‘Wicked’ Cinematographer Alice Brooks On The Interplay Of Light And Darkness In New Featurette

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: “In Wicked, the light is actually the darkness and the darkness is actually the light,” says cinematographer Alice Brooks in a new Wicked featurette. “All through movie one, the pink sun rises for Glinda, and the sun is always setting for Elphaba.” In the cinematic retelling of the Broadway show, Brooks knew that a large focus was going to be on the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda, so creating the color coordination for the characters was essential to tell the story. “Every lighting choice, every camera choice, lens choice was about how does it feel to find your best friend in the world… and then be pulled apart.” “I started reading the L.

Frank Baum The Wizard of Oz books, and every single paragraph has this very vivid color description that was so inspiring,” she says in a separate interview with Deadline. “Somewhere through prep, I decided that I would intentionally pick scenes and light them with every color of the rainbow.” Each color is representative of something in the film, like orange being hope and excitement or pink as the continued theme of love between Glinda and Elphaba.

While Pink was the theme of love, as well as Glinda’s color, Brooks found Elphaba’s color while lighting the Ozdust Ballroom. “The blue of the Ozdust Ballroom was something we found when we started doing lighting tests and put Cynthia with her green makeup against the wall.

That blue just made the green so much more beautiful and there was something about it that made you just completely drawn to her.