Hello everyone!
I am currently in the last year at the film school here in Romania and I have to shoot a short movie on black and white film stock with an Arricam LT and Cooke S2 lenses. The story is set during World War Two, showing two Romanian soldiers and their encounter with two German soldiers.
As of lighting, we only have bounce boards, floppies, diffusion frames and a 4m x 4m butterfly with ultra-bounce on a side and black on the other. Besides this, as artificial lighting for fill, I will have an Aputure 300D MkII and a KinoFlo.
The thing is I can't really know how the weather will be that day. What I know is that for the wide shots I can't control the light at all, but for tighter ones, I want to have the contrast ratios on the people's faces at around 1:4. Is this a good approach for both sunny and cloudy weather? So I have to think about two different scenarios:
Overcast day. For wide shots, I think I'll have only the natural light, but I am curious if the big 4x4 neg put next to the characters, out of the frame, will help to add depth or not? For closer shots, I would add negative fill on one side of the character and maybe add some artificial light source from the other side (to make the key level higher). Is this a solution or should I think of something else?
Sunny day. It is good that being December, in Eastern Europe here the sun won't act ever as a top light. I planned the shots to have the sun either on the side or on the back of the characters. But still, considering this, how could I direct this sunlight to have the 1:4 (maybe 1:8) contrast ratio on actor's face? For wide shots, I can't do anything. But I'm afraid that if I try to diffuse the light for the close-ups, the difference will be too noticeable. What would be your advice on this situation?
Thank you a lot. I am a bit afraid because working with daylight seems very tricky for me.
