Moonlight

Creating the Bold Color and Contrast of Barry Jenkins’ Emotional Landscape

by Cris O'Falt

There’s an inherent visual tension in the look of Barry Jenkin’s “Moonlight.” Set in the harsh realities of Liberty City, an impoverished section of Miami where Jenkins and co-writer Tarell McCraney grew up, the sun-drenched neighborhood is filled with bright pastel colors and lush, tropical green trees and grass. “Tarell calls Miami a ‘beautiful nightmare’ and I think what we’ve done is paint this nightmare in beautiful tones,” Jenkins told IndieWire in a recent podcast. “We wanted to embrace the tension of that beauty, juxtaposed with the very dark things that are happening to the characters in the story.”

Right from the start, Jenkins and cinematographer James Laxton discussed wanting to move away from a documentary, or realist look, that has come to be expected of American indies tackling social issues like “Moonlight.” They wanted a dreamlike feel that immersed the audience in the world of the protagonist Chiron, but that was also rooted in the color and light of Miami. Whereas many cinematographers play it safe in exposing dark skin tones, especially in harsh light, Laxton built his look around pulling rich, beautiful color from the actors’ faces while still executing one of the boldest lighting designs of the year.

Testing the Limits of Contrast

To capture Miami, Laxton knew he’d want the actors’ skin to have a big shine, so the audience could feel the sun beating down on them. Building off this, he decided to warm the film's tones to further connect audiences.

There’s an inherent visual tension in the look of Barry Jenkin’s “Moonlight.” Set in the harsh realities of Liberty City, an impoverished section of Miami where Jenkins and co-writer Tarell McCraney grew up, the sun-drenched neighborhood is filled with bright pastel colors and lush, tropical green trees and grass. “Tarell calls Miami a ‘beautiful nightmare’ and I think what we’ve done is paint this nightmare in beautiful tones,” Jenkins told IndieWire in a recent podcast. “We wanted to embrace the tension of that beauty, juxtaposed with the very dark things that are happening to the characters in the story.”

Right from the start, Jenkins and cinematographer James Laxton discussed wanting to move away from a documentary, or realist look, that has come to be expected of American indies tackling social issues like “Moonlight.” They wanted a dreamlike feel that immersed the audience in the world of the protagonist Chiron, but that was also rooted in the color and light of Miami. Whereas many cinematographers play it safe in exposing dark skin tones, especially in harsh light, Laxton built his look around pulling rich, beautiful color from the actors’ faces while still executing one of the boldest lighting designs of the year.

Testing the Limits of Contrast

To capture Miami, Laxton knew he’d want the actors’ skin to have a big shine, so the audience could feel the sun beating down on them. Building off this, he decided he would really push the contrast ratio in virtually every scene, using a single source lighting scheme with no fill light, so the light would fall off into shadows and sculpt the characters’ faces. “When I saw those first test shoot images, I quickly realized James and Barry were really going for it and this was going to be a visually aggressive movie,” said colorist Alex Bickel, who has worked on a number of stylized indies, like “Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter,” “Blue Ruin,” and “Indignation.” “Barry certainly wasn’t playing it safe with the story and he didn’t want to play it safe in the visuals. That got me excited.”

Working with the colorist during preproduction gave Laxton the confidence of how far he could push the contrast on set and still make sure there was detail and rich color, especially on the cast’s dark skin tones when their faces were in shadows.

“The idea for us on set, at a base level, is to create an exposure that allows you to get into the DI [Digital Intermediate] with someone like Alex and have room to make color decisions in post,” said Laxton. “That’s true of every film, but especially ‘Moonlight,’ where there [were] greater opportunities to lose detail in potentially underexposed parts of the frame.”

Creating the Color Grade

Early during preproduction Jenkins and Laxton shared photos with Bickel as a way of expressing what they were looking for from the quality of light they wanted. “Then starting with the test footage, I could see the lighting ra- tio and design they are implementing, and my job is to design grades that can achieve the emotional impact they are after,” said Bickel. With “Moonlight,” Bickel thought of the image in three distinct steps: create a nice thick color by pulling information out of the mid-tones, add blue to the blacks, and tease out the highlights so there’s white glint that’s on top of the image.