Skip to main content

Pre-Production Recap

Lesson 17 from: HDDSLR: From Still to Video

Vincent Laforet

Pre-Production Recap

Lesson 17 from: HDDSLR: From Still to Video

Vincent Laforet

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

17. Pre-Production Recap

Lesson Info

Pre-Production Recap

All right, so we're back, and now we're going to try and walk you through the process, step by step, of what has gone on prior to today's shoot. The first thing you start off with is some pieces of paper script. And as a director, obviously you're constantly looking through a variety of scripts and finding a story that you want to tell. Once we found the script. That's where the work starts and you're gonna realize there's a lot of layers to this. We've seen the actors. One of the first things you're gonna do is select actors. Before you can do that, you gonna try and break the script down and you're going to find out, um, some really clear references as to what time period are we in? What type of look do we want for this film? Or short, Um, what type of wardrobe people wearing, what type of style are we looking for? And until you think about all those things and really think about them as a director yourself, because when people say they use grandiose word, grandiose words like it's a...

director's vision, which sounds very haughty, Um, and you know, people always deferring to the director. Um, there's a reason for that and that, um, there's has to be one person who has in their mind an idea of what the finished product should look like. And when you read the script, you may have a pretty good idea of what you want to do. A pretty good idea what story you want to tell. But you as you get into this job, you realize it's actually a lot more work, and you really have to think about it a lot more than you may initially think when you start off. So every decision that's going to be on that screen at the end is a decision you're gonna be involved in. So I think, John, the backgrounds gonna start turning lights on one of the time. Um, and, um, what I'm gonna talk a little bit about is making sure that one of most important things you do first it set a general tone look and feel for the peace. So is this going to be a comedy that will lead to a certain type of wardrobe, certain type of lighting, a certain type of actors? Is this gonna be more of a dramatic piece. Is this gonna b'more of a hit piece? Uh, and once you make these decisions, are going to try and go and find references, either film references, photographic references, musical references, wardrobe preferences It's very common to have directors big time directors walk in with a stack of 5 10 15 books and plop it down and have a discussion of their DP for hours and referenced certain material. If you watch films like Blade Runner, there was a tremendous amount of attention put into every single detail. Ridley Scott hired a futurist who was a fantastic writer and just I would almost call it a scientist, a philosopher who wrote about what he thought would be coming 20 years down the line. And as you know, Ridley Scott is definitely a brilliant director. But he made sure to be ableto work off, widen, uploaded and see how this scene behind me is slowly becoming lit. But the idea is that they work together to figure out what the content should be in that film. What will cars be like in 20 years? They ask themselves, What will buildings look like? Will society be and they based that off of sociology, off references off of some of the new equipment they knew that companies are trying to build. And that's why even though Blade Runner was made oodles of years ago, um, it is still somehow scaring Lee accurate Thursday into where we're heading and what we've headed and sometimes eerily so. So, one of the first things you're gonna want to do besides meeting the actors, are casting actors is going to be trying to figure out your environment. In this case, you've got it. Also, consider what resource is you have at your disposal and the environment you have to work with. So we have this creative life set here this waas simply three brick walls and the rest of the room in front of you. And I had to basically say to the set decorator Lauren, who helped us out that you met, uh, at the end of the first night, I believe. But the first day Lauren came in, sat with us, and he comes to me and he's a set designer and he says So what are we doing? Because to him, all he has to go off of our written documents. And I said, Listen, I I'd like this to be a period piece. Um, and instead of giving a specific date because our budget, you know, didn't allow us to be too specific, I said, somewhere between the forties and fifties, maybe six is even if we have to go in there, it's gonna be an office setting environment and some of the questions he asked. And then we went through his know, What does this guy do? One of our main characters is basically a scene where there are two people here who have just had an interaction together, and they're gonna be confronted with a bomb in the room. Um, that has been put there by the gentleman's wife. And what we have to go through is how we're gonna put this environment together. And we said, Well, you go through the script piece by piece and