Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind & risks...

[Felipe Perez-Burchard]

Just got back from the film, wanted to ask you guys about something that relates to a scene in the movie.

 

One of my favorite lighting moments is when Jim Carey is sitting on the steps depressed talking to kate winslets relatives about what she has done, and the source is from behind him, somwhere above in the second floor and there is no light directly on his face so it is underexposed... I feel the lighting greatly enhances the emotional state of the character as well as fit within the overall visual scheme of the film; In fact I have found myself wanting to deal with some scenes like this but one side of me is too afraid and feels that we need to see the face becasue it is an important character moment and usually the director is with this side of me, my other half tells me that I need to take the risk and that the lighting itself is part of the performance and complements it and so I should let it fall into darkness... in practically every case the presuure of shooting makes me decide to bring some more light and then I look back on it and I feel i shouldn't have done it - it's too bright, but then one time i did do it (not exatly same situation but similar enough), killed that fill and now I feel like I should have kept it.

Have you guys had similar experiences or have had to deal with a situation where you want to take a risk but maybe not everyone is supportive?

 

Furthermore, on a more technical level, if you have seen the film and remember the scene, how much underexposed would you say the face is? and would you always put in a little fill to render some detail - or better yet what do you think Ellen kuras did there? or maybe it's just pretty wide open and the ambient fill is enough...

 

finally, how important do you think it is to have dailies (print or video) as far as your own learning of how what you are doing is working... does this make any sense?

bieng a student, I never see what I've shot till the project is wrapped and I feel that if I was getting dailies, I could improve as the shooting progressed.

 

Thank you very much for your comments.

 

regards,

 

-felipe

[David Mullen ASC]

Whether or not she used a fill light or simply reflected some light back in with a white card or did nothing but allow ambient bounce fill in, she probably measured the light in the shadows and knew how much detail she would get, so it's not a big guess.

 

Generally, a Caucasian face about three stops underexposed will look pretty dark yet have some detail.

 

It's important to be able to print down yet hold some detail. One problem is that you may have exposed it correctly but the transfer to video or the dailies print is too light, making it look overlit.