Analysing the Style

The lighting Style of Bronson is very theatrical. Parts of the film even take place as a sort of one man show on a stage. This style carries through to most of the film.

The scene above is lit with a single light from above and also slightly in front of Bronson. Almost like a spotlight. Bronson is also directly in the centre of the frame and the shadow of some bars is falling on his chest. The way this shot is composed suggests a sense of isolation and imprisonment. The space on either side of Bronson and the lack of any kind of background except for blackness give the shot a very dark tone and gives me the impression that he is stuck in a very dark and lonely place.

This shot shows a slightly more realistic style of lighting, however it is still quite stylised. While most of the light seems to be coming from the fluorescent lights on the ceiling and also the walls seem to be reflecting quite a lot of the light as the actors are quite evenly lit. Either that or a film light is being used off camera to light the front of the actors. The scene is quite over exposed which almost gives it a kind of glow There are a lot of vertical lines in the composition of the shot and it is at a slight low angle which gives the impression of the two men in the shot having strength and power over Bronson. The colours also seem a bit washed out in this scene and even slightly blue. When trying to recreate this I will see how much of this effect I can get just using the camera but may also have to do a bit of colour correction in post production. The challenge with this type of shot will also come from seeing how far the over exposed effect can be pushed without losing too much detail in the image.

This scene is very stylised. The red light and the very dark shadows create almost an evil atmosphere. It is quite hard to tell where source is but I think it may be coming from the right side of the cage and shining straight across so it doesn't fall onto the back wall. I will be using red gels on the lights to recreate this look.
Again the composition tells us that Bronson is, literally in this case, in a prison. The different sections of the cage form frames within the frame of the camera, reinforcing the fact that he is trapped.

I will be trying to adapt this theatrical and stylised look used in Bronson to my film and will also be researching into films which use a similar style of composition to find how best to create a claustrophobic and trapped feeling for anyone viewing the film.