Films › Cinematography
Moonlight
Directed by Barry Jenkins, 2016
James Laxton and Jenkins used three distinct visual grammars for the three chapters, shifting stock emulation, colour and camera behaviour as the protagonist ages. Skin tones were graded with specific attention to rendering dark skin with saturation and depth rather than flattening it. Circling handheld camera in the schoolyard and the still water sequence bracket the emotional extremes. The diner finale is played mostly in patient two-shots and reaction. Cinematographer Laxton tested multiple film stocks and digital emulations specifically to find combinations that would render dark skin with depth rather than losing detail in shadow, a technical problem the production treated as central rather than incidental. Editor Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon cut the three chapters with distinct rhythms, using longer holds in the childhood section and tighter cutting as the character ages into adulthood. Production designer Hannah Beachler chose color palettes for each chapter's locations that reinforced the cinematography's shifting registers. Any cinematographer working with the same crushed dynamic range problem on dark skin should study this film's test process as a starting point.
What to watch for
Watch the colour and camera behaviour change between chapters, and how the third chapter quotes the first.
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