{"id":8474,"date":"2023-06-15T13:28:04","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T13:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesica.in\/?p=8474"},"modified":"2023-06-15T13:28:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T13:28:04","slug":"bounce-lighting-subrata-mitra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/bounce-lighting-subrata-mitra\/","title":{"rendered":"Bounce lighting: Subrata Mitra!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When the films where Black and white and slow speed ASA ( iso), straight Lighting with distinct shadows were the norm all over the world of film making.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-8479\" src=\"http:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/IMG-20230615-WA0046-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/IMG-20230615-WA0046-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/IMG-20230615-WA0046-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/IMG-20230615-WA0046.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Never imagined Bounce lighting techniques was invented by Indian Cinematographer Subrata Mitra.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8480\" src=\"http:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Vasanth-Dev-66.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"202\" height=\"180\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In his 30-year career, Mitra shot only 17 features. Ten of these were with Satyajit Ray. Standard cinema histories rate these among the best films ever made. His work began with Ray\u2019s debut Pather Panchali in 1955, wound its way through Jalsaghar, Devi, Mahanagar and Charulata, and ended with Nayak in 1966.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-8482\" src=\"http:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Aparajito-1956-poster_1649336290-214x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Aparajito-1956-poster_1649336290-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Aparajito-1956-poster_1649336290-731x1024.jpg 731w, https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Aparajito-1956-poster_1649336290-768x1075.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Aparajito-1956-poster_1649336290.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In Aparajito (1956), Apu and his indigent family briefly relocate to Varanasi. For a sequence set in Apu\u2019s new home, Mitra used the method known as bounce lighting \u2013 a revolutionary approach at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Mitra invented what is now known as bounce lighting.<\/p>\n<p>The fear of monsoon rain had forced the art director, Bansi Chandragupta, to abandon the original plan to build the inner courtyard of a typical Benares house in the open and the set was built inside a studio in Calcutta.<\/p>\n<p>The idea was to create a overcast exterior sky light effect on a indoor set.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of using direct lighting to illuminate the set, Mitra placed a framed white sheet over the set to resemble a patch of sky and arranged the studio lights below this to bounce off the fake sky. The result was a simulation of soft, diffused, shadowless light, reflected from the artificial sky.<\/p>\n<p>Then Ten years later Cinematographer Sven Nykvist used bounced lighting in his films<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-8481\" src=\"http:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/current_28447id_106_medium-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/current_28447id_106_medium-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesica.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/current_28447id_106_medium.jpg 650w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Some Experts from Legendary\u00a0 Subrata Mitra on his approach towards lighting&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>He says main factor is the &#8216;brightness of the image&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>How to photograph a room where there is no light?<\/p>\n<p>How much do we want to show the<br \/>\nspectator?<\/p>\n<p>The darkness may have various shades. If the cameraman wishes he can make the scene so dark that the spectator hardly see anything; he can only make out that there are two persons in the<br \/>\nroom. Possibly the director wants this. He wishes to give prominence<br \/>\nto the dialogue or sound. Or the cameraman may not make the scene very dark because the director wishes to show the face of the heroine.<br \/>\nIncidentally one can say that this deep darkness or lighter darkness<br \/>\nfalls in the category of &#8216;no light&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Another factor is the &#8216;quality of light&#8217;; it may be a concentrated<br \/>\nbeam of light casting hard shadows and modelling everything in high<br \/>\ncontrast or a soft diffused shadowless light, casting soft shadows or<br \/>\nno shadows at all, and modelling everything, in a subtler manner. For<br \/>\ninstance the sunlight enters that room may be a direct light or just<br \/>\na diffused soft daylight, or the shaft of light from the next room which softly illuminates the room at night by being reflected from a wall.<\/p>\n<p>What is the language of light?,&#8217;Mitra compared it to\u00a0 music.&#8217; &#8216;How can a director and a cameraman really speak to one another?&#8217; Subrata proposed that the scale of seven notes correspond to seven shades of gray or seven scales of contrast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Subrata Mitra filmography<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1955 : Pather Panchali &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1956: Aparajito &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1957: Parash Pathar &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1958: Jalsaghar &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1959: Apur Sansar &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1960: Devi &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1962: Kanchenjungha &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1963: The Householder &#8211; Directed: James Ivory<\/p>\n<p>1963: Mahanagar &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1964: Charulata &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1965: Shakespeare Wallah &#8211; Directed: James Ivory<\/p>\n<p>1966: Nayak &#8211; Directed: Satyajit Ray<\/p>\n<p>1966: Teesri Kasam &#8211; Directed: Basu Bhattacharya<\/p>\n<p>1969: The Arch &#8211; Directed: Tang Shu Shuen<\/p>\n<p>1969: The Guru &#8211; Directed: James Ivory<\/p>\n<p>1970: Bombay Talkie &#8211; Directed: James Ivory<\/p>\n<p>1974: Mahatma and the Mad Boy &#8211; Directed: Ismail Merchant<\/p>\n<p>1985: New Delhi Times &#8211; Directed: Ramesh Sharma<\/p>\n<p>Article edited by<\/p>\n<p>CJ Rajkumar<\/p>\n<p>Author\/ Cinematographer<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-comments\" data-href=\"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/bounce-lighting-subrata-mitra\/\" data-numposts=\"10\" data-colorscheme=\"light\" data-order-by=\"social\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the films where Black and white and slow speed ASA ( iso), straight Lighting with distinct shadows were the norm all over the world of film making. Never imagined Bounce lighting techniques was invented by Indian Cinematographer Subrata Mitra. In his 30-year career, Mitra shot only 17 features. Ten of these were with Satyajit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.8.1","language":"ta","enabled_languages":["en","ta"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"ta":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8474"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8484,"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474\/revisions\/8484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesica.in\/ta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}