Vittorio Storaro is one of the best cinematographers of all time. We can admire his magnificent use of light in film that will remain in our memories, like Apocalypse Now, Last tango in Paris, 900, Dick Tracy and, The Last Emperor. In the latter, his studies and experiments with colours as a mean to communicate emotions reach a high grade of expressive maturity that powerfully enhances the already magnificent cinematography of the film. As you all know, the film deals with the last emperor of China, from his birth till he becomes just another worker of the People's Republic of China, it is an introspective story of the Emperor. According to Storaro, every particular colour is not only a bridge with a particular emotion but light and colour make react body and mind in different ways (daylight is associated with activity, for example, while night is with reflection); colours can also be associated with a particular age of our life, so he decided to separate the different ages of the Emperor chromatically, lighting with different tone of lights accordingly to the age and mood. But he didn't limit himself to just play with hues, he also created contrast with colours (as he already did in Apocalypse now) and played with the colour of objects in scenes using what in literature is called anaphora, a repetition of the same colour, in our case, to emphasize a concept.
In The Last Emperor's first scene we see a group of prisoners arriving to a station and waiting for being transferred to a prison. The Emperor is among them. The scene is quite dark, in a grey tone, with practically no colour. Grey is an undefined colour; it represents the waiting, the reflection, the preparation for a new journey, for the start of a new life. All the scenes in which the Emperor is in jail are in grey.
While at the station, the Emperor try to commit suicide, which is itself a symbol of death and rebirth, and we see the first colour: the
red of the blood. The following scene opens with big
red doors opening; the baby emperor is taken away from her mother; all this scenes have
red tones.
Red is the first colour of the chromatic scale. It symbolizes
the birth, the vital impulse, the start of every thing (later, when the emperor gets married, red will be the predominant colour in objects in the scene). In the first scene it also symbolizes, of course, Communism and its effects on the Emperor
The second colour is
orange. It is associated with the range of age between 5 and 8 years; it leads us into the life, it is the
warmth of the family, the domestic colour. In the scenes with
orange tone, Pu Yi arrives to the Forbidden City, to his new family.
Pu Yi is still a child when he becomes emperor: the tone of the scene becomes
yellow.
Yellow can be associated to 10 to 15 years of age; it is the colour of
puberty, it's intuition and awareness. It is the colour of light, it
symbolizes the sun, the divine and its presence, it's the colour of the empire. Storaro uses it throughout the film not only as a tone but even placing in the scene objects of this colour, like the scene of the little emperor playing with the
yellow banner which lifts up revealing the courtyard of the Forbidden City full of eunuchs: the rise of the emperor above his subjects.
Till this moment the chromatic world of the film is quite poor: red, orange and yellow, alternated with the grey of the scenes of the prisons. Pu Yi has been living in the Forbidden City, ignoring the world outside it; when he starts to acknowledge the existence of that world, the chromatic scale expands along with this knowledge. This change is represented by
green, the
colour of spring, of the nature that flourishes, of life that starts again. It represents the age around the 20 years, t
he study, the knowledge that takes us to freedom. It is brought with the introduction of the British tutor and the
green bicycle he gave the emperor as a present.
The centre of our life is represented by
blue. It is the colour of
freedom, perspicacity of thinking, the intellect; while red is the past and green the present,
blue is the colour of the future. It is the complementary of yellow: while the latter represents the sun, blue is associated with the moon. The tone of the scenes changes into blue when the Emperor leaves the Forbidden City for the first time, exiled by communist: he always wanted to leave his "prison", his limited world but never could because they wouldn't let him. The exile is his freedom.
When Pu Yi realizes he want to be again the Emperor of China, the tone of the images becomes
indigo. It is the colour associated to the age around 50.
Indigo represents f
ull maturity, material power, the achievement of a level of life, a new balance between reason and passion.
During the years Pu Yi is held in prison, the Chinese Government tries to re-educate him to communism. The tone of the scene shot in the prison is always been grey but, as soon has Pu Yi starts to accept his responsibility a violet tone appears. Violet is the full balance between passion and reason, is the diffusion of knowledge, it represents the cyclic nature of life and the age between 70 and 80.
