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Hey there everyone! I am a colombian film student and wannabe cinematographer and I am looking for some advise for an upcoming short film me and some classmates are preparing. So I am going to be the DP for this short and in terms of lightning I am looking to have an aesthetic close to the images I attached below for the interior daylight scenes. Logic tells me that to achieve this I should have some strong key lights motivated from the windows on the characters and expose to those bright areas of the face, so everything else will be darker to achieve that high contrast ratio. We´ll probably have like 2 or 3 arri 1000 and maybe like 6 arri 650, it really depends on what the faculty will have available at the time and the budget that production will give us (which will be very, very low). So really I want to have a realistic view of our lightning capabilities with such few lights, can I achieve this look with the lights that are available? If so, what tips can you guys give me to achieve it on an extremely low budget? One of our likely sets is a house with really big windows, so one of the strategies I came up with is partially blocking some windows to control and limit the entrance of light (because it may be too much and spreading everywhere). Am I thinking about this the right way or am I completely off? Thanks in advance!

When hiring a cinematographer to figure out and assist in filming ones project and aid in making it look the way the hiring party envisioned, how is it advised to direct them? What information do they need to aid? Directions? Detail? How much of any of the mentioned? How long of a directorial process is it? What should they be told as a description for ones vision? I want it to look like a standard film? A reality tv show? Daytime talk show? Dark and moody? Is that last description more for a colorist to change/do during a post production process? Cinematographers job? Is there anything I haven't mentioned that they may need to know> If so, what? If not, why not?