Hi,
I'm shooting a dawn scene (mostly medium shots and closeups, no shots of the sky) on the steps of this columned building:
http://www.milnercarrconservation.com/images/custom_images/20080115033039_Photo1.jpg
I scouted to see how the light looks during the short twilight hours of dusk and dawn. The light there is nice but slightly darker than, say, an open field, due to skyscrapers in the surrounding area.
I'm definitely looking for a soft, dark blue early morning look, like this dawn scene from The Virgin Suicides:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2zMLC12QlHk/Sqdk77rDlcI/AAAAAAAAAK8/XVImrwR1nj8/s400/The_Virgin_Suicides_513.jpg
or the look of this clip from Amarcord (which is obviously on a studio set):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygr7De1wq6o
I'm going to be using a powerful fogger to add a significant amount of smoke/fog drifting through the scene.
My question is: is it standard practice to add a bit of supplementary light to twilight scenes to add a bit of dimension to the flatness of the light? I'm afraid it's going to look too flat or that the actors will look silhouetted in front of the light gray stone of the building. On the other hand, I don't know how to motivate any extra light... if your primary source is the huge, soft source of the illuminated pre-sunrise sky, then what would make sense in terms of adding a subtle boost to that light? I was considering using an HMI bounced off a large piece of muslin from the left or right of the stairs, but I don't know if that'll look bizarre. Would it be better to give them a soft backlight of some sort?
I'm shooting on Vision 3 500T. I'm figuring I might need to push it one stop during the darker parts of twilight. And I won't be using an 85 filter because (like I said) I want a really deep blue look.
Thanks a lot for any help!