Gareth Daklin-Wren

Thank you all for the replies! And thank your Guy for that really informative post, I really appreciate you taking the time and the shots you provided look fantastic! Just a few questions though, if you wouldn't mind. You mention using an HMI to add my own consistent light, but I was wondering what you would think of my idea to just block the sun out all together then using one of the 1Ks to light the curtains from the outside. That way the inside and the outside match in color temp and I wouldn't have to gel the lights or sliding glass doors. I also had the idea of using some thicker, yellow/beige curtains instead of white ones to help cut the light and warm it up, but I feel like I would have to still probably gel the tungsten lights to get it to match. I might just do that anyway though since the whole room in general is rather monochromatic and have been trying to find ways to add color. Otherwise, I may just have to think about using LEDs and fluorescent lights to get something similar to the look above that I posted. Then the sun is on the other side of the house in the morning, which is when the story takes place, so it's indirect light until about 2:00pm, so hopefully that will keep it pretty consistent.

Thanks for the replies! Figured it wasn't anything complicated, but was curious of where that catch light might be coming from as you mentioned Mark. Any thoughts on keeping that look consistent with changing color temp and weather over multiple days?

Hi, new to the forum, and so far it's been a really great learning experience. Anyway, I was wondering how any of you might go about getting a similar quality of light from this shot in Grand Budapest Hotel on a budget? The project I'm working on mostly takes place in the kitchen of which I've included pictures below: I'm pretty young and I usually just reserve myself to writing and directing, but I thought it might be a good experience to try to DP one of my projects. However I could use a little guidance as this is all rather new to me still, but I did have a few initial ideas. I plan on putting up white curtains as the view outside is rather un-cinematic, and because I feel like it will add to the main character's feelings of being trapped. I don't have much of a budget, the brightest lights I could rent are probably a couple of 1K tungsten lights. However, I plan on using my 5D mark III with ML Raw, so I can go up to 1250-1600 and get a pretty clean image, and I tend to like to shoot between an f.2 - f.4. My nearby rental place does have a set of 2 x 1K Arri's and an Arri 650w open face that are decently priced for the week. I could possibly try and rent a few other smaller tungsten lights as well. I was thinking about possibly going and blocking out the sun with some black cloth draped over some C-stands on the deck and then setting up one of the 1K's in front of it to light up the white curtains acting as the sunlight. My thinking to do this is so I can keep color temp consistent, and so we don't have to worry about clouds coming in and out all day. It would also help keep consistency as Minnesota weather can be rather unpredictable, and it will be a 2-3 day shoot. From there I was thinking of using the second 1K as my key for the subjects as most of the dialogue happens in singles, probably bouncing it off of maybe some muslin or setting up a cheap book light scenario. Then finally using the 650w either for fill or for bouncing off the ceiling to raise ambient light levels. Anyway, I know that was a lot of information, but I was just wondering what any of you might do to get a similar look on the cheap all while trying to keep it consistent over a couple of shoot days. That was my initial idea, but I'm still not sure if that would even work as I've only been studying this stuff for the last couple months. Looking forward to hearing any and all ideas!