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The process varied a little from film to film. We did storyboard most films we were involved with, I say we but tehre is a whole team doing story reels as they call them. We just gave advice, swapped ideas. For ‘How to Train your Dragon’ and ‘Croods’ we did some camera capture. This is where you have a virtual copy of your set and the characters within it and you can move around them, alter the sync etc.. But, mostly, shots were constructed by a very large team of people working over a long period of time, working with teh story reel as a basis.
Frustrating for us was that the lighting team then did their work and there was not enough interchange between the layout and lighting.
I was using black duvetyne on the ground more often than large bounce sources, though there were some of these on some shots. It just depended on the angle of the sun etc. ect..
That image from the film is way off. I did shoot the exteriors to be warm but that is ridiculous. It looks like there is a yellow veil over the entire shot.
Practice! You just have to judge the relationship with one small space to a larger one. That does take practice, and, possibly, a look at photometric charts. You might light the space in exactly the same way and then it is just multiples or larger lamps.
You might think about lighting from one side. You could have cold light square to teh subject and the warmer source inside that. Just a thought.
I have only worked on one film that used 4:3 and that was only for the first scene in ‘A Serious Man’. For that one scene the format seemed perfect and I agree that 4:3 suited ‘The Lighthouse’. But why, other than for very specific purposes, a film will flip formats or go from color to B&W defeats me. It generally makes me aware of the surface of the film. It disconnects me from the story and the characters.
A film crew works towards creating a moment on set that is similarly “decisive”. Of course, it is different from street photography but, while that moment on a film set might seem repeatable it is not. A single take is the product of so many complicated elements coming together at the same time.
We chose to shoot Josh and the river in the morning as it would then be back lit and fit more directly with the timeline of the sequence. It was only a matter of the time we made it to the location and the composition of the shot that led him to be three quarter back lit. I would have preferred the light to be shining on the river as a direct backlight.
I seem to remember that I chose specific practical lights for the scene and mounted inside them some 1K clear bulbs that I had bought for a previous film. That was it. No ring light or any other source. Not that I can remember!
I study all kinds of visuals and photography is just one. I think the more you study how others interpret what they see around them, whether through painting, photography or design, the more you will find your own way. Photography, drawing, practice in any visual medium will help you develop.
In that kind of situation I would judge my exposure from the ambient light, setting my stop where I wanted the daylight to fall. The practical level and any other detail I would judge by eye. But there are many ways to judge exposure and mine is just one. Other cinematographers might use a spot meter, which can produce a quite exact reading if used correctly.
I love black and white and I shoot all my stills in monochrome. Color can be a distraction – or just eye candy – if it is not well controlled.
I believe I had a small ring light above the frame. It was probably skirted to control the walls but its not something I remember well.
There might be less distinction now that people have such large TV screens. Even then, I think it is still harder to play a scene in a static wide shot for TV. I see few scenes covered in a wide shot when I watch a series but, maybe, that is just because directors and cinematographers have a ‘go to’ setting for TV.
