First time High School film-maker

Charlie Piché · March 10, 2004

Hi, as you can tell, my name is Charlie Piché. Im a 17 year old high school student in Montreal. Me and some friends are collaborating on a feature film project roughly based on Peter Pan. We are blessed to have decent equipment (3 Sony DCR-101 and Final Cut pro). The thing we lack (and cannot afford to rent) is adequate lighting equipment and experience. I have chosen to be the DP on the project because of my undying love for the visual aspect of film-making, and it is infact my aspiration to go to film school after graduation. I need advice on how to light certain locations with perhaps makeshift equipment.

Most of the film will require a dark and grainy look (perhaps comparable to Rodrigo Pietro of Amores Perros fame) however i'm not sure this is possible to acheive on DV by a group of teenagers. One of the locations I need to light is a dark basement full of clutter (the key location to become Neverland), it is fairly open and already very dark, i need to light it so the actors will appear on camera when i film but the place still should look pretty dark. I have tried a combination of different lights to no avail, it is either too bright or too dark, the exposure has been boggling my mind as well. i understand that its hard to ask a cinematographer for lighting advice when he himself has not seen the situation, but im open to any suggestions at all! thanks a lot.

Charlie

GeorgeSelinsky · March 10, 2004

When you say "feature film project", do you mean a 90 minute length film? I don't intend to be offensive in any way, but if that's what you intend to do I'm sure you'll find it a bit above your heads at this point. That's really a major undertaking and commitment.

I'm twenty seven going onto twenty eight, with previous experience in this field, and I've been directing and shooting a feature film on weekends and weekday evenings for over a year and a half, only now we're finishing up - finally.

You might find it much simpler to do a 20 minute project, or something even shorter.

With that out of the way, video likes softer lighting units than film. Lowell makes good cheap open face lights (i.e. the DP light). Put some nice diffusion material on them and they will do a good job for many video applications. Bouncing a harsh light against a white card (foam core) or a matte silver card is also a good idea. You can also use simple 200W and stronger white light bulbs for some things too. I've used hardware lights for some stuff, they're cheap but not very flexible.

As for exposure control, you gotta do some reading of the manual on how to control it with your camera. You gotta watch out for hot white spots with video. Some cameras have a "zebra pattern" in the viewfinder that will show you overexposed areas that will burn out.

I wouldn't run a three camera show because 1) your lighting job is tougher and the result is less interesting 2) shooting is more limited angle wise, and 3) you need three good camera operators. This only works in a TV studio, and I hate TV studio lighting.

- G.

Charlie Piché · March 11, 2004

. No offense taken by the feature business, just my wrong word usage, the film should be approx. 40-45 minutes ( could be way off with cuts and whatnot). it had not even dawned on me that having multiple cameras would pose lighting problems, but i realise the nightmare that would lie instore. exposure is something that im definatly goiong to have to look into. im sucha know-nothing, but i guess everyone has to start somewhere. thanks for the push in the right direction lightwise.

GeorgeSelinsky · March 11, 2004

exposure is something that im definatly goiong to have to look into.

Exposure, along with framing, focus, lenses, light (a real biggie), and camera movement are the principal elements of all cinematography/videography. It takes a lifetime to really master it all :blink:

Just don't bite off more than you can chew. 20 minutes is really going to be a lot, just wait till you try. The advanced production class at NYU film school had you make one 30 minute film - and that is after two earlier production classes. Anyway, that's a director thing more than a DP thing, although for a beginning DP that kind of period of work is also not easy.

Best way to learn - read up on your theory then go out and shoot as much as you can.

- G.

Michael Nash · March 11, 2004

You can have the room be dark but put light at the proper level on just the actors. The amount of darkness surrounding the actors will make the scene feel dark. That's a little bit of a simplification, but it illustrates the relationship between exposure and darkness.

Said another way: don't try to create darkness by EXPOSING darker; instead expsose normally and start taking light off of the wall and other subjects until the scene LOOKS dark. Once you've got a handle on this you can start to fine-tune the effect by adjusting the exposure a little, and changing the angle of the light.

J Peterson · March 11, 2004

Best way to learn - read up on your theory then go out and shoot as much as you can.

- G.

What books/resource material would you recommend? I read a really good article called Misconceptions in Lightin, I think it might have been from here. Anyways, could you give some links to books/online materials/etc.?