Last semester, I shot a small monologue with a friend which also happened to be a cinematography exercise for a class I was taking. The first important thing for a cinematographer before the camera, lens and lighting, I think is the location and how this would help interpret the story and the shot he/she wants to designate. This would help dictate the lighting and how the cinematographer would craft it into his/her shot.

As this was a quick exercise, the teacher asked us to decide on one location. I went around school and decide to use the café for the shoot. Photos below:

After finding my location I went about to search some references from other films that suit my location and the type of shot I was looking for. The reference would help me approach the lighting and framing quickly during production as I do most searching in pre production. My reference was from Fight Club.

Satisfied with the references and location we stepped into the production, The equipment were as follows:

5D Mark III running Magic Lantern Raw
Canon 70-20mm f2.8 lens
1000W Fresnel Tungsten (1K)
Kino Flo 2' 4 Bank (2 Tungsten + 2 Daylight)
White Cloth (Muslin - I think so!) - For Diffusion
Black Cloth - For Negative Fill
Black Large Plastic Bags - For Blocking Light

We proceeded to set up our shot as follows:

The first issue we faced was the mix of the different temperatures of light. The interior lights were warm but the windows were big enough that the cooler daylight was evident and strong coming in. We decided to cover all the windows with the existing curtains which helped diffuse the light. We used the black sheet on camera left as negative fill to block the light and also add contrast to increase the key:fill ratio.

The key was the 1K light diffused through the white cloth to make it a soft source as the Tungsten can be quite harsh directly. As per advice of the gaffer, we added black cloth to stop the light from hitting his abdomen (to add a little contrast) and help the viewer focus on the face as that was the only part that was hit with light. The hair was also lit from above from the on-location lighting. The Kino was added as a backlight to give the sense as if some light was coming from an outside source but also add separation from the background. It also highlighted the foreground of the other actor; subtle but effective.

As for the background, initially we left the lights as they are but the background seemed too bright; taking attention from the foreground. We then used the black plastic bags and wrapped them around the lights to reduce the intensity and hence add some contrast. A great trick from our mentor.

We shot at 70mm and 100mm at f2.8. Shooting RAW gave me greater flexibility to color grade my image in post. I edited in Premiere Pro, Color graded in Magic Bullet Looks with the Impulz LUTs. I think I used the Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 (NEG)_CIN with Cineon to Kodak 2383 FPE (D50)

As for the color space I used when grading, I converted the DNG raw files to VisionLOG color space provided for free by VisionColor. This helped give me that flat image to color the image with the LUTs.

Drop any questions if you have any. Until next time, Adios.

BTS

MONOLOGUE LIGHTING