Practical Lighting and Effects in DETOUR

making the most of scene transitions, with zero dollars

While specifics about budget and shoot days for Detour (1945) are hard to pin down, it’s not debated everything from script to locations ruthlessly pared down to make it filmable with very little money.

Techniques like this transition below look dramatic, while using nothing but the existing lights and a lot of elbow grease for a dramatic camera move.

The stark lighting shifting as the camera moves in is not ‘natural’ — there’s no attempt to mimic how the diner lights would click off, there’s not a softer fade which wouldn’t call attention to itself.

Just look at this moment where you can see the spotlight swing up onto Al’s eyes:

If you look closely you can see a few other shadows move across as the lights reposition and are dimmed before the bright light comes on, and the readjustment at the end to get his eyes framed just so.

The shift is surreal, drawing attention to itself just like the cup (which may well have been an oversized prop) which looms overly large in frame.

The exaggerated effect complete with Al’s voiceover even as we can see his mouth isn’t moving underscores we are going into Al’s memory and his (subjective) telling of events.

At the end of the film and Al’s story, the camera and lighting reverse its dramatic move pulling back and turning garishly bright as the record ends, leaving Al sitting in the diner with an empty cup and broken dreams.

Takeaway

If you don’t have the budget or time for oners, multiple takes with complicated choreography, or several angles for one scene, consider what you can do with a few punchy ‘live’ lighting shifts or dramatic camera moves.

So much the better if you can find moments in the scripts which are transition points or notable character shifts and leverage your most dramatic camera work alongside those dramatic moments.