White is the sum of all the colours, therefore it is the sum of all the ages, of all the phases, feelings and passions. It is
life as one, the union and the completeness of it and it is associated with the last years of life. The pure white appears for the first time with snow, when Pu Yi earns his freedom and gets out from jail as a free citizen of the People's Republic of China. He returns to the Forbidden City but this time the image is balanced, with no prevailing tone.
Throughout the film there's one more colour which is always present: black. It is the matrix, the matter, the birth of elements. It is the beginning and the end, the presence and the absence of something and, of course, the unconscious.
The Last Emperor is not only an example of great cinematography by Storaro, it is the demonstration that philosophy, psychology, history, painting and every kind of art go hand by hand with cinematography to achieve a creative and unique way to visually tell a story, it is a must-see film for every cinematographer, Dp or photographer who wants to improve his art.
Telephoto lenses. They have a narrower field of view than wide angle lenses; this normalizes the relative distance and size between objects placed at different distances if compared with wide angle lenses: closest objects will appear similar to farer ones because, due the narrow field of view, far objects will cover a large portion of the angle and the distance will appear compressed. They are normally used to photograph subjects you are not able to approach filling the frame with them, as in wildlife or sport photography. But this use would be very reductive. Telephoto lenses can be used in landscape photography for example, filling the frame with a single element or selecting a portion of landscape; or you can take advantage of the appearance of compressed distance and play with different layers of landscape compositions or exaggerate the density of a pattern. The most known aesthetic characteristic of telephoto lenses is the shallow depth of field they can achieve at a given distance (the compressed distance enhance and magnify the out of focus area), which is great for isolating subjects from the background, very useful for portraits.
Prime and zoom lenses. While the prime lenses have a fixed focal length, zoom lenses have a variable one. Prime lenses tends to be smaller and, generally, they offer a better optical performance than zoom because the light passes trough less optical elements, even if nowadays the difference is not that big as it used to be. Diaphragm aperture thou, will always be bigger with prime lenses and it may varies in the zoom lenses, according to the focal length it is used. On the other side, zoom lenses are practical for the kind of photography in which you have to constantly switch from one focal length to another. So which one should you choose? As always, it depends on you and your photography, but remember to stay functional. For the kind of photos I make, I prefer prime lenses and I think that the best zoom are my feet (because I like better the change of relative perspective than magnifying the whole image), while for some one else it is more practical to carry and use 3 zoom lenses than 6 or 7 different prime lenses... 
A camera lens is an optical device which captures the light in a scene and focus it onto the film or digital sensor. It is made of several lens elements: extra refractive glass (which alters the angle of refractive light), aspherical elements (correcting into focus peripheral rays), low dispersion elements (which reduce chromatic aberration), anomalous dispersion elements (to control the amount of diffraction of light for a specific color range). The quality of these elements will determine the whole quality of lens and image captured.
Standard lenses. When a lens has a focal depth in the range between 35mm and 70mm it is called standard lens because it resembles the way the human eye sees things (about 50mm on a 35mm film): subjects will have the same size and the same proportions as seen trough the eyes. They are general purpose lenses, ideal for the kind of shots people normally take. This is the range that the kit zoom lenses supplied with the camera cover: these are very cheap lenses that do their job but the quality is quite poor; so, if you want to get any serious about photography, change them!
Wide-angle lenses. When a lens has a focal length minor than 35mm it is considered a wide-angle. Most people say that they use these lenses to fit the scene in the shot when they can't move further away: don't listen to them! This use is very reductive for a wide angle lens; photographers use it for the opposite reason: to get closer to the subject (street photographers make great use of these lenses). The wider vision and the really close minimum focus distance are characteristics that play in favour of creativity. Wide-angle lenses exaggerates the relative proportion of objects at different distance, making the closer one appear bigger; this emphasizes objects in the foreground but can turn a portrait in a caricature. Line and curves are exaggerated too due to the barrel distortion; photographing converging lines can be tricky (you should always aim to the horizon to avoid them or correcting them with an edition software if you don't have a tilt-shift lens). One more thing to take care of while shooting with wide-angle lenses is the light changes throughout the image due to wide portion of the scene in the frame, both horizontally (this variation can be corrected with GDN filter or bracketing for HDR) and vertically attention to the position of the light source is needed: the closer the light source is to the frame, the whiter will be the image (think of a clear sky, with the sun out of frame, which turns from deep blue to white).