realize that obviously there's a desk is one of the key anchor pieces in the in the script. Another one are the two boxes where the bombs will live. There's a phone where, uh, Frankie Sorry where Taylor initially gets the initial call, there's a speakerphone that he puts on where his wife's voice will come off of oclock is a very important prop in that it tells you the passage of time that's coming. Um, and of course, the rest of environments you can see we built a fake wall here, and the reason we did that is so that we could do reverses. So, um, in almost any narrative, seen what a reverse simply means is if I'm talking to you right now, you're the cameras right in front of me right there. That actor is that gonna talk back to me and we're gonna have to do a reverse and shoot the actor injuries, the other direction. So if we shoot the entire first half of the scene looking this way at the actor at some point, we're gonna have to truth that way. And at that point, there was nothing there but a white wall. So we need to make sure that we had a background in, in this case, these fake flats to shoot that reverse. We knew that we could survive leaving his entire area over here open so that the creative live crew come in and shoot us and to move around our crew. It's not uncommon in almost any dramatic piece that they build sets inside of studios for a number of reasons, one that can control the sound environment. Two. They don't get kicked out of a building they have to pay for. They have time, case of issues. Also, let's say we want to a special shot at the end of the script and put a gym right here a big device. If you're in someone's home, you can't physically fit it in there. In our case, we just go ahead and pull one of the panels out and put the camera crew over there. So building a set around you affords you a lot more flexibility, all right. And what you're gonna need to make sure you tell people is the period and kind of the color tones Asked that yesterday, and I asked for a kind of very muted color palette that to me brings you back into the forties and fifties. If people were wearing bright red and blues and purples, I feel more like I was in the seventies. Okay, um, the next thing we did is I went ahead and talk to Joyce Are you ready to come up? Um, sorry, Lorraine. My apologies from Lawrence or learning. And I just made a choice. Fantastic. I, Lorraine and Lauren is our, uh, wardrobe expert from this period, and we just talked about Obviously, the first thing we have to do is cast the actors that you were given specific measurements of their bodies, and we also talked about what you could realistically have access to during the four or five day built That we would have that much time. No, we had three days, four days. So what could she get access to realistically in two days? Yes. And walk me through that process a little bit in terms of, um, you know, you have your own kind of stash of clothing from that period, which is why I went to you on. So the things we talked about, for example, for Natalie's character, she's the wife who is on the phone booth. You know, calling in and telling these two people that she's put a bomb in their room. And I want to make sure that we talked a little about the psychology of that on that the way she was dressed would suggest the fact that if you're in the lobby of the building calling your husband and his mistress and time you're gonna blow them up, you're probably gonna be addressed in a way that's more incognito. So you kind of slip out of that lobby and not be recognized. And that was kind of one of our first challenges. And try and make sure that we found the right type of clothes. Yeah, there was an emotional state. I think that you wanted to convey in a quick a quick take right needed to be severe. And you think, you know, obviously colorful clothes are not gonna be the best way to do that. We're very flamboyant clothes, you know. We're not gonna put a red dress on that character that's gonna track every person's I We're gonna keep him in dark clothing. Yeah, we're gonna make sure that lapel hopefully covers half their faith with a hat on. And then we talked about these two characters and also making sure that the way they dressed was period specific and also specific to their profession. Yeah, on. Do you know what are some of the issues that you found that you had to kind of tackle. Given the realities. Well, Im first had to come in with a knowledge of vintage fashion. But then I had to. I think what I first needed to do was get your vision and what you wanted to do. So you had to tell me. I want a forties based off a scene. And did you get that off script? Well, yeah. First I have to read the script, and I had to get I had to get the characters. I had to get an idea of what the characters were all about. So, um, Taylor, for instance, Easa he wanted you had requested something. I need an office scene from the forties or fifties, and I want him to be maybe private detective based. So that's one that paints one picture. But then you also were saying the script is telling me that this is a character that is, he's juggling two women. Um, he's probably a little disheveled since he's multitasking. So much so I think that we had to take those two together. So