Director: Ridley Scott
Director of Photography: Jordan Cronenweth
Production Design: Lawrence G. Paull
Costume Design: Michael Kaplan & Charles Knode
Year: 1982
Purchase Blade Runner from Amazon U.K.
Purchase Blade Runner from Amazon U.S.
25 Replies to “Blade Runner”
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Where’s Kubrick?
Ill be doing a week of Kubrick movies at some point, my copies of Lolita and Strangelove are currently in other people’s houses, I’d like to wait to post them all together.
So I’ve been encouraged to post some thoughts on the films, but I’m only going to do that if people respond and let me know what they think… my opinions are no more valid than yours so make yourselves heard.
I’m a big fan Philip K Dick, whose writing is alot more esoteric and lighter than the tone Scott adopted for Blade Runner. But I’m glad the movie strays so far from the book because I think as is Blade Runner is possibly one of the best shot films of all time.
It seems most of the interior scenes are actually lit from exterior sources, giving everything a dark silhouetted feel. This can also adds to the frantic nature of the final chase.
The opening is really stunning, contrasting wide grand shots of the new urban landscape with the very beautful shot of the fire reflected in the eye.
My favourite scene is actually the first meeting with Rachel and the shot marked 11.Tyrell’s office is probably my favourite in the whole film, this whole scene perfectly combines the otherworldly nature of the film’s world, with the somehow retro/familiar tones we recognise from other films.
What a fantastic site!!! I’ve been trying to find books or a website that contain cinematographic images from particular films for a long time now.
I’d love to have a book like that so that I can make notes and on what I find important about the image/s.
There’s a book published by Screenpress books called Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, which is a 300 paged book containing 800 stills from the film. It’s a one-off though. They haven’t published any other Kubrick film.
I’ll contend your argument that Blade Runner ‘is possibly one of the best shot films of all time’ and state that Godfrey Reggio’s 1979 film Koyaanisqatsi should instead earn that title. I hope you’ve seen the film, it’s influence on Blade Runner, especially the opening scenes, is extremely obvious.
I’ll certainly visit your website again DonnachaC
Saving a book I hope this site will act as some kind of help to you, I know in this short time I’ve found it very helpful for myself.
I said Blade Runner was “one of the best shot films” as you will learn for me, there are loads of great films in contention for that title (and I really don’t believe its a quantifiable thing, its all personal)
I am yet to dip into the qatsi films yet (shame on me) but consider them bumped up my “to watch” queue
How about stills from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre film. The film’s grainny and abrasive look seems antithetic to most of the cinematographic styles you have on this site. just a suggestion mind.
Would you believe I actually started work on getting the stills from Texas Chainsaw… I got distracted by Kubrick week, but back on the horse I say!
I recently covered this movie on my new movie blog. I’m a big Phillip K Dick fan and Scott’s loosely based interpretation is beautiful and gloomy. Great Choice!
http://samlockley.blogspot.com/
Have a look and leave some feedback 🙂 i love this site btw!
I have to ask, DonnachaC: How do you do this? (putting stills from films I mean) Are you a specialist in this field or something?
No specialist at all, I work is the glamourous world of unpaid dp/cam oping/directing, I love film so thats about my qualification.
I’ve had a few people wondering how exactly I work so maybe it’s tiem to give a little explanation.
I use VLC which has a very handy screengrab button, I grab sfrom my extensive DVD collection, I havent (and probably wont) make the switch to Blu Ray but admittedly that would be brilliant for getting stills. I watch through the film at anywhere from 1/2speed to 4x speed depending on what frames I need to get, whats happening in the scene and how familiar I am with the film.(I am of course familiar with all the films I have chosen so far, but some films I am even more so familiar)
My first runthrough gives me (depending on film) anywhere between around 180 and 280 stills to choose from. I then go about being brutal and figuring out what shots best service the post, looking at striking frames, interesting colours and lighting sources.
I’ve set myself the arbitrary limit of around 60 still for posts (I think some posts go to 65) it gives me something to aim for an forces me to be brutal. I think sixty allows a large range of images but also forces me to root out where certain things are being repeated and redundant.
Ridley Scott had been doing this ‘teal and orange effect’ way back in 1982…
The orange and teal seems to be generally used to give people perma tan, the blues here actually wash right around the characters and trap them in their horrible surrounds.
Yeah, the modern orange and teal is completely artificial.
But if you look at the screenshots you’ve used here you’ll see an overall picture of blues and oranges (couple of greens too). There is some guy who actually makes posters using thousands of screenshots from a particular movie taken at regular intervals, and they can be used as a sort of gauge of a movies colour scheme.
Seemingly Ridley’s pictures are among the most interesting as patterns emerge through the course of the story (and different colour blocks are revealed accordingly). Have to search for that website again…
Please do post a link here if you happen to find it.
Most films definitely have a consitent colour set, and I think (or at least hope) that you can make them out here.
The site is laid out to give both an overview of the look of the film and then specific examples of frames and what not.
The original article discussing the colours in BlackHawk Down is here, and the links should lead on to more examples I think:
http://www.outside-hollywood.com/2009/03/color-theory-for-cinematographers/
Reblogged this on The Damnedest Thing You Ever Saw.
Some of the best shots and lighting I have ever seen in my life. For me, it comes close to being the film with the best cinematography of all time.