LIGHTING, SUNLIGHT, LIGHTING
This is a photo of a night shoot scene from the horror movie
shoot.
The guys/girls who get the ball-busting job on a shoot is the lighting crew. The lighting
plots are designed in pre production with the director and the director of photography called the DP. Along with the director,
he charts each lighting set up and camera angle per each scene. Then he hires a lighting company with all the needed equipment
and personnel. Read the end credits on your next movie. You'll see all the personnel on the lighting crew.
Another
tricky thing about lighting. The best DPs set lights and shadows so precise that you'll never notice the work while viewing
the movie. They bounce natural light with artificial lighting. They create shows with flats and kickers. An actor walks from
out (EXT) to inside (INT) and the change is mostly not detected. Lighting is sometimes colored with a combination of gels
and gobos.
All lights have color temperature and a good DP will know what to set his lights to gain
the appropriate color temp for the scene. There was a scene on the horror shoot that the monster instantly appeared upside
down thru a window. That scene was shot at night and needed 3 hours set up. 1st, the monster had to be rigged to drop from
the roof....upside down. Then the EXT and INT lighting HAD to match to sell the shot. They pulled it off, and there was no
reflection from the window.. Good DPs are badass on shoots.
All this footage is checked by the director
whose job is to come in under BUDGET. This is were his stress come to play. If he did his homework in planning, then
there's some koin left to do pick up shots and additional needs. Now he signs off to the executive producer, goes to
Cancun and all that footage goes to the chief editor and his staff. But the director sometimes get 1st cut decision in the
editing process. So the next tine you hear "LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION" you will know why " LIGHTS" came first........TRONICVISION