then we talked about what kinds of things could we do with the wardrobe to convey this like Okay, maybe we'll make the sure little crinkled since he was just on the couch with right? Yeah, or the tie sq or something like this. Had a miss expect those pieces, period specific And one of things we also discussed that you need to discuss with any wardrobe person is any technical concerns that you have to listen. There's three very basic rules that any wardrobe designer our wardrobe Ellis needs to be aware of. You never, ever want to wear a pure white on a film set or a TV set. You never wanted everyone where pure black Because that creates technical challenges for lighting. So, um, always where you know, 90% white or cream colored shirts Or like Gray. Same thing. If you ever see a pure black shirt coming on is part of wardrobe that's gonna require a lot more light. Ah, lot more. Fillon make Cruz and DP's life a lot more difficult, especially these cameras, and I remember mention to, you know, patterns. Yeah, you really know no more Ray, because thes cameras, if we were to give crisscross shirts, would have an absolute disaster blowing us off, so I really had to get the guys measurements and take this theme in and multitask around town toe. Pull it all in? Yes, actually. Very cool. That's awesome. I just want to kind of run by that and make sure you knew that you can't show up on set the day off and expect you to know all these things without a discussion. Absolute alone, Having you bring some clothes in two days ago and some more yesterday to go off of and say this is gonna work. This won't work. This color palette will work. This color palette won't work and also talk about how both actors gonna work off of each other. That's where the work is. Okay, Cool. Yeah, thanks very much. I appreciate it. Okay, So are there any questions from the audience so far that they like the bounce around? Well, I think there, but couldn't say this is just a really gripping for people love being able to see you interacting with different pieces that make this all come together. One of the quotes from our man in Saigon says, Is it right to say that we need more people like Vincent Law Ferree to save the American education system went to keep the American dream of Live Boy. Yeah, flashing his blushing where that come from. One of the questions in chat from Questions from Chad is hard to light a scene when the skin tones of actors and actresses are different. Perfect timing, John. Come on in. So, John Consuelo is a fantastic everything. A person photographer in this case gaffer. But now I come in and we get the most horrible lighting of the day when I come in because that's the line. Begin to our sex and the lights really go down these, you know, You know, video cameras pick everything up. We went ahead and we had our initial discussion as well. Yes, And what I explained to you was first of all, the realities of this room and lighting. So one of our main concerns for me at least, is in my perfect world for this scene. I would have put it one light directly over this central area. Alright, Right on. I would have defused it. If you can pan or tilt up on DSI a ceiling, It's way up there. Okay. How many feet uses Almost 2020 feet 2020 feet. And also there is a steel beam up there. It's not really. There's also a light amount on the steel be. And so if we could get to the steel being, we'd have toe UNM mount the light, this secure light, find a way to lower it right overhead because he wouldn't want to be too high, so we can control a little bit. And we try to get that to happen. You notice that nothing's been done on letters here way. Don't have a letter, you know, even even or try to get a scissor lift in here. The problem is the building doesn't have a ramp up. You have to go upstairs. So it wasn't something that could just be done quickly and easily. And budget and also the budget was a concern, you know, to get a scissor lift delivered with a a delivery truck that actually lifted up into there are doors that open up, but there's at least four feet wide feet drop before the gate level. We just kind of ran into the wall after wall after wall. And ideally, I just said, You know what I know exactly the type of lighting is gonna work because my concerns were not on Lee how it looks but also how quickly we can work. So if you have a direct overhead light, it kind of showers the entire scene with the base key light and you can add little accents. Also, don't forget I have to worry about a lot more shadows and normal. Normally, I just worry about my crew shadows that patrol. I also have two or three creative live cameras in there with me, so there's a lot of different things to consider. So ultimately, we decided to do a few things. We have one light over here and I'll let you. Kinda if you want walk us fruit. Sure, step by step. The different layers of life they have here way started out with a bunch of for Nell spot. Need a fantastic way. Start out with a bunch of Purnell spots. We have four of them on this set their focus herbal and barn doors. So we've got some slashes of late. We're hitting the clock in the photo back here, The painting on the wall. Then we've come over. Obviously, we're hitting the clock for a reason. It's not