Ordinarily, to cope with monochromatic lighting complications like those seen in “Barbie,” a cinematographer will create pointed black areas within the background to scale back reflection, but additionally to aesthetically draw the attention to a extra colourful determine within the foreground. As Prieto explains, such a follow known as “unfavourable fill.” Gerwig, nonetheless, famous that Barbieland — true to its toy shelf counterpart — was to characteristic no blacks, blues, or different darker colours. As such, Prieto needed to get artistic. He mentioned:
“One of many challenges was that there have been so many props and set design that was a really saturated pink, and different colours too, however principally pink. So anytime I turned on the backlight, the bounce on the faces was pink, so all of the actors appeared magenta. I did not wish to create arduous distinction or something, so I would not be capable of usher in black — they name it unfavourable fill — so as a substitute of unfavourable fill, I created a impartial fill.”
What’s a impartial fill? Gray. Good, plain, comforting gray. Gentle mirrored off a gray floor will produce a impartial, non-magenta tone. Simply off-camera, then, all the pieces was lined with gray material. Prieto famous:
“So what that’s, is that we had tons of impartial grey materials, and we would drape all the pieces that was not on digicam with grey. That manner it was bouncing some mild, however it wasn’t tinted with colour.”
Prieto additionally took plenty of lighting and digicam cues from probably the most notably colourful and fantastical French classics, well-known to cinematographers and cinephiles the world over. “Barbie” took its visible fashion from Jacques Demy’s 1964 traditional “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”