Video Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qVX8gfHsgYTRdT6M2ao2TCX9SX6NK-yE
Committing with the same group as the first investigative piece, we decided to continue experimenting with colour temperature, with the goal being to stage a scene in which we could create varying colour temperatures using different spaces and lighting conditions, without the help of an artificial film light used in piece 1. By omitting the film light from our second piece it encouraged us to more critically interact with how light naturally reacts off surfaces and manipulating them rather than simply overpowering it with an artificial lamp. Our location for this shoot was in building 8 past the tech office near the theatre room using the large window panes that peer outside to establish different lighting conditions (as pictured below). The script itself is a simple conversation between two students, one of whom is waiting inside for the other to arrive, the later is established as being just down the street.
Learning from our mistakes last time, we came prepared with knowing what we wanted and how we would achieve it. The shoot took two hours after class on Tuesday the 8th, finishing up midday with some sound recording. We did the first few shots inside where the two actors interact face to face, where we had to deal with a mixture of fixed and variable light sources. As the cinematographer, my initial thought process was to capture a close up of Chloe as she checks her watch and rings Tash, with the street visible through the windows behind her, focus pulling to Tash and panning with her walking screen left to right on the street. She would then go around the corner as the camera loses her but keeps panning screen right to meet her at the door she enters through. As the camera meets her, she looks up to see Chloe, where the camera whip pans screen left for Chloes line of dialogue (“your late”), before Tash walks in from screen right to join her in the shot.
This would obviously have been a single take from a fixed position and would have been a dynamic way to interlace the changing colour temperature between interior and exterior spaces. Whilst we were setting up, it was a very overcast day and raining which allowed us to achieve a balanced exposure between Chloe and the exterior, unfortunately, the conditions changed and blew the background way out which made this shot unachievable. Although the single shot was always going to be a side experiment anyway, we went back to our original plan of shooting interior and exterior shots separately.
By forcing ourselves to film only with available light, we found this exercise to be much more instructive and therefore thought-provoking as we had to apply our knowledge of how the lighting behaves rather than how to turn one on. We found ourselves engaging more so with how the actors are positioned in relation to the available light rather than the other way around since the actor is the controllable variable in this scenario.
For the interior shots, we had to deal with the ugly downlights that created very top-heavy lighting. For the close up of Chloe, we blocked the light directly above her by taping a bounce board over it, then used two c stands to position a bounce board punching light back into the fill side of her face as shown above. We opted to use the natural daylight from the windows as the key to create a silhouette around her head that helps to remove her from the background. This was important due to the clashing between Chloe’s hair and the blue chair fabric behind her.
We had the same problem with the downlights in Tash’s’ tracking shot, where we had to compensate for the ugly downlights. At the top of the stairs, we attempted to block the light directly above her but found it was too dark and we couldn’t punch light back in because the windows didn’t span that far around. For continuity purposes we wanted the source to be the window like Chloes CU, so we couldn’t fill it by bouncing from the other side. We decided on multiple diffusing layers on the downlight to see if we could soften it and wrap the light further down her face, which was surprisingly successful. We then blocked the second light on her walk path by sticking a sheet over it and then placing a bounce board on the ground next to her to bounce light back up under her face from the downlight to her right. We also used a bounce board to punch light into the fill side at her final marker. The results of all this were fairly impressive and I was delighted with the results considering the nature of the artificial lighting. The setup is depicted above.
The outdoor shots were of a similar nature where we bounced light back into Tash in a successful attempt to amplify the natural light source on the subject to further differentiate and emphasise the natural changes in colour temperature. As the shot above shows, we were also able to find a location in which the colours complemented that of the subject’s clothing, which looks really striking in that shot.
If I had the opportunity again, something I would have improved upon was the camera coverage of the scene. As I said I really wanted to do that fixed position single take as I feel it would have better established the spacial relationship between the two characters, which wasn’t as good as it could have been in the final take. We never manage to clearly identify where the two spaces are in relation to each other, especially since Tash technically starts from behind Chloe and walks North-West down Swanston street past her and ends up entering the room from the same bearings in front of Chloe, I feel like how Tash got there could have been covered better. Again, if the lighting was more overcast as it was the morning before we shot, establishing the interior space in relation to the exterior where Tash is walking would have been much easier.
