Lighting Tests

ESSENCE

Lighting Tests

Due to a lack of much technical equipment, I had to rely on natural light for much of the shoot. In the pre-title sequence, it was cloudy so the sun wasn’t out. This meant the lighting for this particular moment in the short film was very balanced, not over / under-exposed - just right; so relying on natural light for this scene was the right decision. I also relied on natural light in the second and final scenes. Again, it was quite a cloudy day for scene two so the lighting was suitable for the scene. Where using natural light did become a problem was in the final scene, where it was pitch-black night. I had to wait until it was this dark because there were certain images I wanted to capture that involved back-lighting a dark frame. However for the remainder of the scene, it left the frame’s visibility very low.

When I was using artificial light, I usually just had to rely on whatever light was already pre-installed in the room; like in the bedroom and in the kitchen where my only source of light was the main overhead electrical light. This often limited how I could alter the aesthetic of the frame in post-production, and I feel the light needed to be defused more to stop it looking so over-exposed. The only instance in the short film where I feel light was really used effectively was at the end of the second scene where I solely relied on the lava lamp for light - it created the mood and gave the colour I really wanted for the shot.