After scouting the location for a few minutes, I was able to find a streetlamp in a vacant parking lot. One of our crew members was nice enough to loan us his car with a sunroof, so we opened that up and let the light stream in. Of course, we had to find a way to counteract those ultra dark shadows on the actors face. So I chose to use one small fluorescent stick light (the kind used in aquariums) with 60 watts of power and positioned it in front of the car's instrument panel. It was the perfect size to rest on the steering column and gave some great fill light for the scene. The light was located a bit lower than the actor's face, so its indirect nature softened up the existing shadows instead of creating more of them. This set-up worked for most of the shots in the scene.
The Photo-Flex isn't just for bouncing daylight. In Collide, we found that it worked even better at reflecting powerful artificial lights, like street lights.
However, for shots from the side of the car, we needed a bit of additional illumination. Again, I used my PhotoFlex reflector to bounce some of the ambient light from the overhead unit onto the side of the actor. I had to assume a pretty awkward body position for a few minutes, but the tactic worked extremely well. For that entire scene, the only equipment I used was one foot-long, 60 watt stick light and a reflector. The ambient light provided the rest. Always take advantage of anything in the environment that will be helpful and get creative. Try some new ideas and they just might work.
Our final challenging lighting scenario called for very soft, dim light during a death scene. Additionally, we were in an extremely small room with white walls. In case you are unaware, white walls make controlling the light very difficult because there is no color to absorb any of the beam. Light continues to bounce around the room constantly, making a subtle set up a real headache. Here's the solution I came up with
Creative use of practical lights can achieve enough illumination if well thought through.
First, I turned out all the lights in the room. We shot this scene at night, which is what the script called for. But if we were doing it in the daytime, I'd have put two layers of black plastic garbage bags over the windows to totally block the external light. Next, I used a tall desk lamp with a 50 watt bulb and positioned it on the edge of the bedside table next to the body. I chose to leave the lamp shade on to direct the light downward toward the body's face. (That accomplished somewhat the same thing that barn doors on a professional light would have done.) However, leaving the shade on also prevented less light from spilling into the scene, so depending on your needs, you may have to use a higher watt bulb. Finally, I used the PhotoFlex once more to block the light escaping on the other side of the lamp. It reflected that ambient light back toward the body without having to set up more equipment. For our purposes, it was an effective solution.
Screen capture from raw footage recorded for Collide. (Captured with Panasonic DVX100B.)
In the end, we were able to produce a high quality product in much less than ideal circumstances. As I hope you've seen from my experience, you don't have to have expensive "toys" to do a good job lighting your production. Actually, lighting without them will force you to learn much more because you will have to develop a mindset of thinking about light and what it looks like when it's not manipulated. The more you become an observer of light in general, the more you will learn what is natural and appropriate and will be able to create it on set. It will become instinctual so that the audience will be fooled, no matter what you did…..or didn’t do…. to accomplish your goal.
If you're interested in reading more about the technical elements behind our production of Collide, then read Co-Director Jeremy Hanke's article on shooting this film using Adobe's OnLocation CS3. This software really helped the lighting process, as it allowed me to see exactly what the camera was recording in full size and with correct color.
