“Catch Me If You Can”: Analysis of Lighting Schemes and Techniques | Articles | Photo, video, optics

The whole movie DiCaprio runs away, and Tom Han­ks dili­gent­ly catch­es up with him! It would seem that the film is an adven­ture, mas­sive, sim­ple and under­stand­able, but even there there is some­thing to look at in terms of work in the frame and col­or schemes. In this sense, “Catch me if you can” is a kalei­do­scope: there are enough dif­fer­ent tricks with light, the shots are curi­ous, and the work is mas­ter­ful.

This is anoth­er text of a per­ma­nent col­umn in which I ana­lyze films from the point of view of col­or and frames. The pre­vi­ous one can be read here. Let’s go in order!

COLOR

Stills from Catch Me If You Can, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

Stitch­ing the pic­ture with col­or, the direc­tor chose a blue thread as one of the main ones. The film begins with frames paint­ed in a twi­light hue. They pop up from time to time through­out the sto­ry. Curi­ous­ly, Spiel­berg lays out the palette, giv­ing vent to every­thing from light azure to deep pur­ple.

Blue is con­sid­ered one of the most melan­choly col­ors. It can be assumed that the direc­tor chose him as one of the main char­ac­ters in the film for a rea­son: the main char­ac­ter is lone­ly and con­stant­ly runs away for the entire peri­od of his life shown, look­ing for sup­port and does not receive it. It can be assumed that it was this mood that the cos­tume design­er was try­ing to con­vey.

Stills from Catch Me If You Can, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

In dif­fer­ent scenes of the film, you can see how a warm neigh­bor is added to one of the dom­i­nant col­ors. More­over, also in dif­fer­ent tonal­i­ties and with dif­fer­ent strengths of col­or inten­si­ty. The com­pli­men­ta­ry com­bi­na­tion of blue and yel­low is not new, but gen­er­al­ly long-estab­lished. You can read more about it here, these col­ors com­ple­ment each oth­er.

Stills from Catch Me If You Can, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

The sec­ond thread, which the author armed him­self with, changes from warm ocher to emer­ald green. In the moments where the dom­i­nant blue leaves the stage, the film is most often tint­ed in shades of green, yel­low, emer­ald, orange, etc.

Curi­ous­ly, the pro­por­tions of green and orange change depend­ing on the mood and state of the pro­tag­o­nist. Yel­low, warm shades are about peace and light­ness. The peri­ods of emo­tion­al decline of DiCapri­o’s hero also change the palette of the frame, divert­ing the col­or into green tones. This is espe­cial­ly notice­able in the last of the select­ed scenes, where the main char­ac­ter lost every­thing and land­ed in jail. The stage is paint­ed in poi­so­nous green col­ors.

Stills from Catch Me If You Can, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

To keep the film from being a one-col­or can­vas, Spiel­berg dilutes the dom­i­nant col­ors and reveals oth­er col­or com­bi­na­tions. So, in “Catch Me If You Can”, a well-estab­lished com­bi­na­tion of red and green appears. As a rule, it is brought by accent details in the frame: the col­ors of the car or the dress on the girl.

Stills from Catch Me If You Can, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

In sev­er­al scenes, red har­mo­nious­ly sets off the dom­i­nant blue. Take a clos­er look at the bluish col­or of the suit on DiCaprio, or the col­or of the floor, which was tint­ed in azure to empha­size the hero’s red-orange polo.

Pat­terned inclu­sions in the right places make the can­vas of the pic­ture com­plete. Cher­ries, with­out which the cake seems emp­ty. We are talk­ing about extrav­a­gan­za shots, where the direc­tor con­nects every­thing at once, skill­ful­ly cre­at­ing an incred­i­ble pic­ture for the view­er.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

Here is a shot in the main char­ac­ter’s apart­ment, where the walls visu­al­ly divide the pic­ture into sev­er­al parts. In one of them, warm orange is adja­cent to green, and in the oth­er, a blue beam pierces a sun­ny yel­low win­dow. This tech­nique makes the pic­ture even more con­trast: from warm on the left side of the frame to cold on the right. The pic­ture becomes filled: imag­ine a frame with­out a beam of light from the win­dow and lit lamps.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

In anoth­er frame, the com­bi­na­tion of red and blue is the basis, and the green tint of the sur­round­ing space enhances the com­bi­na­tion. In fact, these are the clas­sic RGB col­or sup­ports — Red, Green, Blue.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

They can also be seen in the scene where DiCapri­o’s char­ac­ter watch­es expec­tant­ly from the car (and again the blue shirt). Only here yel­low is added, due to the taxi in the back­ground.

Each of the three enchant­i­ng col­or moments plays on the basis of the emo­tions of the main char­ac­ters. Not only cre­ates a wow effect, but also enhances the per­cep­tion of the view­er. In the first case — the moment of a fatal turn in the fate of the still young hero; then — his emo­tion­al decline and the search for a new life, an attempt to arrange it; final­ly, a shot in the car — framed by bright ele­ments, DiCapri­o’s deep puz­zle­ment, the search for a way out of the sit­u­a­tion. And he is still in it — a lone­ly blue ele­ment.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

STAFF

Stills from Catch Me If You Can, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

Direc­tors, pho­tog­ra­phers and artists with a good eye and a full hand use not only clas­si­cal meth­ods of com­po­si­tion and fram­ing, but also author’s solu­tions. So, the recep­tion of visu­al pres­ence could already be observed as one of the tools of Wes Ander­son.

