References

This scene from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a climactic scene in the film. It is the scene where Jack Torrence reveals his violent mental state to Wendy and threatens to kill her. Upon researching this scene I have learnt that it was shot 127 times and that one of the first uses of the now commonly used steadicam was in this film and this scene. I have chosen references that I would use to describe some of the camera and lighting, sound, set design and mise en scene symbolism in the scene if I was to explain how I wanted to create the scene to others. The first part includes some references with notes I might write highlighting the parts I am referring to. The second part is my analysis as myself talking about why I would have chosen those references and how I think they relate.

Punch Drunk Love

Use of lighting – blowing out windows and letting the light flare. Light made to look quite natural. Lots of back light and light coming from behind. Purposely frame character inside windows.

The Piano – Jane Campion

Hazy effect to lower contrast and spread light into the room. A kind of dusty milky look.

No Country for Old Men

Colour palette and having blue light and tungsten light at the same time and characters moving between them.

Ahwahnee Hotel lounge

The look and design of the set – Candle or candle look-alike Chandeliers. A large room with huge windows. Very much referencing Georgian design. Time of day is early evening so light will be coming from outside but lights also on inside.

A Georgian carpet design to have dotted throughout the hotel.

A staircase like this one carpeted only in the middle of the stairs. Wooden hand rail. White walls for the whole room to make it feel more open. Two entry’s and two exists.

Pulp Fiction

Camera movement.
The use of a slow steadicam shot which moves along tracking backwards with the actor advancing on the camera. A very slow shot like this one to cover the whole scene.

The Madonna in Majesty (Maesta) – Cimabue

Use of the Halo to symbolize holiness & innocene of Wendy.

The Counterattack of Michelotto da Cotignola at the Battle of San Romano – Musée du Louvre

Symbolism from renaissance art – the use of halos, crowns and head pieces. Subtle background and using everything within the frame to tell the story.

Sound track – Fast tumbling music or scratchy violin sounding music with very fast moving insect-like sounds over the top. Fear.

Voice reference for first part of the scene when we see Danny and the blood. Alien-like representing his state of mind and possession.

 

Lighting

This scene from Stanley Kubric’s The Shining is a climactic scene in the film. It is the scene where Jack Torrence reveals his violent mental state to Wendy and threatens to kill her. Upon researching this scene I have learnt that it was shot 127 times and that one of the first uses of the now commonly used steadicam was in this film and this scene. I have chosen references that I would use to describe some of the camera and lighting, sound, set design and mise en scene symbolism in the scene if I was to explain how I wanted to create the scene to others. The first part includes some references with notes I might write highlighting the parts I am referring to. The second part is my analysis as myself talking about why I would have chosen those references and how I think they relate.

The lighting in this scene is made to look very natural even though it is being filmed inside a built studio set. The light needs to be coming from outside and practical lights upstairs. The first reference shows the characters back lit with the background being blown out with light which makes the actors look silhouetted in front of the windows. This is what Stanley Kubric has chosen to do with the windows in his hotel. This could be to hide the outside of the windows which is the outside of the set and also to add to the uneasy and threatening feeling of the scene. The camera is pointed right at the windows so the light is allowed to flare into the camera lens creating a milky lower contrast look and blue flares spreading onto the character of Jack but not so much on Wendy. The second reference shows the large bright source creating flares over the characters heads. The type of flared lighting in these scenes adds to the mood – rather than exposing the inside to the outside and watching the angles for flares a more realistic or natural feeling is created where you can see the rawness of the shot so Jack’s intense delivery feels more real and scary. It is made to feel like we are in the same room put into Wendy’s place backing away from the character and Jack’s face changing between being easy and harder to see.

The second reference is from The Piano and I would use is as another way to describe how I would want the light to spread over the subject making a milky low contrast light. In this shot a haze has been used to help highlight the beams of light coming through the window and also spreads the light around creating a very soft quality of light. It looks as though haze may have been used in The Shining scene to do this and bring more light into the room as well as creating a dusty look for the hotel.

