Week 12 - Light Schemes

One of the last aspects we had a look at before filming and during the creation of the production bible was the lighting. The initial planning in terms of lighting was rather brief as we did not know which pieces of equipment will be available to book out and whether we would be able to get the desired coloured gels. Within the film treatment, I discussed the initial lighting ideas of our director and cinematographers: On location, our lighting may vary on the number of prop lights we have available such as lamps, candles, displays, and monitors, etc. As such, sticking to a 3-point lighting scheme will ensure we can adapt each setting within the apartment to achieve the desired effect.

For a majority of the INT. scenes, Joe may work in low light conditions which means our studio lights will not have to work on their brightest settings and some can even be turned off when looking to create a backlighting effect. Colour gels and LEDs may also be utilised throughout our lighting setups in order to maintain the complementary colour palette. Reflecting on the shoot days, our lighting varied between 2 and 3-point light schemes as we additionally had props that would be lit alongside the studio lights. For instance, the opening shot features Joe in the bathroom during the party - the mirror used has a light attached to the top of the frame which has been used in some of the takes. Similarly, in the scenes of Joe writing her script, we used two studio lights and a small LED light which Sara covered and uncovered with filters to give the impression of a TV screen - she may provide more information on her technique in her blog posts. To properly convey the lighting, I decided to create a handful of drawings with the placement of lights and their intensity instead of creating simple diagrams.

Lighting Schemes - B&W + Colour More lighting sketches can be seen in the Production Bible