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I never thought we’d end up doing what we did for the second experiment for Assignment 4 of Film Light, but I’m so glad we did.
Our mission statement / what we set out to test was:
“To experiment with controlling and utilizing only natural and available light between two different colour temperature locations”
To expand on that further, we wanted to challenge ourselves with only being able to manipulate and work with the natural light sources within two different spaces with two different natural colour temperatures, that ending up being the blue light from the sun outside on the street, and the tungsten glow of the overhead lamps and defused sunlight of a windowed room.
This idea was born from the pre-existing group from Exercise 1, that being Chloe, Tash and I (with Jonah unable to be physically present but very much involved) pondering how and what we wanted to explore and create for our coming test. We were super stressed and dwindling our hope of ever finding a controllable space in RMIT, both in the case of light and sound, and no one had a car big enough to lug anything around to a home without it ending as disastrous as our last failed attempt. We were stumped. But, like an angel descending down from heaven, Robin came and saved us, throwing the most helpful wrench into our brainstorming cogs.
Why do you have to use electric lamps?
And then it hit us. What if we didn’t. Whilst we then and still now very much acknowledge the importance of being confident and understanding how to use artificial film light sources to create media, an arguably more important and impressive skill is being able to control and manipulate available light, because as we have first handedly discovered, there is not always going to be a convenient powerpoint available to you. You’ve got to work with what you have, and you’ll always have bounce boards, cutters and c-stands!
From there, as spoken about in a previous reflection, we thought of a location within minutes, felt a burst of creativity and played around with controlling the light, as seen below.
We felt more confident than ever!
We decided we wanted to shoot as soon as possible, get it out of the way so we weren’t stressed about getting it done as the date grew closer, and gave us time to reshoot if things didn’t work. We chose Tuesday the 8th to film, after class and before various other classes people had to attend, giving us around two and a half hours to do it.
We improvised a short script up just before shooting, and I donned the role as director, sorting everything out. Tash and Chloe graciously chose to act, and Jonah was on camera, but everyone helped out in any role they could, it was a really nice collaborative set!
Our shooting schedule was determined by location, with all shots in the inside of RMIT being shot first, and the street shots second. Setting up the first shot of Chloe against the blue couch was probably one of the most tricky shots of the whole shoot, just because we really didn’t know what was going to work, as everything was so over-exposed outside. We liked how the hair matched the furniture, and subtle production design choices like that are scattered throughout, which is something I’m really proud of. From there, we heavily diffused the overhead light above Chloe, used a cutter to block out the outside sunshine behind her, and used a bounce board and two c-stands to bounce light onto her face, to achieve full and comprehensive coverage. It looked professional!
After shooting all scenes there, we moved onto Tash entering the building, and talking to Chloe. For that, we again, deeply defused the overhead lights above her, but this time, used the fill of the outside light to bounce and light here, creating a nice fusion between the tungsten and blue colour temperatures. This shot required a few takes, as it proved difficult to keep her in the frame, and continually key and fill her from the bounce board. But again, we looked professional!
We then proceeded to shoot outside, which looked way less professional. Swanston street was manic! Luckily we found a nice corner away from the main sidewalk in which Tash could run through her first shot, and featured a similar colour and art theme as her raincoat. Aesthetically pleasing! We mainly experimented with exposure, as well as using a bounce board to fill, as there isn’t much a small amateur crew can do to control the sun.
We then moved to the sidewalk, which while crazy busy, had respect for the fact we were filming, and stayed out of direct frame. Similarly to our last shot, we mainly used the reflective surfaces of the buildings to light this one.
However, over both the inside and outside shots, the dialogue was unusable, due to uncontrollable city sounds and band practice, so I quickly went and rented a 360-degree mic and recorded both atmos and wild lines once we wrapped up filming. This was actually the first time I had ever done wild lines properly before, and was a really informative experience.
I volunteered to edit our Experiment 2 for Assignment 4, and it proved to be way more involved process than I initially thought. The main fear we had was the sequence of events not making sense, but after a rough cut, we were able to arrange the scenes in a way that felt like was clear continuity wise to us (and to the few external audience members I tested it on).
