For this exercise, I was one of the gaffers. It was just a shame that we did not get to use the lights, but we get to manipulate the lighting using reflectors. Also, this exercise is done with Robin’s help and I do find the lighting turns out really nice here.
Subtle Adjustments
The scene is lit with the reflected sunlight from Colin’s left side. We used the black fill to get some of the light on Catherine’s cheek and shoulder for the first two shots; and we used it again for Catherine’s shot on the left. For the fourth shot, we used a tilt before Catherine speaks to show her action.
I feel that the way we used a black fill to block some of the lights on Catherine’s shoulder was very effective. Subtle adjustments like this are crucial to make the shot look better. I still remember that we used chairs to block the light that seeped in from the window behind Colin. However, if we had more time, we should have other ways to block the light to make the background look less busy. I feel that we could have used the black reflectors and clamp it on the sunblind. Or, we could even move our actors to the left a little bit to just show the white wall behind.
For me, I would like the shadow on Catherine’s face more evident in her shot (the third one). I want a more consistent shadow without those tiny bit of lighter areas on her face. I’m not sure if this is the best we can do with a negative fill. I feel that could we have moved the fill closer to Colin and toward Catherine to improve the shot. Looking at the image, I think the light comes from approximately in front of (but a bit to the left) Catherine. We also could have tried to move the actors so that Catherine’s face on the fill side can face more towards the wall on the left because the tiny and lighter bit could also have been the light coming from the right.
I think there must have been different approaches to film this scene. As I have learned from Storaro, we can do this in one long take. It will start by filming two of them in the same frame. The camera moves in (mid shot) as Colin asks Catherine about the composer she chose. Then, the camera turns to Catherine when she replies him. The camera follows her action and the take finishes with the wide shot of them both. I wonder how the scene will look if it is shot like this.
Lighting and Camera Coverage
There is one thing here to learn about lighting and camera coverage. Before we did the filming from the key light side, our camera was on the fill side. Will the shot look better on the fill side or key side? It did look very different from each side. That was a simple but important decision to make. Robin has gone into such detail in the decision-making process to show us that as cinematographers, we must be conscious of the decisions we have made—no matter how minute it is.
