In Tuesdays workshop, we set up a “night time” scene where the subject was asleep at a bus stop with a bouquet of flowers next to him and a window slightly behind. Our set was extremely rough but that wasn’t the intention. Our intent was to really think about the process of lighting this scene realistically. Making the window seem as though it’s the only lightsource in the scene. We discussed many different methods as to how we could light the subjects in the scene without making the window overexposed. We tried a few different lighting setups with an extra two Dedo’s to light the scene. One focusing on the flowers and another focusing on the subject. Before we had enough time to perfect the scene, It was time to pack everything up. Although what I thought hearing other people’s approach and recommendations to helping Robin light the scene was by far the most interesting part. Most had different approaches to how they would light up the subjects and all could’ve worked in their own right. 

In our Thursday workshop, we sat down again and watched a number of scenes from a variety of different films. I won’t reflect on all of them but a number tweaked my interest for both the lighting and practical effects. The first film to spike my interest was The Rubber Head (1901) directed by George Melies. This short was created in the early days of filmmaking yet the soft lighting seems to spread across the scene and look quite modern. The Practical Effect in the film where George Melies pulls his own head out of a box and begins to pump it up is quite impressive considering it was done over 100 years ago. Robin talked us through the process of how this effect was created. Sort of simple in its creation yet an extremely creative effect by Melies. 

That seemed to conclude the semester’s workshops. What I took away from the this lesson was an acknowledgement of the relationship between the lighting of a film and the production design, costumes and subjects. These have a direct correlation to one another which is an idea I never really considered. It’s when all these elements come together in harmony that the film begins to look really impressive.