a random slash of light. The clock is going to play a big part in the script. So you know there's a reason for everything that you do. You don't just randomly put a splash of light. It's you know, as we said, whether you focus on someone's eye or in the background lens choice, same thing goes for lighting. I've physically wanted a slash of light on this clock because the clock is gonna play an important part, I guess, a ticking time bomb. So that's gonna be a reference to the amount of time that they have left. So there's one light that just does this slash of light. There's actually a second light that also lights the face of the clock because the initial, like, did a good job of creating a slice of life. But the face was completely dark. So if John turns it off, I don't if you can see there that your video cameras pick everything up. But when we shoot this on DSL ours, that face was completely dark. All right, now we're coming to this side. We have another 650. What? We're all tungsten today. if you're watching Yesterday we were all daylight. Eso It's totally new thinking today we use the outside late for a lot of the set today we've blocked off the windows. There's foam core behind the shades here to block out the daylight because that would be coming in way too blue. So we have Adam here. Our hero. 11. 30 night Last night I told me they had a foot tall phone cord boards that would basically hide. Basically where the sun is this entire scene, because the sun's gonna be super blue. Completely overpower this entire set kill all over light. Not to mention that the color temperature of the sun is daylight and we're working with tungsten. So you have this very strange blue light coming in that would be fluctuating up and down the entire day and make our life a living nightmare in terms of lighting. So now we're we've come into this side. As you said, when we do, the reverse is there's gonna be a scene shot over here near the door. So we have another slash of light coming across here, and it's hitting down around where the handle is on this set. You're not. You can't see the handle its recessed, but we know it's there that we've added another 6 50 back here, way up that's aimed at the packages on the desk. Um, we have a strip light, a bank light overhead. Also tungsten that's going to cover the actors when they're over by the door here. And then our overhead, the closest we can get was on. Got this lip Seidel spot up here, leeco like For now, that's not a friend, rather legal light. And that's pointing at the desk. It's not coming straight down as we wanted it, but would consider what we had here. That's where we can get it for today. If we had a little more time in a few more people, you probably can't see back there. It's on this monster stand that weighs a ton, and we don't want to move it if we can avoid it, and then we have a few little tricks up our sleeves. We have a few light panels ready. These are generally battery operated. Um, we're using with a seapower. Help pull him out. And the idea is we can drag these led lights that you control the color temperature to go from daylight Thompson or filtration on it. So she want to add a little bit of a fill and go ahead and do that. And we shouldn't forget that. Obviously, you can always add lights. But if you don't have a budget for lights, use either paper or foam core anything that either white on one side or black on one side wins black. It's called negative, Phil. Eso If I were to put a black flag toe left in my face here, you would see the light on my face get cut down. There will be more contrast. Do that on the other side. We'll show you that on the other set. If I stand by this light here and I add just a piece of paper, you can see how my face feels. I think I'm seeing on TV with the light. Just get the idea. We have different tools now. People might say, watching Why do you need so many lights? Well, the reality is we're doing this in the studio here because we have the creative life crew, all the technology here, Uh, unless I had a huge budget This is not the place I would ever try to shoot a short piece because you have to base. He bring everything in. So Lauren built the whole set. John let the whole set, and it was a lot of work. Ideally, if you have a smaller budget you're gonna want, try and find an existing space that will at least have a spaces conducive to minimal lightings. We'll have what you call a practical light. A practical light is an existing light, so this is a practical light right here. I know if it's hidden behind the camera, the lights that are above us are also practical life, their existing lights on. Sometimes it's very common to put different types of lightbulbs in there to match the color temperature of your cinematic lighting. But you know, if you have no budget, uh, go outside, um, and use natural light. If you go inside, make sure you work with lighting that you can somehow control a little bit. Fluorescent lights aren't the prettiest, but there tend to be very even, which is why it's it's relatively easier shooting office space with minimal lighting, but in this case is you can kind of scene. You're definitely during the peace. We wanted more stylized. We're going for mood here. We didn't want it to look like a