This blog is based on the class on 30th April.
Last time we shoot the screen of Colin and Catherine with natural sunlight from the west side of the classroom. This time we lower all the blind, turn on the lights on the ceiling in this classroom and set up one key light on the west side of this classroom to create a plausible, naturalistic, “day-lit” interior. We didn’t change too much between the last shot and this shot, similar action, position and of course the script.
I was acting Colin, yes, I enjoyed acting, but this won’t negatively affect me to pay attention to the lights and the big working surroundings. These two pictures are the shooting situation at that time, as you can clearly see the position of the key light, the camera, and a whiteboard.
Sorry, I didn’t remember to add the whiteboard on the left side of the table (Colin), the whiteboard used to fill the shadow of Catherine and Colin, making the shadow lighter.
Let’s me describe the light situation in the classroom at that time first. As we lower all the blind, the whole classroom will be dark so we turn on the all the lights on the ceiling, although there was still some strong sunlight sneaked in from the gap of the windows and blinds, the problem wasn’t very serious. It seems like, compared to the over-exposure dot, a little bit much overexposure make the whole look more natural. Over-exposure isn’t a devil that every cinemaphotographer or photographer must avoid. How to use the over-exposure to make what you want is a very interesting and challenging question.
(These photos are screenshots by my phone, this camel picture made and posted on Instagram by Alan Schaller)
Take this amazing photo from Alan Schaller, one of my favorite photographer and I followed him on the Instagram. He took this photo in the Sahara Desert, and he said this is one of his first minimalist pictures. Except the camel is in very hard shadow, the sky and desert are over-exposure and no details, and far away haystack and dunes are in light shadow. He uses the over-exposure on desert and sky to reduce details, stressed the camel. Easily catch audience’s eyes on this camel and this beautiful photo.
There is one thing that I mind is I don’t think the light on the screen is successful, it’s awkward to say the light on Colin and Catherine’s faces are natural as sunlight. Two reasons I figured out for this feeling. The first one is the ambiance light. From the screenshot, we can see the difference between the light on Colin and Catherine’s faces and the light in the background is obvious. There is too much light on Catherine’s face than the background, obviously, there is a focus light on her. Compared to the last shot we took, the natural sunlight lights the shadow in the background because sunlight is very diffusible, even the objects in the classroom will reflect light.
Consider this question, I think the solution should be: we can set up few more lights, don’t have to be the same one with the key light, to light the ambiance.
The second reason is the edge of light and shadow isn’t featherized. It’s doesn’t mean all the edge or shot need to be featherized to look like the daylight. Just consider the shooting location and time, and the classroom environment, the edge should be better to be featherized. Characters were not sitting just next to the windows, there was meters away from the windows, so the contrast should not be tough and high. The shooting time was at noon so there shouldn’t be only her face was light and exposure, but the other stuff (the ambiance reason), because of many reflections in this classroom the edge should not be tough.
To solve this problem I think we can set the reflection board closer to Catherine, or set up a low power light to fill.