Photo 127 - Project #2

For Project 2 in my Advanced Cinematography class (Photo 127), the assignment was to play with far side lighting. We had to shoot two scenes with three shots each. One scene would be "hot" while the other was "cool" in terms of lighting. Hot would have a more orange look whereas cool has that blue tint.
One of the scenes had to involve two human subjects onscreen. The other only required one person. I'll go into detail on the first scene.

After I found my two actors and we all met at the shooting location, it was time to start blocking the shots. In order to get to the location, you have to go through a very long interior hallway that would eventually lead to a door. Opening that door would take you outside where the sun was shining. This immediately made me think of an opportunity for a long take where I could follow one of my actors from behind with an OTS (Over The Shoulder) shot.

The three shots had to be:
1) Wide shot
2) OTS closeup shot of one actor
3) Matching OTS closeup shot of the other actor

One of the actors is a classmate of mine. I brought him in because he knows his shit when it comes to operating DSLR cameras. We were shooting with a Canon T3i and during the blocking, he said once we come out of the hallway, the sun would overexpose everything when we go through that door. He was right.

The tracking OTS shot idea got scrapped and we decided to concentrate on what to do with the wide shot. The actor recommended a spot and I decided to play around with the framing. Before walking to his mark, he tells me, and I'll paraphrase, "Remember if you're catching the ground and the sky in the frame evenly, you might want to favor one or the other."

With that in mind, I favored the sky and the movie "Infernal Affairs" immediately came to mind.

I quickly tell my actors to move all the way to the right and film them performing a deal involving some fake cash and breathmints.

As for the OTS shots, they were shot in very standard style. The sun began to settle down so we would cheat on how the actors stood and the direction they were facing. If we were to shoot the OTS shots and have the actors standing where they were in the wide shot, they'd be backlit and frontlit. The sun was lining up behind them. We didn't want that because the objective was to achieve far side key lighting.