I am the Director of Photography on Elliot Taylor's graduate film. I am looking forward to shooting this project as the story suites my preferred style of shooting. This style is a handheld, voyueristic look, which creates realism within the piece. I am shooting this film on the Canon C300, which I am hiring from Calumet, along with some specific lighting I need to create the look I want.
The story consists of two main protagonist's, who are on the dole and struggling to get jobs. After a tormenting interview, they decide to kidnap the interviewer and hold him for ransom. The film is a black comedy and this idea does not go to plan, instead it spirals out of control.
There are 3 main interior locations which involve plenty of thought into how I am going to light, and shoot the scene's. One scene is inside the apartment where the two characters live, one is an office scene where the interview takes place, and another, which is most probably the most difficult of the scene's is in corridor.
I want the apartment scene to be lit in a specific way. This lighting plan consists of the room being lit by mostly daylight, which will flood into the room. and then maybe a lamp on in the far side of the room, giving off a little light to give the characters some shape. I will use 2 HMI Pro-daylight lights, which will be placed outside the windows of the apartment, shining into the room, with diffusion frames in front of them to spread the light. The majority of the filming that I shoot will be facing towards the windows so that the characters have a strong back light, I may need a Bowen or reflector to bounce some light back onto their faces so that it is not too dark. The character, Joe, is slightly kinder hearted than Pete, so I will light the two characters slightly differently. When shooting Joe, I will make the lighting slightly higher key than the shots for Pete, and the blocking of the scene will consist of Joe being closer to the lamp so that it gives a warner colour onto his face, instead of the cold daylight.
The Office scene will have a different colour scheme, but these colours will be still cold. The scene will be top lit, and this light will be the only present light in the scene, although I may need to give a little extra light onto Joe's face to make him look less sinister. Elliot wants the scene to have quite unrealistic lighting, in a room with no windows and no exterior lighting shining into the room, the characters will be lit up by the top light which will be directly above them, with little spread, and the rest of the room will be in darkness. I may need flags to block out the light where I don't want it hitting. The colour scheme for this will be white, blacks, and a slight tint of green.
The third interior scene, and most probably the most difficult will be the corridor scene. This consists of the two protagonists, Joe and Pete, walking hastily down an office corridor on their way to abducting the interviewer. The scene will be one long tracking shot. For this shot I want to use a steadi-cam, if I can get hold of one. Steadi-cam is perfect for this shot because I need to track backwards quickly as they walk down the corridor, and Elliot wants it so be a smooth, nicely framed shot. The lighting for this scene will be difficult as corridor lights are usually very ugly, and give a green tint off, along with sometimes flickering in camera as they are cheap, slow lights. I could maybe use this green tint to my advantage and integrate the look into the scene as I am using green for the office scene, but the flickering would be a big problem. Once we have a location for this scene I plan to go to the location and test the lighting and shots. Ideally, if there are windows running along the walls, I will light the scene by injecting pools of light coming from the windows, so that as the characters are walking they are coming in and out of the light. I cannot plan this scene too much before I have seen the corridor as it is so specific.
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