Sometime in the last year or so, whilst conducting a reading I have since struggled to refind, this short film was brought to my attention. Directed by Hollis Frampton in 1969, it features nothing but a lemon and a great investigation into the potentials of lighting. It also always reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey, yet more fruity!

Something about the film has stuck with me since I first watched it, so when I found out that there would be an opportunity to spend some time investigating an area of our interest on Tuesday, I thought that performing a task inspired by this short film would be perfect. Lighting has always been a bit of an area of contention for me. I usually neglect it and negate it’s importance until the very last minute when I find myself with a camera, a dimly lit room and the gut feeling that I’ve forgotten something.

I am interested by the dramatic effect that lighting can have in a scene, especially to the human face. For this reason, I am planning on filming a few shots of an actor’s face, with various different lighting set ups. Inspired by Lemon, I think it would be intriguing to make the actor’s expression the exact same for each shot, and by only altering the lighting, see how different we can make the expression look. Perhaps we could start with relatively subtle lighting set ups, and gradually make the light harsher on the actor’s face. Although Lemon is only one shot, I think that in order to properly experiment and play with different set ups, I will simply cut from one shot to another. Although this idea is relatively simplistic, I think that it will be appropriate for the amount of time we will have, and allow me to focus on improving my technical skills rather than focusing on narrative.

I think that this exercise will help to develop my skills in an area I am relatively unfamiliar with, and demonstrate just how influential lighting can be.