television set. And we could have come in with a couple of flats here and just let it a little flat and had had even light throughout everything. But it looks even then it loses the sense of time. And if you're around for the first day of this workshop, you'll notice how flat and even the lighting waas And the reason behind that is we just have one light source delight everybody from one direction that were not so specific in terms of where the actors have to stand that we're talking about an issue with that that we ran into with Miguel is as a photographer myself. My background is in still photography. I wanted that light a foot away from his face and I could see how wide is your shot gonna be. Can I move the light in? You know where it's gonna be in the shot. You just saw it toward the end, like that smile piece that everyone was talking about. That light was really close to him. So I just let the one side of his space gave this nice shadow and molding across the face. And I wanted to do that for the whole set, but on video, we can't get in that close. Yeah. So this is what we came up with a budget in time that we had the last thing we should mention our power constraints. So, um, at any time on any production, at certain certain time, you're gonna run to a point where you need it more powerful lights and your biggest enemy is trying to fight daylight. The moment you're trying to fight anything more than an overcast day IE sunlight, you need very, very powerful lights. 18 K's and or the thes air, all about 650 watts. Bank is 1000 watts. And the lip Seidel. I think it's 1000. So were we had a search around and find different outlets and different circuits. You know, my concern was we're going to turn them all on and shut the place down, but we managed to get out. And so if I want to duplicate the amount they like, that's coming in the other room that we've been shooting for through in the last two days, I would need a Siri's of 18 K lights. That's 18,000 watt lights. That's 1000 white light right there. And what happens then, of course, is you don't plug goes into your household outlet. If you do, you'll blow things up bringing a generator truck, and that means bringing in generator truck that's noisy. That requires fuel. And you've got to run cables. You can see our production very quickly gets expensive, complicated. So I think that comes really wait kind of the basis of what we've prepared for. We're gonna go ahead and take a few questions and kind of roll with it and get ready for our next section. Thanks, John. Great work. Thank you. Question from photography by DP Is 1000 watts of power output the same on all light sources? No. So if you have a A to K h m my source, where's the two k tungsten light us. Get less light out of out of the age of the tungsten. It refers to the draw of the light, not the actual output question from Sarah s, which you did kind of talk about But with when pre Linus set, Do you worry about an overall, consistent look? Or do you plan on changing the lights for different shots? I think it's very important to do what we did here. Where? Which is the lighting, Um, when we finished last night, because again we didn't have the luxury of in an ideal world we should have done is had access to the space for the past, you know, at least a day or two prior to the start of the workshop, because it's such a busy place. Creativelive thes rooms were spoken for, so we had to pretty much through this, like the night after the first day and last night. So we're working really long days to get the next day set up, and that means that we've got to be pretty flexible and what we did last night at 11. 30 at Night Pacific Standard Time is, you know, we lit this side of the room so that we already had a very good general idea how we were going to block out the scene with the actors where the main elements would be, what we wanted lit and what we didn't want lit. It is very important to point out that you light one light at a time. You don't just turn all the lights on and start moving around very first, Like that went on. Was this spotlight down here on the desk? Because this is where all the action happens. For the most part in this scene, the second light to go on Was this trip light on the clock? Because I know it's going to be one of our most important initial elements. I realized that that was not gonna like the face of the clock. We had No 6 50 You see, it's a little bit off to the side right there on that life. And then I also realized that this part of the scene here was going a little bit dead. So I adjusted the barn doors a little bit on that one to catch the stand here with the hat on the jacket. Lastly, I brought this other 6 50 way up high up over here, and I made sure that it hit not only our bombs here. One of these is a bomb, but kind of the front of the desk. Otherwise, it went dark. That was part number one the entire time. I'm standing back here looking at my first shot of the film, and I'm also looking at it through the camera. Going to shoot. Looking at with your naked eye doesn't really help you in the film days. You would hold a light meter, do all the math in your head. It was a much more difficult process. In this case, we can cheat. Look at the back of the screen, see