Outdoor natural sunlight recipe

I’m the least experienced person of the forum but in my little i noticed some decent result using a nd (cheap but variabile) filter to keep a wide aperture but avoiding overexposure of highlights, a diffusion to soften a bit highlights and some reflective diffuse surface as fill light  to reduce contrast ratio (but It depends on what effect your shoot should create). Then in post production i looked for a scene i liked in a movie and i tried to match levels of the waveform to have a good starting point. I Hope It helps somehow!