Javier Aguirresarobe

Javier Agguiresarobe is a Spanish cinematographer, his most famous work is probably for the film ‘The Road’, this film ties in with my theme of isolation and I want to look at how he portrays this through his own style of cinematography.  ‘The Road’ is about a post apocalyptic world in which a father and son try to survive, Aguirresarobe uses lots of wide shots of nature and derelict wasteland to show the characters vulnerability to the harsh surroundings.  The colour is very unsaturated throughout the film, representing the feelings of the characters as well as the world within the film.  Agiurresarobe relies on the quality of his composition rather than the colour in ‘The Road’.

The compositions within the film are defined by making the two protagonists look small, vulnerable and isolated; this is done with a large amount of wide shots, close ups of their faces and placing the characters strategically within the shot.  Here are a few examples.

As you can see from these shots, the theme of isolation is present throughout; the two protagonists are very small in the long shots in comparison to the vast backgrounds.  The two characters are also placed on the side of shots, creating an isolated atmosphere from the scene around them.  The close up of the young boy also shows a low depth of field, placing sole impetus on him, creating a sense of loneliness from what is going on around him.

The lighting that Agguiresarobe uses is low key mostly, apart from the shots at night.  As seen in the picture above, practical light is being used with the candle in shot, but it also looks like there a light behind the camera a bit to the left, giving definition to the characters faces, there also looks to be a light above the two character, as well as a stronger light to the right of the camera, making the practical light look harsher than it really is, this is a key example of three point lighting.

I will take all this into consideration for my projects, and the shots I decide to shoot.