The main issue was the sound, and HOW unusable all the audio was, and how it meant I was going to have to fully create a soundscape. I actually really enjoyed this process, making a realistic atmos track through personally sourced audio and RMIT’s library of sound effects. The most tedious aspects of this were matching footsteps and some dialogue exchanges, in which the wild lines just wouldn’t naturally match. A very beneficial experience nevertheless!
Fortunately, the visuals aspect of the experiment didn’t need that much work done to it. Some minor colour grades here and there, but as we have discussed in class, the more effort and attention you put into lighting how you want it on set, the less you have to do in post!
See for yourself!
I’m really proud of how the final edit turned out overall. The story isn’t the most unique or engaging thing that’s ever existed, but it works well for what we intended. The shots match up relatively nicely, and besides some dead air in-between interactions, it’s all paced nicely. Personally, I am really proud of the soundscape. Besides some small inconsistencies with some footsteps that is really only noticeable if you look SUPER closely, it all seems authentic, and doesn’t detract from the visual components.
I like how different the colour temperatures are, and how they both evoke different moods. Now I know they’re both warm and cool lighting, but the blue of Tash’s scenes genuinely looks cold, and makes her urgency for the hangout’s shelter that much more believable. In contrast, the tungsten of the indoor shots feels much warmer and inviting than that of the outside.
I do think the outside light can sometimes be a tad bit over-exposed in some scenes. Subjects in the background can be a little overblown, and I wish we had been able to naturally get the inside to be a little warmer, so to really contrast between the two temperatures.
If I was to change anything about how we did Exercise 2 overall, I would have had us more prepared on a pre-production side. Whilst nothing went wrong because of not having it, a pre-prepared shotlist and shooting schedule would have definitely de-stressed and smoothened out the shoot overall, and probably made the shots turn out better. Furthermore, I would have more realistically suggested and incorporated actors into the scene, allowing all four of us to really focus on controlling the light whilst the scene played out.
Nevertheless, I’m exceptionally proud of the whole outcome of Exercise 2 of Assignment 4 of Film Light, and ever fortunate that I got to work with such lovely and talented people!
The first studio I ever did for this degree was called Seeing the Unseen v2 with Hannah Brasier. It was about unique and abstract filmmaking techniques and projects, focusing more on noticing what was around you or within a space, and using that to build a freeform narrative. It may sound a little wanky, but I found it really enjoyable and influential. It really taught me to think and focus on little things, always looking out for the small to make the big. It makes me put a lot of thought into each piece of work I make or watch that lingers, and I’m seeing a pattern between noticing in Seeing the Unseen v2 and noticing in Film Light.
In Film Light, we are always attentive to what’s on-screen. We are always paying attention to where the light source is intended to be coming from within the scene. where the actual light source is coming from, the qualities of that light, whether it be hard or soft, is it diffused, gelled, etc. There are so many variables we as lighting students look out for in both preparing for our own works, and watching others. We linger and notice, much like I have done previously.
An example of me noticing and lingering on lighting was two nights ago, when I was watching Muriel’s Wedding by P.J. Hogan for the first time, for a cinema studies class. The film itself is great! It’s funny, heartwarming, and a bonified Aussie classic. But during my viewing, I began to focus and notice aspects of the technical side, some of which felt was lacking in some aspects. In particular, there was this one scene in her apartment which featured one blue gelled lamp, and one green gelled lamp, which subtly cut into the fill. However, this created a dual shadow that wasn’t fixed or even attempted to be fixed, blatantly revealing the locations of both light sources. This may have just been a rushed scene shoot, and it in no way really brought down the quality of the film drastically, but it was just something I noticed, because I had the techniques and the knowledge to do so.
Pretty cool, huh? I thought so! Can be a bit distracting though, I never just enjoy a film again!
There were more than a few complications in completing the first exercise/test in Assignment 4, but I should start from the beginning.
Our mission statement / what we set out to test was:
“To experiment with how colour temperature and white balance affects the tone and mood of a basic scene.”
This was born during the Film Light class in which we learnt how to manually white balance, something that was not new information to me at the time, but the refresher was useful. We were then encouraged to play around with white balancing with off white surfaces, and even some bold colours. These produced wildly different results to the proper procedure, and inspired creativity between Chloe, Tash and I. We then grouped up with Jonah, and after discussing our idea with Robin, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to experiment with the effect both colour temperature and light balance had on the mood of a scene.