Spiel­berg also uses this fea­ture often. The essence is sim­ple: in the fore­ground there is a per­son out of focus, as if stand­ing in front of the view­er, due to which what is hap­pen­ing on the screen seems close to the view­er. And if in the case of Wes the recep­tion was played very dif­fer­ent­ly (even with only one hand with a news­pa­per in the frame), then Spiel­berg is more con­ser­v­a­tive in this mat­ter! He always has a clas­sic sto­ry with the char­ac­ter’s head (or part of it) in the frame in the fore­ground.

Stills from Catch Me If You Can, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

The sec­ond char­ac­ter­is­tic tech­nique through­out the film, which is also worth adopt­ing, is work­ing with side light. More than once or twice the direc­tor uses such a scheme, in which the light source is on the same lev­el with the sub­ject, while on the side of it.

Side light adds dra­ma to the scene, and con­trast and shad­ows to the char­ac­ter in the frame. In the case of Catch Me If You Can, such a move could be used to empha­size the dif­fi­cult path of the pro­tag­o­nist, his throw­ing, expe­ri­ences and dra­ma of con­stant move­ment in life. Most often, Spiel­berg put the side light in espe­cial­ly emo­tion­al moments, or in scenes where there is a com­plex dia­logue between the char­ac­ters.

Stills from Catch Me If You Can, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

An artis­tic off­shoot of just side light is shoot­ing with a direc­tion­al beam that empha­sizes what is need­ed in the frame. This can be achieved by using a pho­to torch or cur­tains on the light source. In this pic­ture, the tech­nique is played up in scenes with the main char­ac­ter: in each of them, the light directs the view­er’s atten­tion to DiCapri­o’s face and empha­sizes the emo­tions he expe­ri­ences.

In addi­tion to the basic tech­niques for work­ing with pic­ture and light, there are sev­er­al less sig­nif­i­cant episodes in Catch Me If You Can. How­ev­er, they are also worth pay­ing atten­tion to. Tech­niques from these moments can be repeat­ed on pho­tog­ra­phy and get cool shots.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

one) Shoot­ing through a win­dow. The recep­tion is known to many, how­ev­er, it is impor­tant to dwell on it. Many pho­tog­ra­phers take close-up por­traits through the win­dows of cof­fee shops and bars, in the glass doors of the old stock and shop­ping cen­ters.

Glass, like a fil­ter, slight­ly smoothes the pic­ture, and can also add beau­ti­ful reflec­tions to pho­tos, glare from the oppo­site.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

2) A ray of light. Pay atten­tion to the organ­ic nature of what is hap­pen­ing in the film: the hero of Tom Han­ks is sit­ting in a long-closed office, con­tin­u­ing to work. Out­side the win­dows, the evening is already com­ing, which paints every­thing in blue tones, and from the light sources there is only a lamp on his desk.

In the frame, not only visu­al con­trast is obtained due to bright and dark, but also a play of light is added, which should be used in such shoot­ings.

The best advice for apply­ing this tech­nique is to shoot at night (or in a dark room), so you get the nec­es­sary con­trast and the right blue­ness, which can already be coun­tered by a warm light source.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

3) Large por­trait. A com­mon mis­take many pho­tog­ra­phers make is being afraid or not being able to crop. A close-up por­trait of a face can be beau­ti­ful, espe­cial­ly if you cap­ture a strong emo­tion. Fram­ing is worth learn­ing from Spiel­berg: the bor­der of the frame runs exact­ly above the eye­brows, which looks organ­ic.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

four) Shoot­ing from below. Visu­al­ly, the angle below the per­son enhances the neck and chin, which can be fraught with a visu­al increase, so this tech­nique should be used very care­ful­ly, and the degree of incli­na­tion should not be tak­en large. Spiel­berg takes this angle on the char­ac­ter of DiCaprio and his father at the moment of the con­ver­sa­tion, when they are sur­round­ed by the sky­scrap­ers of the city.

The angle from below is worth tak­ing when there is some­thing to show from above. More­over, it can be either a por­trait against the sky (to avoid hous­es in the frame), or vice ver­sa, an empha­sized indus­tri­al back­ground.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

5) Pro­por­tions and mir­rors. This tech­nique is suit­able for shoot­ing a cou­ple. Many inte­ri­or stu­dios have mir­rors. But do not go straight along the path, shoot­ing the reflec­tion of the cou­ple in them — put one in front, and catch the sec­ond in the mir­ror. Visu­al­ly it will look stronger.

Frame from the movie “Catch Me If You Can”, 2002. Direc­tor: Steven Spiel­berg

Anoth­er inter­ac­tion option is play­ing with the mid­dle and fore­ground: the sil­hou­ette of the sec­ond per­son in the dis­tance will be notice­ably small­er than the fig­ure of the hero in the fore­ground. It can be a sin­gle shot, and the sec­ond char­ac­ter can be a ran­dom pass­er-by who fits into the frame in the back­ground.