how things were coming out. See flights to powerful. Not then I went around and it won 80 and start concentrating on this reverse shot. And I realize that these lights were doing a wonderful job of letting this environment but everything on that and was completely black. So that's where we added a strip light up here Toe light, one of the main scenes in the shoot. Where are actors trying to escape and a second trip over here? Just add a little strip of light to the wall so that when you're back there, you just don't see pure blackness or darkness, and you can see how it's just a step by step by step process and normally that would be the DP job with a gaffer. But in this case, I have to do a little bit of everything. And that's where we got to Where we got. Yeah. Were you looking to get some lights? You know, photography studio. What's a good light? That's versatile. These are all different kinds of lights that do a lot of things. Specifically, What's a good light toe by, like those led panels? I happened to love the led light panels that are back here for a number of reasons. In fact, when I don't have money, um, this is all that I use. So these are led light panels on You know what it calls the's A relatively expensive. I think there Well, over $2000. Okay, But you can rent them, you know, for the day. Quite a reasonable price. The beauty of these is their battery operated incredibly light. What you should know about the majority of cinema lights is when they come in raw. They're not dimmable. Okay? A lot. I can't them. So what you end up doing is you want to knock down that light a porter stop. You have to put 1/4 stop filter in front of it or some diffusion. Obviously, if you had to fusion, you also affect the quality of the light. The beauty of these led lights is that you condemn in the back with a dial. Very precisely. You can barely see them as a little Phil or they become a key light. And you can also in this by color one go from daylight to tungsten and anywhere in between. So I travel with 2 to 5 of these on most of my jobs in one case, and we could not things out. I've mounted this for the front of cars. We do driving sequences that Gail hates so much. Um, I've uses almost anywhere Wells have a little mini light panel blocks, and the beauty of these things, besides the lack of need of power is the most dangerous thing about continuous light sources is the heat. If I go ahead right now and put my hand on that, I'm going to go the hospital. I'm gonna burn it off. So you always always wear gloves. That's why grips, you know, won't go anywhere without him. Electric. And, um, this light can be on for seven hours, and I could put my hand on it. It's led technology, so I would recommend you start there. As Mr Tattersall suggested. You don't need to buy anything. You have lights all over your household. I know that Shane Hurlbut to let a lot of Terminator with lights from Home Depot. All right, so the construction lights that you can buy for Home Depot he bought and lighting really is about a light source and how you modify it. So in this case, we have Opal Diffusion to make a light softer and cut it down way. Use Muslim lot, which is kind of a rough bed sheet. So if you don't, if you can't afford Muslim, get some of your old sheets and cut them into pieces to diffuse light. That's how would we do it? In cinema, lighting and photography, you have soft boxes that are enclosed. We do use tomorrow soft boxes in cinema all the time, or strip lights basically the same thing. It's very common as well. Just to use these frames effectively with one big light behind, it will go ahead and put some black flags around to create you know a much larger source, so you'll have visas 12 foot by 12 foot at times on set, very often as silks shouldn't quickly put them together. You go ahead and fly them over people to cut down the amount of natural sun hitting the actor or uses a big bounce. Ah, a lot of different techniques. It's a whole new learning process, but the key port, the key point, is you as photographers hopefully have a good understanding of lighting, and you can go ahead and apply that. But understand you have to work a different tools and the beauty of these issues large. They do very well in the light, so you can repurpose lot of life we have. You probably have heard of. Kino flows right there. Some of the most common lights in film in music videos, commercials, those air just fluorescent tubes that air specifically, they like balance and built in a professional specs. But if you don't have the money to buy yourself Kino Flo and you can color correct and post by yourself, you you know in large Tino Stoop fluorescent tubes at Home Depot, wherever you want to go and make your own strip banks and portable diffusion in front of them. Make a little grid yourself. I mean, the first soft box I ever owned was a bed sheet, you know when I was 15 16 and you'll find a lot of times that you could become very inventive and save money. The one caveat I have to mention about life panels. Though it's as wonderful as they are, they're only powerful enough to compete with, Let's say, a dark, overcast day outdoors. They're not powerful enough to work and on a sunny day or in a bright, overcast day. So they're perfect lights