matching two shots in highlights and lowlights

Niclas Tornblom · August 4, 2010

Hi everyone.

Im shooting a film on 16mm in a few days and have some questions about exposure for a particular scene.

The scene is set in a forest during early evening, and some sun shines is coming through the trees and illuminate a man sitting on a rock. My idea is to measure the ambient light and measure the sun shine fallling to the ground and exposure for something between the highlights and the low lights. So i would get the man in a kind of silhouette, and get the highlights bright, but not to bright, and the darkest areas in forest not to dark.

so far, i think it's good. see picture

The tricky part is, when im doing a reverse shoot during the same scene. I still have the character who sits on the stone and gets illuminated by the sun, in a medium close up. In the background it's another character who looks at him, also in the same sunlight.

How do i exposure for the characters faces and how do i exposure the background of the forest so it matches the first scene. see the picture. my Idea was to exposure something between the highlights and the lowlights, but if i do so in the reverse shot (medium close up of the character sitting on the stone) im a bit afraid he will be to bright, unless if i exposure for his light, but then the background of the forest is gona be all dark and would not match the first shot ( see picture.)

I hope all this make any sence.