Lighting
Lighting for this project was almost my main focus with the remake. How to make the lighting different and my own style while trying to keep the same emotions of the original proved difficult as I haven't really done any low light shooting before. During my research into the art of lighting I looked into Film Riot a large amount and found the video below very helpful:
This showed me what I could do with the lights I use and how I can manipulate them. The way I styled my lighting actually came from watching Horror films. The Woman in Black was the main film which gave me the idea for the lighting in this scene. Moonlight is such a classic style of films for lights, especially at night. The scene below is one that made me consider moonlight:
It gives a very cold and upsetting feel to the scene. Mixed in with the emotions that Jessica feels at the beginning of the scene helps to really deliver the sadness that she feels. With this and the lighting techniques I leant from other cinematographers such as Lee Thomas and George Burt, I chose to have the lighting flowing through the windows. With a main key light on one side to bring out Jessica's face and a fill light central to the window so that it looks like moon light shining through. To work with the mood change later on I decided to have Jessica turn on a desk lamp. Giving us a warmer light but keeping the original there so we get a change in mood but no big changes are needed.
Chosen kit
Since this is going to be filmed in low light, I knew that the Panasonic DVX200 4K's that we have at University wouldn't work well for this. Although they are amazing pieces of kit, they can't hold up well enough in low light. Speaking to George Burt, he explained that he shot his Horror film Pandorica on the Sony A7S Full Frame Mirrorless DSLR Camera. I've had people tell me the Sony range is the best to go with for Low Light as their ISO is much better. Already I'd looked into the sort of footage you can get from that camera and wasn't disappointed:
This is a test done in complete darkness and there isn't much noise, that mixed in with proper lighting would be ideal. However, went looking at Rental sites, the only camera I was able to find to rent from the A7 range was the Sony A7R ii. Although still a good camera in low lighting. My choice of kit is as follows:
- Sony A7R ii
- Tamron 24mm-70mm 2.8f Lens
- Canon 50mm 1.4f Lens
- DSLR Shoulder Rig
In regards on what lighting to use. I went back to my previous expereince of shooting at night which I got from Ribbons and chose the same lighting kit. (Ribbons Lighting Blog Post) as well as this I added in a photography soft box light to act as my fill light to help with the effect of moonlight. My main light for creating the moonlight was The Yongnuo YN216 Pro LED, then my soft box as the fill and finally the YN006 light as a small fill inside the house just to bring out the detail in the faces of the actors more.
When talking about how steady we wanted the shots in the first few scenes. I knew I couldn't achieve this with my shoulder rig. So I looked online at getting a DSLR Gimbal or a Flycam. Using the website FatLama I was able to find and rent a DJI Ronin M Gimbal:
This gimbal has a balance motor on it which keeps the camera central and steady while the operator moves. Battery powered, it can run for 3 hours and only takes 30 minutes to charge up. The gimbal was ideal for what I wanted to shoot.
My choice of lens's came from the style I wanted to shoot. I needed lens's with low F Stops to allow more light in so I didn't have to ramp up the ISO. I needed a standard filming lens which would allow me to get nice shots without taking away detail form the background. And I needed a lens which I could do focused close ups with which is where my 50mm Canon comes in.
The DSLR Shoulder rig comes for when I need much quicker movement from the camera as the Ronin is designed to make the shots slow and stable and doesn't work well with fast pans and tilts.
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