TUNGSTEN LIGHTS AND GREEN SCREEN

Today we had the privilege to have a whole day in the huge green screen studio.

Life's a Beach

We got to set up a green screen set, complete with a background to edit in in post production. Here was the set pictured right. I enjoy green screen a lot because of how versatile it makes one room. Just with a few lights and a green screen you can be anywhere you want. As having experience in green screen work this was a chance to explore more into green screens and getting the technique correct. lighting the background we used two lights, although I normally use three point lighting, we managed a very well and evenly lit background. We then had to light our actors and to also adjust the lighting on them so they would suit the background we would be putting in place in post production. They were going to be at a beach, so we had a spot light which replicated the sun and as it was a sunny day in the background we didn't have to do too much alterations to the brightness.

Leading Light 

In the morning we got to experiment with the beautiful Tungsten lights, being so interested in lights this was such an incredible opportunity. You can have such control over the mood, time of day and period just with lighting. We got in to our production groups and experimented with different shadows and highlights. Over the next few hours we found some really beautifully composed scenes just using this light, showing sadness, happiness, and suspicion. I thoroughly enjoyed this task as it was so hands on and could see the results of your hard work from directing the model and the light. I particularly enjoyed creating half shadows and silhouettes across the face, by having the model sat forwards, and the light at a 45 or 90 degree angle with the camera just underneath.

Black Jack

After this activity, we got in to bigger groups to create a moody, film noir scene of a poker game in a shady looking room. We weren't allowed to use sound so had to create this atmosphere just using lighting. We were able to find an over hanging light and rigged it to the lighting rig above us to hang over the table like in the image to the right:
We then had a main camera facing the card dealer, a second camera to the right of the card players so you could see them both, and then a third camera which was handheld so we could get some close up shots of the players cards, hands and expressions.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.