From there, I wrote up a short script with somewhat thriller-ish tones, and we set out to film on Monday the 23rd of September. However, as stated in a previous blog post, this didn’t go to plan, due to some unforeseen (but probably should have been foreseen) complications with light cables.
Whilst defeated for a short while, this failure only made us more determined to smash this project out ASAP, and come the following Monday, we felt more prepared than ever! The gear had been hired the week before, ensuring we had every piece of equipment available to us, a location with sufficient power outlets and manipulatable lighting surfaces was found and available, and even though we were down a member with Tash interstate, she was ready to edit this bad boy up for the presentation the next day. We were set, and it turned out pretty good!
Time for some behind the scenes info; we shot this just behind our building 10 classroom, near an unavailable access elevator.
We then converted this
into these
We used the black cutter, raised by a c-stand, to block out a majority of the excess overhead lighting, making our 2k Fresnel’s light source to the right of the camera much more controllable.
We did 2 different colour temperatures, with two different white balances in those colour changes, equating to four different shots. Two of these shots were under a tungsten light colour temperature, one with a regular white balance, and one with a white balance off the purple of my jacket. The second set of shots were under a blue light colour temperature, one with again, a regular white balance, and the other from the orange of Chloe’s fluoro bag.
Overall, I’d say the experiment as a whole was a success. We were really impressed and intrigued by the affects an abstract white balance had on the mood when infused with colour temperatures on a scene. Even though you would rarely if ever want to do this on set, because of how it limits you in post, and how it alters skin tones, I personally really liked both abstract colour temperatures. I thought the green in the second scene gave off this ‘creature feature’, from the blue lagoon vibe, and the fourth scene felt like I could have been lit by the moonlight aboard a boat, with the proper soundscape of course.
However, there were many shortcomings leading up to this experiment, including some poor time management and gear checking partially on our behalf. Nevertheless, we are going to make sure to take more time and effort and put it towards the upcoming next experiment, no more last-minute shoots! (knock on wood).
This week was an intense one for me. Our group finally found time to film our first video experiment for Assignment 4 on Monday, we quickly prepared a presentation for said experiment that was showcased the following day on Tuesday, I had many assignments due at the end of this week, and on top of all that, I set myself the goal of watching more films. It has been HECTIC.
Let’s start with the movie watching, recently I’ve been bingeing a lot of Jake Gyllenhaal films (no surprise by now) that I had not seen before, but had been meaning to watch.
The first of these was End of Watch released in 2012, which is shot documentary / found footage style of these two cops going around on patrol in the gang-ridden areas of Los Angelas. A majority of scenes in the film take place on the dashboard/centre console of the car, and how they managed to control the light from outside the moving vehicle was incredible. I’d love to see how many cutters they used to keep the consistent or perfectly exposed changing light sources under control.
The next of these films I saw was Jarhead, released in 2005, which follows the story of a soldier, or ‘jarhead’, working his way through the ranks, experiencing the horrors of war what the lack of action can do to a mental state. I enjoyed the film, and the lighting worked for the most part, but it was pretty boring. They must have really worked with the exposure and the footage in post to ensure the desert shots were not grandly overexposed or maybe shot everything in a studio, I am not sure!
The most recent Gyllenhaal binge film I have seen at the time of writing this was Demolition in 2015. The film follows a widowed man reinventing his life and friendships to discover who he truly is and what he wants. Whilst I vastly preferred the first half of the film, the second half featured these scenes in which two of the main characters demolished a house, I noticed that a lot of the lighting fill was coming from the white and light grey reflective surfaces of the large rubble pieces, and wondered if they intentionally knew this would be how they would light the scene, or if it was a serendipitous accident. I have honestly been really looking at lighting in films with curiosity and wonder, seeing if I can identify their source and style. Whilst I usually can’t its good to be thinking.
Moving on to our group’s presentation, I was really proud of our efforts and overall presentation. Even though there were some scares with late arrivals due to transport delays, we managed to get through it all with what I thought was charisma and well-spoken explanation, with some feedback that has given us a lot to work with in regards to the next experiment for Assignment 4.
And while brainstorming for that experiment in class on Thursday, Robin incited an epiphany in us. We had been worrying about how we were going to lug so much gear with us, and how no location we could feasibly think of would have the right amount of power outlets to make anything viable. But all it took was Robin to suggest we use no artificial lighting, and our world changed.