for indoors in a room, and there some light coming in the windows would be a decent fill. It was just If it's bright sunlight you want, you barely see them unless you put him right up to the actress face. Okay, you know that's the key. That's why you end up using these different types of sources. Question from Peko Chan. How important is the direction of light in video compared to still photography? Just as important, I mean the direction of light. If I go ahead, I know how far you guys consume into my face, but very basics of light. Ghoulish light. No one looks nice with light from beneath at the most. You see how dark my face is going? International light. I'm gonna want to turn this up just a little bit as a little bit of a Phil and probably right over here. Okay, so if you put a ladder neath it's almost always gonna be just for a fill. Light from the side leads to a certain, uh, look, anyone help me with this. So if John likes me from the Yeah, go ahead. And make that the key light, if you would. The intensity of it. Castle, you can see it coming. Um, you'll see that as I turn around with my face. The same light relative to my face will model itself very differently differently around my face. Elevated light is almost always more flattering. Then direct low light is bad. Sidelight is more dramatic. It's also more flattering on people with wider faces. Overhead light could be wonderful on women with perfect features, but with exactly put two lights or a mirror beneath. But for someone who is a very long knows or has very deep eye sockets on overhead light will look terrible. And I guess, you know, without going too much into giving it a master lighting class, the most important part to think about when you shoot a film is that when you shoot a still photograph trying to capture the perfect moment in that one spot challenges of filmmakers to make sure that people are lit well, as they move around the scene without going in and out of spots of light continuously, this case, they will be going in now spots of light cause we're doing more of what we would call a film noir look more of a dramatic look. We're gonna have deep shadows on your average. If you watch the average and the NBC sitcom, you're not even aware of any lighting. I just kind of always evenly lit, you know, in a very kind of just perfect, you know, no shadows, flat lighting because they really want to make sure that no matter where, especially a comedy. Um, if the actor heads his line right here, that's really funny. They can't have and say, Well, the light was right over here. You hit your mark. Okay? Yes, Could you just repeat What was the name of the led lights that you bring with you? That can change from tungsten to daylight Light panel by colors. Thank you. Be Ivan colors questions from Chad again, and the chat room would like you to talk about the skin tones. I don't think we sure so. Obviously, if you have someone a dark complexion and you put a perfectly white shirt on them, you're just begging for a technical challenge because the camera has a certain dynamic range and you're gonna make your life difficult if you put a Nordic person with a very, you know, white complexion and a black shirt, same thing. So for the most part, you're gonna like people with different complexions and all the ranges in between, obviously differently. And take that consideration and put more or less Phil, depending on on that look as well. But what's difficult is when you have even in a photograph, you know, someone wearing a white jersey on the left and wearing a black jersey on the right and trying to dispose both in the bright sunlight. Very difficult. Same thing goes with people of different complexions. Skin tones, different wardrobe. So that's where we worked with the wardrobe here to kind of make sure we try to balance that little that and not back ourselves into a corner. Kind of a follow up question. Matt Cannon had said that he's shooting a ban that insists on wearing all white, and he wants to know what would Vincent do? What I do with a band that's that insist on wearing all white? Um, I would probably work with. Let's see, there's number ways of approaching that one, Um, where their complexions with my first question, but definitely bring a lot of light. You can focus, you know, So you're gonna have an overall light on the scene. You want to make sure that you have let you can focus on their face that bring those up. You know, because if you're blasting the entire area with light, not discriminate Lee, you're gonna be also blasting the white clothes and they're gonna keep popping. The more juice you put out, the more they pop. You want to be sure you can trust, try and hit their faces, Onda also don't shoot them against a black background necessarily. Um, that might work to make them really stand out. If you is, a variety of them would be to worry about that. I mean, if they insist on wearing white, here's Here's the simplest solution. Ask from the wear light gray and tell them that on camera and a look like because you can always push that like grand toe white that supply the best answer. Take some deal with as a wardrobe issue instead of lighting. Thank you very much. Another question from Parana was, Are you ever worried that you're