Shooting this week ran much more smoother than our last shoot. Almost poetically you could argue that upon reflection from the first project, our second was a much smoother run. Though we did achieve what we wanted to do, we did not lose our ambition from the last project despite the problems we had from it. This time we attempted at a Venetian blinds for an implied window within our scene with a noir inspired aesthetic to the scene. I felt like we were able to achieve that, though there are things we did well there are things that we could have tried. However, given the time span of the project (of two weeks), it is difficult to plan and logistically test and implement some things that would have been interesting to do.
We cut out a black core board with slits and initially used a 2k light to light through it to achieve our Venetian blind effect. During the shoot we got the idea to move the blinds as if they were scrolling up to achieve the mystique and ambient effect with our Bladerunner inspired scene. Though, perhaps we did overkill the bladerunner inspiration with our two projects, it does provide aptitude inspiration that we can measure against. Along with the Venetian blind effect we had a white core board to provide some fill light on the fill side of the shot as there is a lot of contrast between the two. We also set up a couple of dedo lights with red and green gel, this created a neon light effect which would implicate an outside light shining in.
Venetian Blinds from a side view.
Though there was a problem with the key light, the 2k would drown out the dedo lights. In another production, perhaps that would be the intended effect. However we wanted the dedo ‘neon’ light to have more presence in the shot, so we downgraded the 2k light to a 1k however the effect was more or less the same than with the 2k. So we opted with another dedo as the key light. This time we felt we had a comfortable light level to shoot at as the 1k and 2k would make the scene feel overexposed because we wanted the neon lights to be significant as it is in the shot. We felt this way because in a real world setting, a neon light shining through the window would be most likely a lot more brighter than the ‘key’ light from the blinds. We also used a phone light to give an eye light for that extra definition in the shot which I felt was a good thing to have and think about. The difference can be seen if we didn’t have that light for the eyes, as they make the subject look like they have dead eyes.
Front on view of the scene
I felt like, although what we achieved was ambitious and valuable to learn from as an experience it would be much more interesting and challenging to do a similar scene in a much larger set. One with actors moving throughout, as all films do not have shot by shot of static subjects it would be quite valuable to shoot a scene that had a much larger set. This would explore how a lighting setup would affect an entire set space with subjects moving and interacting. We would be able to see the subtle changes in light as each subject moves or as we move the lights around. Then we could see what we could do with core boards, lighting placements and cameras. It is also of note that we did not have a multi camera set up, which is quite convenient from a directing and editing point of view where we don’t have to essentially re-shoot scenes over and over again just so we have variety in our shots. This introduces the problem of each take having slightly different rhythms and tones throughout and it ultimately limits your cutting options when editing which was a problem with our particular project. I had to cut in between lines rather than cutting in them with a shot that I really wanted because the delivery of the scene didn’t match up with each shot. In a multi-cam setup it would be possible to cut like this where we can take multiple angles of a take that was successful and not have it limit your editing options.
Link to our most recent edit on Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1av2ZDmu_umDIN6yz9LYsOg1nqx0Lz0qj