We could instead, just use bounce boards and cutters to manipulate a well-lit area, and use inside and outside to show colour temperature. It was like a whole new world has just opened up to us. One that was going to sufficiently challenge and insight useful set information and technique. It was refreshing. We immediately went location scouting, with our brains buzzing. We found this lovely, well and variety lit location in RMIT, very close to the tech office. It’s perfect!
Here’s to epiphanies!
So as stated by both Robin and Assignment 3 (which was most likely subsequently written by Robin, but nevertheless), we are tasked to write a reflection on a specific groups presentation, as well as our own. I have chosen to do my reflection on Eleanor, Noah and Jagger’s presentation and presented exercise.
Their group’s mission statement was to explore how many lighting setups could you produce with only one lamp, one cutter and one bounce board. To do this, they recreated famous shots from films with distinctively different lighting setups, as to create variety and challenge in their first practice of Assignment 4.
The four films they chose to recreate or sweede for any Be Kind Rewind Fans, included:
These film choices ranged from naturalistic to stylistic, with the Arrival scene in particular being incredibly striking in their recreation. Another favourite of the four they did was the sewer scene from IT, which helped a lot in part by how much effort they put into their BTS explanations I will touch on later
They created a basic studio in Noah’s home living room, using black curtains, c-stands, shot bags and the equipment outlined in their brief. They provided lots of behind the scenes images of each film, which I really liked. It showed they put a lot of effort into making sure all their descriptions and outlines of how they recreated each scene, which was very detailed and easy to follow. Overall, the character and tone of both Eleanor and Noah whilst presenting was charismatic, well-spoken and very engaging!
But back to their descriptions of the shots, the group was very open and honest with how they perceived each scene, stating various things they felt to be flawed, or that they wished they had done differently. This was really impressive to see, as it hard to honestly look at your shortcomings and reflect on that to an audience.
Everyone’s presentations were great though, with lots of effort and thought being put into both the pre-production of the experiment, the production phase, and the post-production analysis. Congrats to the Film Light class!
Everything seemed perfect. Jonah, Tash and I had all successfully booked gear, lots of it! Chloe, while not having her student car in the system, was as ready to go as us all. I had location scouted a garage, storage area in RMIT, just near Building 10, which I had used before and it worked perfectly. Again, everything seemed perfect, but it only got worse from here. This is our terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, first shoot for our first experiment of Assignment 4.
The first bad omen was the ramp leading up to the second level of the garage. The grooves in the round designed to make vehicles go slower made such an uncomfortable rattling on our trolly, it was almost unbearable! Once we finally maneuvered the trolly up to our area, and unpacked all the gear, getting the 2k Fresnel lamp up on its stand, the next bad sign emerged, there were no visible power points. Our main tool for experimenting, the lamp, had no power sockets available.
After finally finding a socket, and quickly racing back to the tech guys for a power kit with extension leads to actually use the lamp where we wanted it, things were looking great. We started blocking out the scene, setting up gear, everything was falling into place just how we wanted.
But then, the first major catalyst hit, the lamp wouldn’t turn on. We panicked, thinking it must have been the power socket, as it looked old, and was very out of the way. Jonah and Chloe then proceeded to search for another space that would fit our requirements, while Tash and I packed down and got to thinking.
After 20 minutes of searching, the two came back unsuccessful, and we had to consider other options. Tash graciously offered her house, which was currently a little emptier than usual which sounded perfect. Except, we had to get all that gear there!
We decided the best plan of action was to get an Uber, but that was going to be both expensive and trick, as we were in the city, and the gear was bulky. With our hands and arms filled with equipment, we rushed out of RMIT and down the road, and somehow managed to JUST fit all the equipment in the car, with some physical manipulation of the placards.
Finally making it to Tash’s, we brought all the gear up to her apartment, began to set up the gear and block out the scene. Everything seemed to be finally coming up us, until the second biggest catalyst hit, the light AGAIN wouldn’t turn on. It then hit us, it wasn’t the power sockets at all, it was the lamp.
Sitting on the floor, collectively defeated, we packed down all the gear, got another pricy Uber back to RMIT, ready to vent to the techs about the completely broken lamp. We placed it on the bench to inspect, as we stood there, fed up and grumpy, hours wasted with nothing to show. But then, the biggest catalyst of them all hit, the lamp turned on. I vividly remember the look on Chloe’s face, absolutely enraged and destroyed.