lighting won't turn out toe look natural on video? And I know we're doing films for here. That's that's challenge. No, today, you know we're not doing a lighting masterclass, so we're just gonna make lighting. So that least has some character. Very few. These lights or defused except for this trip light up there, which is not my style. But the truth is in back in period, and I think we're gonna try and do this in black and white. Um, you'll see that harsh light works, but, you know, you have to find out what your style is, and that's where you have a discussion with your director of photography on your gaffer to make sure that you're all on the same page, There are clear choices being made. If you look a different TV shows, Can I mention TV shows or No? So when you watch Ugly Betty, for example, or really, that is a very specific lighting style that's super punchy colors, sewer, punchy light, you're very aware of it. Whether or not you know it's light, it's stylistic. Whereas if you watch the office or 30 rock, it's extremely flat, and you wouldn't even know it slipped and think about that. You know the lease all about, you know, happy, colorful, right? You know that, uh, where is the office is a comedy? Siri's. It's Not about style, it's about the comedy. It's about the actress performances. And no matter where they want to hit their line, no matter what they want to ad lib, you want to make sure no more that no matter where they end up on set there, well, let okay question from Kelly Hoffer. Do you move the lighting during shooting along with the camera to keep the front lit consistently? Well, here's here's the big challenge of continuity um, we're gonna talk about this as we go into the actual shoot. You want to make sure that you set a base light for what you call your wide master. All right, So what we lit for last night Waas Not just the desk, but are wide master here of this initial shot and the other reverse. And you'll always shoot your wide masters first in any scene so that you can set the tone. And then as you move in closer to your actors, you can start bringing lights into, fell them and make them look bigger. The problem is, if you shoot your actors or you shoot tight first with those lights as you move them out to be out of the frame, it's going pretty noticeable. And you don't want to make too many traffic light changes that people will notice. Like what a minute, You know, things were drastically changing here and on those continuity issues always go wide, too tight. I would not make any drastic like changes defending in anyone given seen. It feels like it's the same place. It's pretty important. Keep it consistent. Okay. And we have one last question. Were to go to a break. All right, Um, question from Brett was Is the quality the color of light? More important when shooting video compared t to still photography. Since you can't color correct as easily you can color correct Just as easily. If you're shooting raw, you cannot on Macy s large, so you definitely have to make, um, more careful choices. Also, you definitely couldn't correct a lot more usually tougher, like photo shop where it's a still you kind of get in there and layers. Doing that on the moving image of being nightmares is definitely I take it back. It definitely is easier to color. Correct in instills. I was just going to say that you can definitely also called correct on video. But no, I mean the quality of light is is primordial mean as Gail? If he thinks that he wants to fix it imposed, he's got 16 by camera bind. I've been talking about how you have to learn the basics and live by them. Um, and if you look at house, the lighting is pretty perfect. Um and, um so for to kind of specify a little bit more for our world of DSL ours. You definitely be paid. Be paying very careful attention to color, temperature and exposure and contrast on set because you won't be working off a raw file and you won't be able to play with it as much as you would off your CR two off that same Cameron still image.

Class Materials

bonus material

ShootingSchedule.pdf
Storyboard-Template.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Great Workshop.. Totally worth it, for the sheer amount of Information and seeing everyone work together, seeing the master himself at work and breaking down each and every aspect of film-making while shooting, so people like me can learn the Magic of film-making. Loved every part of all 3 sessions.. Awesome CreativeLive ... Awesome Vincent Laforet.. Awesome stuff, to everyone involved, including the ladies asking "interweb" questions and the creative live camera crew.. Also, when and where can we see the final product shot on Session / Day 3... "Choice"..?? Thank you..

a Creativelive Student
 

This is, without a question, the best education model I've experienced. The small snippets of details, the interaction, the experience, was indescribable. I don't know how to thank you enough....especially after winning a prize! [Hugs]

a Creativelive Student
 

Hi guys, great series, nice educational tool, especially when you in remote places. Just wondering where is session 2, since i paid for all, cant find it. anything on that? Cheers bvkfilms@gmail.com

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES