How to light a comedy web series

[Anthony Liu]

Hey guys!

 

I am going to have a 12 hour shoot on Saturday and it's my debut as a DP on a 13 person set (which is my biggest one to date) (yes, I am quite the noobie when it comes to cinematography, but I have 4 years experience with production and editing!). Anyways, I am going for a comedy look, high key lighting and mostly trying to duplicate the look for perfect strangers as the core visual reference, production design is kind of leaning towards Pushing Hands (as this is a comedy about asian american women.) And for the little miss sunshine reference, the director has decided to rule out using natural sunlight and cheat it as night time covering the outside of windows with duvetyn, even though our call time is 8:30am- 9:30 pm. The whole shoot will be focused on a evening dinner get together at a Chinese home.

 

The director does want to utilize the practicals that we have on the location as much as possible and she is also going to somehow remove and clean the bar inside the house to make it look more like an elder chinese lady's house (which i will reference with attached photos).

 

One of my gaffer friend told me I am basically going to use basic 3 point lighting on close ups: key light, fill light, negative fill, and do not have the camera on the side of the key light (possibly bc its going to be overexposed and harsh, im assuming.) And for background he said just highlight with practicals. I have also asked him what type of lights do i need (1k or 2k?) tungsten fresnel and he told me that it really depends on my camera settings. He says a 2:1 contrast is a good place to start and if I am trying to get exposure at f4, then my key side should aim for f4, and everywhere else should be a f2.8 reading.

 

Also, I am using a Sony A7s ii on this shoot. Still trying to find the right lenses, anyone got any suggestions? It's mostly going to be a normal dinner conversation with dirty OTS two shots like the videos I sent through the link, and super subtle wide slider shots.

 

Also, there is one night exterior shot outside the patio, where three sisters will talk secretively away from the dining table. Any suggestions on how I should light the patio scene? I'm not even sure if the color temperature for the patio looks like daylight 5400- 5500k?

 

Thanks in Advance for the help guys, I really appreciate it!

 

I am mainly trying to get the following look/feel:

 

Perfect Stranger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJewNfa_HPY

 

Little Miss Sunshine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QNxYSDdpig

Pushing Hands:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuvsD0Tizzw

 

 

Anthony

[Max Field]

 

and do not have the camera on the side of the key light (possibly bc its going to be overexposed and harsh, im assuming.)

That's standard lighting procedure from what I've been told. Keying the side of the face which is farther from the lens adds depth to the figure.

 

What is your rental budget on lenses, what mounts are you able to use?

[Anthony Liu]

Hey Macks! Thanks for the response. I'm pretty much just going to use The Sony SELP 18105G, 18-105mm, f4.