It turns out the cord was busted, not allowing the current to travel to power the globe when it was hanging from the stand, but rather when laying down on a flat surface. Essentially broken, but in our situation, if we had known, would have been manageable.
We decided the next day we could all film was the 30th, which didn’t leave us much time, but we were going to be ready!
Moral of the story, make sure to check all your gear before you leave with it, lamps and all!
The worst happened this week. I got the flu. I’ve been bedridden for the whole week, the only creeping into my eyes was that of my phone screen and the bathroom. It has been a sad time. It meant I couldn’t attend any of my Film Light classes. Legitimately longing for the teachings of Robin and the presence of my fellow classmates, I’ve tried to stay in the loop as much as possible, but alas, nothing compares to being physically in class.
However, I’m taking this absence from class in a somewhat positive direction. For this week’s reflection, I am going to critique and analyse the work done on Tuesday, both Exercise 5 and Exercise 8, with no prior influence on working on them, trying to assess how they did and how they did it.
First, Exercise 5 – The Elusive Sun Shoot
I really like this scene! The light cased on Noah is consistent, and details his face nicely. The wind makes it hard to keep continuity on the hair, but overall I think the shot really works, taking advantage of the natural sun and possibly bouncing some of those rays onto his left side of his face to ensure he isn’t too shadowed.
The coverage of the conversation is also lit well, way less shadowed than what can be seen from the wide but softly lit so as their faces are well covered. Both angles work well, but I prefer the detail of the face with the dirty over the shoulder shot of Elenor’s character.
The editing a little choppy in the latter half of the project, just feels a bit jumpy, but I really like how naturalistic the lighting feels throughout the piece, there are no jarring flaws to my unexperienced eyes.
Now, Exercise 8 – The one I know less about
I love the camera work in this shoot. I think that the dialogue exchange flows really well, and the scene where Joseph and Chloe are talking is captured nicely with subtle but effective camera movement.
My main criticism with it is how the outside sunlight is quite over-exposed. Both actors are nicely and softly lit, but the outside is so glaring and blinding, especially in the thumbnail shot above and the final scene when they walk out.
This is something I struggle with as well, as I often focus on getting the subject perfect, rather than the backdrop. This could have been fixed by lowering the aperture of the lens, and maybe using a 1k Fresnel lamp inside on the actors to make sure they are still well lit, or even bouning some outside light or overhead light onto their faces.
It has been way more beneficial to reflect on work that I was not present for than I thought it would. It made me really think about light sources, and how a scene was lit, and whilst I don’t feel 100% confident about my calls on specific things, I’m glad I challenged myself to give it a go!
Here’s hoping to me being well enough for next week! Fingers crossed!
The first week back from the mid-semester break was a bit of an adjustment. Whilst I kept my eyes out and open both during films and the world for engaging or interesting lighting occurrences, my mind was on anything but university work, really taking the time to detox and relax with family and friends. This helped clear my mind, but might have been too effective, as getting back into the uni grind took some convincing for my mind, body and soul.
the first class back threw us straight into it, with myself directing a short scene in the upper classroom, involving a stressed-out student and a disinterested student.
The biggest issue we had with the scene was getting each character well lit and having a detailed face. We were lucky enough to have a lot of control over the manual blinds in the room, which gave us a base level of soft lighting that while wasn’t enough, was way better than just the ceiling lights.
We grabbed a 1k Fresnel light (after some funny in retrospect Benny Hill style confusion) to try and bounce some light from the white walls and roof of the space onto the faces of our actors.
The whole directing process was extremely stressful. Having to call the shots on a project you really know and have experience with is hard, now imagine doing that for a project you do not have those things for! Anxiety galore!
Let’s see how it turned out.
After discussing this both with the crew who attended on Thursday when we watched through this, as well as the whole class, the lighting is the biggest issue with the piece. Jonah is way underlit, and my handheld shot is way too shakey to work for more than a second. However, I really like the thumbnail shot, even though there is a shadow being cast behind his head. I just really like the composition and the way his shirt tones match the overcast weather outside.
This task taught me a lot about set preparation and responsibility, something that whilst isn’t fun, is something I need to keep exposing myself to in class environments, cause I know it’s gonna benefit me on real sets!