Last Rites Principal Photography - Day 2

Principal photography day two began with shooting a daytime scene with Dionysus in Liquorice Park, where he contemplates his actions of the previous night in a ‘morning after the night before’ situation. This is also the scene where Dionysus has a verbal exchange with a dog who reminds him of his former glory as a Greek God and his current lack of significance in the world.

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We first shot the wide and establishing shots to set the scene and location. We then moved on to some close-ups of the character to really see the expression on the actor’s face. The close-ups were shot with a 50 mm lens but in hindsight I think that using a longer lens would have been more beneficial for these close-up shots to contrast with the wide shots and also so that the audience would have been able to relate more to the character.

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For the dog’s ‘talking shots’, I needed to get close-ups of the dog’s face looking in the general direction of the camera and as our sound recordist, Leo Culley, had already recorded the voice actor’s lines who would be playing the dog, we needed to time the duration of the dog shots with the pre-recorded voice over. Working with animals, although entertaining, presented a challenge. In order to get the shots, we needed the dog to sit still and look in a certain direction. So, after multiple takes and various attempts to get his attention, we eventually got footage where it looks as though the dog is listening to Dionysus. Again, I used the 50 mm lens for these shots, but after advice from our graduation project tutor who suggested we should use the 135 mm, we were able to reshoot with the dog at a later date and get a much tighter shot which added slightly more comedic value to an otherwise serious conversation.

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For the night shoot of day two we had two scenes to film; the first being the Ancient Greece flashbacks which Dionysus has repeatedly throughout the film and the second being the somewhat ambiguous end scene of the film were Dionysus disappears into the forest and we are left to assume that means he is going back to his roots and leaving his party days behind.

To replicate the setting of ancient Greece we filmed in a wooded area so that no modern influences would be visible in shot. Dionysus and the chorus members were provided with handmade, specifically tailored costumes made by Robin Machado, part of the production design team. The two elements of the location and the costuming/ props really helped to sell the idea that this was a different time and place than the modern-day setting of the rest of the film. To further the illusion, I used a fog filter on the camera which worked well with the lighting to give gave a golden glow to the back-lit subjects creating a dreamlike effect.

Throughout the preproduction and shooting of this film, I wanted to use cinematography to create and differentiate between the three worlds Dionysus lives in; to do this I have utilised camera movement, composition and colour. The main juxtaposition the film is between day and night as the daytime scenes are still, wide and make use of natural lighting and tones whereas the night time scenes are handheld, closer-in and use lighting to create artificial colours. However, as the ancient Greece flashbacks establishes a new ‘world’, this meant I could combine cinematography techniques from the previous two worlds and blend still shots with handheld movement as well as wides and close-ups. So, we first shot the wides of Dionysus and the chorus dancing in the forest before then moving onto handheld close-ups of the chorus interacting with the props.

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For the end scene, we shot in the same location as the flashbacks however this time Dionysus was in his present day clothes and without the use of the fog filter. The film has a somewhat enigmatic ending where Dionysus, unbeknownst to him, is watched by chorus in their ancient Greek costuming for a moment as he walks into the forest. But as he stops to look over his shoulder, the chorus are gone and he is once again left alone. The close-up of his face in this scene is last time we see him in his self-reflective state as he decides his future and continues his journey into the woods. The end shot makes use of leading lines as it frames Dionysus between the trees as he walks through and disappears into the night.