{"id":175991,"date":"2025-12-05T05:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/175991\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T05:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:16:09","slug":"train-dreams-cinematographer-shot-the-film-using-99-of-natural-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/175991\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Train Dreams’ Cinematographer Shot the Film Using 99% of Natural Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tClint Bentley<\/a>\u2019s \u201cTrain Dreams<\/a>\u201d follows the Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker living in the Pacific NorthWest.<\/p>\n

\n\tSet in the late 1960s, \u201cTrain Dreams\u201d is directed by \u201cSing Sing\u201d co-writer Clint Bentley who called on Adolpho Veloso to be the film\u2019s cinematographer.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe images are lush. The tall green trees pop against the clear blue sky, until a wildfire ravages the forest and changes Grainger\u2019s life. Suddenly, the palette is ash and grey reflecting the aftermath.<\/p>\n

\n\tVeloso\u2019s imagery is one that lingers long after the film credits have rolled. In one scene, it\u2019s a grand moment, as the tall trees get sawed down all in the name of progress.<\/p>\n

\n\tVeloso sat down with Variety for Inside the Frame<\/a> and said, \u201cFor 99% of the movie, we used natural light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Bentley shooting in real-life locations, the idea was to simulate the audience looking through memories and putting a life together where those the images were being shown. In this case, those memories belong to Edgerton\u2019s character, Robert.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor research, Veloso looked through a lot of old pictures from the era and even as far back as 1920. As he was going through them, it dawned on him that they looked like the 3:20 aspect ratio. Says Veloso, \u201cWe just kept going back to this memory feeling. We were like, \u2018Why we just don\u2019t use that aspect ratio?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce they had that, Veloso knew this would be an intimate film, and also tried to capture the beauty of the natural setting. To properly film in natural light and capture the beauty of the landscape, Veloso says, \u201cWe knew we needed a smaller camera and because of the natural light\u2026we just decided to go with the Alexa 35 to have a lot of dynamic range.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSimilarly, for the scenes at night, natural was key, so he used real fire and candles to light those. He says, \u201cWe wanted to keep it that way to feel a bit more grounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lush imagery in the film was captured using Kowa Spherical lenses. At night, he switched to Zeiss Super Speeds lenses.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the forest fire devastates much of the landscape, and Grainger\u2019s home, the earthy tones disappear with very little pops of green. That was all natural, Veloso says.<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the video above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clint Bentley\u2019s \u201cTrain Dreams\u201d follows the Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker living in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[45829,93,61,96335,60,270,45833],"class_list":{"0":"post-175991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-clint-bentley","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-inside-the-frame","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-train-dreams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}