the detail that the film makers put into creating this scene. Shadows! Who thinks of shadows? If you saw a shadow would you jump up and say "There can't be shadows, she's in the dark! There's no light source" No. A normal person isn't going to think of that, or even care. But, the film makers did, hooray for them. That's amazing detail. (As film makers we should all be so detail oriented)

If you have any kind of memory, you're going to say "The next time I see SOTL, I have to take notice of the fact there's no shadow". They went through a lot to get this special look.

So, what are you going to think when you put on the movie, get to the shadowless scene, and there's shadows? A normal person will say "What the fuck were they talking about? There's Foster's shadow. There it is again. Wait, one more time."

It doesn't diminish the movie at all. It just makes the people telling the stories look like asses for saying something that is just so false. It's so ridiculously stupid. These people supposedly spent 23 hours to get rid of shadows, and didn't. But, still say they did.

I guess it's something only I found interestingly weird enough to share.
 
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I don't know...

Where is she again? If she's in the dark in a BASEMENT I could understand,

But nowadays there is a street light on every corner.

Shadows happen, man. Face it. It's life. Live with shadows.
 
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sinner, it's not that what you're saying doesn't have validity to it. If I can take a guess -- I think maybe the reason we're not responding so seriously is because, and I can obviously only speak for myself -- although you may have caught an error, to me, it's just not that big a deal. In my opinion, this is nit-picking to a degree that's rather extreme.

Anyway, I think I've discovered Zensteve's secret! Oh, the terror I will unleash on the world!

 
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