While at the station, the Emperor try to commit suicide, which is itself a symbol of death and rebirth, and we see the first colour: the red of the blood. The following scene opens with big red doors opening; the baby emperor is taken away from her mother; all this scenes have red tones. Red is the first colour of the chromatic scale. It symbolizes the birth, the vital impulse, the start of every thing (later, when the emperor gets married, red will be the predominant colour in objects in the scene). In the first scene it also symbolizes, of course, Communism and its effects on the Emperor
The second colour is orange. It is associated with the range of age between 5 and 8 years; it leads us into the life, it is the warmth of the family, the domestic colour. In the scenes with orange tone, Pu Yi arrives to the Forbidden City, to his new family.
Pu Yi is still a child when he becomes emperor: the tone of the scene becomes yellow. Yellow can be associated to 10 to 15 years of age; it is the colour of puberty, it's intuition and awareness. It is the colour of light, it symbolizes the sun, the divine and its presence, it's the colour of the empire. Storaro uses it throughout the film not only as a tone but even placing in the scene objects of this colour, like the scene of the little emperor playing with the yellow banner which lifts up revealing the courtyard of the Forbidden City full of eunuchs: the rise of the emperor above his subjects.
Till this moment the chromatic world of the film is quite poor: red, orange and yellow, alternated with the grey of the scenes of the prisons. Pu Yi has been living in the Forbidden City, ignoring the world outside it; when he starts to acknowledge the existence of that world, the chromatic scale expands along with this knowledge. This change is represented by green, the colour of spring, of the nature that flourishes, of life that starts again. It represents the age around the 20 years, the study, the knowledge that takes us to freedom. It is brought with the introduction of the British tutor and the green bicycle he gave the emperor as a present.
The centre of our life is represented by blue. It is the colour of freedom, perspicacity of thinking, the intellect; while red is the past and green the present, blue is the colour of the future. It is the complementary of yellow: while the latter represents the sun, blue is associated with the moon. The tone of the scenes changes into blue when the Emperor leaves the Forbidden City for the first time, exiled by communist: he always wanted to leave his "prison", his limited world but never could because they wouldn't let him. The exile is his freedom.
When Pu Yi realizes he want to be again the Emperor of China, the tone of the images becomes indigo. It is the colour associated to the age around 50. Indigo represents full maturity, material power, the achievement of a level of life, a new balance between reason and passion.
White is the sum of all the colours, therefore it is the sum of all the ages, of all the phases, feelings and passions. It is life as one, the union and the completeness of it and it is associated with the last years of life. The pure white appears for the first time with snow, when Pu Yi earns his freedom and gets out from jail as a free citizen of the People's Republic of China. He returns to the Forbidden City but this time the image is balanced, with no prevailing tone..jpg)
Softboxes. Mounted directly on the flash head, they produce a soft, involving and diffused light generating a soft edge shadow, They come in different shapes (square, rectangular, octagonal) and sizes to proper illuminate depending on the size of the area we want to light. For some photographers, the use of big soft boxes and its characteristics makes unnecessary the use of a Fill light.
Filters. All objects that intercept light and let it pass trough without modifying the lens focal lens are filters. They can be colour gel or colour filter by which colour temperature and colour balance is controlled, colour filters to control contrast, density filters to control the quantity of light, blocking filter to block radiations, polarizing filters to control the direction of light... this theme is so extensive we need a dedicated post to talk about it. The most commonly used are colour filters; they are thin transparent coloured sheets that are placed in front of the light intercepting the beam. They come in different colours to proper balance the light being the most used the CTO (orange) and CTB (blue). Another very used filter is the diffusion filter which softens light. They have different intensities and not really a long life: lamp heat will melt them or make the colour fade, so depending on the energy absorbed, they need to be often changed.
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