In No Country for Old Men Rodger Deakins often uses a mixture of colour temperatures. The last reference I have used uses the “natural” moonlight with tungsten coloured artificial lights in shot as well. Mixing colour temperatures can create very interesting images and in The Shining the director/DP have made a choice to put interior lights on and have the characters move from the cooler light up into the warmer light. If I was talking about colour temperature to my collaborators I would say that I would want the characters to start off in the bluer light seeming to be coming from outside and move into very warm light towards the end. As they move up the stairs and the shots cut between Wendy and Jack, she will start to move more into the warmer light created by the chandeliers upstairs. The shots will then cut between Wendy up in the warmer light and Jack kept down in the cold light. The warmer light acts as a safer place for Wendy as well as showing her as the innocent one in contrast to the bluer light Jack is left standing in.

Set Design

For the set and art design I have chosen references from Georgian architecture. The first picture shows a whole room and its furnishings inside a hotel. The many large windows, candle chandeliers and wooden floors with the particular patterned carpet are all common characteristics of Georgian design and appear in the set of the Overlook Hotel in this scene. The reference is actually the hotel the Kubric modelled his set from so he would have taken many references from this building. The carpets are a Caucasian design of carpet which has very distinct diamond and criss crossing shapes and patterns. Having these spread largely throughout the entire room gives it a lot more texture and adds to the look they are trying to create with the overall design.

A staircase in the same Georgian style as the other parts of the hotel. The staircase I would want as a director would be significant to the story because it would have two entries and two exits. In the scene Wendy is pushed closer to the stairway’s right entry and we as the viewer are aware she could either go back down the other side of the stairs or towards either of the exits at the top, all of which would have different consequences if she ran away. In this scene the audience is made to feel uneasy and unsure what will happen and it adds to the suspense if we don’t know where she will directly go.

Camera Movement

This reference for camera movement is from the film Pulp Fiction made a decade after the shining. If Pulp Fiction was made first I would use this reference for the example of the way the steadicam can be used. This shot tracks back with the actors in a similar way, just faster. The characters are walking towards the camera as though they are pushing it back in the same way that Jack Torrence advances on the camera. When the steadicam was invented it allowed for all sorts of new camera movement such as the ability to move in a non shaky way with the actors over long spaces with the same smoothness as having tracks but without the need for them. The steadicam was very new and The Shining was one of the first films it was used in.

Mise en scene

These are references from renaissance art and in this case I am using them to reference the greater meaning in the picture told by purposeful placement of objects in the background and symbolism. In the scene when Wendy is walking backwards up the stairs she is walking into the warmer light created by the chandelier – but what the light also does is create a yellow halo above her head as she gets to the top. The shot then cuts back to Jack who is lower on the stairs and still in the bluer light. Above his head is a bigger dark unlit chandelier that also looks like a huge crown. My second reference shows knights dressed for battle. Their helmets are very large and decorative and aim to instil fear in their opponents. Once they are dressed for battle they are committed and when Jack reaches the top of the stairs and the giant iron chandelier rests on his head, there is no going back for Wendy who has lost the husband she once knew. Wendy’s crown is more like a halo like the picture in the first reference. In this picture the halo represents holiness and innocence as Mary and the angels all have halos above their heads. The reference images aim to show the contrast between good and bad or innocent and evil. I would give references to the set designers telling them I wanted the art design to reflect the mental state of the characters and the idea would be helped by careful camera framing.

Sound

These are two references I would choose to explain the sound of the first part of the scene when it is cutting between Danny’s face and the blood in the hallway. Jack’s voice over this part sounds creepy and reminds me of horror movie voices. It looks like Danny is realizing his fathers truly psychotic state and what will happen to him and his mother. Jack has become so threatening that his voice sounds almost alien like he is possessed and it is not even him talking anymore.

The creature from Dune (at 4.00) uses a similar voice that sounds alien but still very human like. The creature was once a human but has turned into this creature much like Jack was once himself but has been possessed and gone crazy by the place he is living in.

The sound in this part of the scene sounds like scratchy erratic violins and makes the scene build in tension as we realize this is the climatic part of the film and something bad will happen. In the scene from Harry the spiders are descending on the characters and the music supports the fear the characters are feeling. It is similar in speed and pace.