Diego Castellanos

Yeah, I had hoped to use a wall-spreader to get the rim in the wide, and keep the window dark, but the limitations meant I both didn't have a spreader and was talent was pushed right up against the window. Now that I think about it, maybe it would've been nice to have the streetlight at a higher angle, coming in hitting their chest, and have the key softer and warmer, as well as those kickers and darker walls. Maybe that would help keep it from looking like one giant bright source blasting in from outside (sun).

I was trying to suggest that the main source was a street light coming through the window, and the fill was coming from other lamps elsewhere in the house. I shot a wide/two-shot, but I had a hell of a time getting the window to look dark enough to be believable as a street light, and still get some rim on the actors (from the key). The window would blow out, so I stopped down enough to look believable, but the characters lost their edge light as well as detail. I brought in more fill, but that started overpowering everything, almost replacing my key light. I guess in reality, any lamp you have on inside at night would pretty much either match or be brighter than a streetlamp spilling in from outside. I hoped to use the "street light" as just an accent, and key from some sort of lamp, but the limitations of the location, production design, and blocking all forced me to key from outside the window. I guess my "fill" could've have been more sourcey and controlled, as opposed to general room ambience. The way I set up the tweenie bouncing into the ceiling, it essentially replicated the overhead pratical that was already in the room, although much dimmer. The pratcial gave me almost a 1:1, which obviously looked horrendous for the tone.

I shot this teaser back in November or so. It's supposed to be two characters having dinner at night. I've gotten comments that it looks like daytime as opposed to night time, and while I don't completely agree, I'm wondering what I could've done differently to make look better as a night scene. Any ideas, comments, or critiques? Also interested in hearing how I could've made it look better overall, not just more "night-like." http://imgur.com/TKS72yF,YZpXa9Z#0 For a little background info, the guy has kidnapped and drugged the girl (his ex) and is forcing her to have a nice dinner with him. It's a thriller. For the scene, the characters were pushed up right next to a window in a cramped kitchen. I had the option of either lighting through the window or from camera-side, which I avoided as I felt it wouldn't fit the dark material. I used a 1k open face about 10 feet back from the window, using drapes to shape/control it as much as possible. Some light curtains were softening the light a bit. The light was a bare tungsten unit and my camera was balanced to 3200k. I also had a bare tweenie bouncing off the ceiling for fill. Since there were no practicals to motivate from, I tried to pretend there was some sort of street light coming in from the window, so I wasn't going for a moonlight look or anything.