The Loneliest Monk

Albert Smith · July 31, 2010

This was a project shot for a local band and friends of ours "The Loneliest Monk" on a shoe string budget.

Here are some stills and the usual where the lights went explanations. Overall I think the lighting concept here was "theatrical realism" or something to that affect.

the film takes a almost documentary style approach in places but still has a fantastic aspect....basic premise being a girl is at a loneliest monk show and after the show ends she imagines loosing her parents and being taken through this world with the band. Anyways I always like to motivate light from real sources...from there I feel you can exaggerate or do w/e you want with that source....but it atleast starts somewhere real. At the same time I tried to utilize theatric Ideas like spot lights and clean shadows. I went in knowing I wanted it dark, In the end the hardest thing was probably controlling the level of darkness sometimes it wasn't low key enough and sometimes I pushed it pretty far with the underexposure I think.

The above were both pretty much the same setup, I was able to fine tune it a bit in the 2nd still since the original setup was a little rushed since we were running behind.

basically this:

2.5k HMI through an 8x for fill with 1/2 orange

2 mole pars above one straight down on the entrance the other hitting the pathway farther out edging the little girl.

2k inside coming out the door.

one LED. I wanted a bigger car rig to light from the exterior but we couldn't get it. I wasn't sure how I felt about this one at first...but its growing on me

The area where the light source comes from is a stage which we cut into from this shot.

5k from the stage and some smoke hitting the wall and the man behind the stairs.

tweenie in the bathroom,

1k mole par through a silk filling the room a little....the man walked from the bathroom to the end mark behind the stairs.

This is the end of a camera move of the girl walking through a corridor. behind her is a 5k and a led panel above and some other stuff but by now she has lost all of that and then walks into a 2k bounced of some shinny silver up high to mimic a industrial flood from the ceiling.

Practicals on zip cords...you can see one in frame. there is another above the girl.

Par can behind the girl

source 4 accenting the wheel in the BG

and I think something really small bounced off the wall....maybe a 250W work light I had around or something.

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Source 4 along the wall as key.

tweenie scrimmed way down through a silk for fill on the other side of the wall

We were supposed to shoot this for dusk into night with first shots going off late afternoon...

Last minute location issues caused a major panic and location move that set us back a few hours so we missed late dusk.

12light Maxi with FireStarters and 1/4 blue and then a 2.5k with 1/2 orange through some diffusion in the front.

Fine tuned the Hmi to have the guy shadow the little girl as he walks up to her, pretty happy with that one.

Edited July 31, 2010 by Jake Zalutsky