‘EoL’ – Luna Park Sequence

[Max A.]

Hello Mr. Deakins and all the forum members. I hope you Mr. Deakins and Mrs. James are well.

I would like to ask you, if it is possible, how you planned to shoot and scheduled the sequence of ‘Empire of Light’ in luna park.
Looking at the saturation and the angle of the sun seems to me that it was early morning during the first part of the scene (after the characters play on the carousel that seems to be near high noon looking at the carousel’s casting shadows on the ground) and during the tracking two-shot dialogue and the two OTS.

During the tracking two-shot, the two characters are side-lit, passing through casting shadows of tents around them.
In the two OTS, ‘Stephen’ has the angle of the sun to give him a side-lit, and ‘Hilary’ has the angle of the sun to give her a side backlight.

My questions are:
1) At what hour did you start to shoot that sequence and how long did it take you to conclude it? There are a lot of extras in the scene so I think it was a bit time-consuming to manage all the action in the background.

2) When you cheated for the position of the characters (if you cheated a bit to have the right sun angle on each shot) did you have to reposition also all the elements in the background (carousel behind ‘Hilary’ and red tent behind ‘Stephen’) according to the composition?

3) Did you use bounce material (Muslin/ultrabounce etc.) for the shoots? Maybe especially for ‘Hilary’ that is the backlight. If yes did you use big bounce sources like 20X20 at a distance, or something smaller?

My consideration is that you started to shoot the shots with the cotton candy, then you move for the tracking two-shot and OTS, and lastly the characters on the carouse.

I apologize for all these questions, Just my curiosity to know how you managed that exterior sequence to have the angle of the sun “always” in your favor for an extended amount of time.
I’m sorry if my English is not good enough and as always I want to thank you for your patience and availability to share with us your knowledge. It’s not taken for granted at all, it is priceless!

I wish you a peaceful day.
Max.

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