Cinematography - Car Scene (intro)

For the car scene, I decided to do day-for-night. So we shot it in the afternoon under Sun light. We shot at a curvy road around CS and then went to the Bryan Cemetery to get a entrance gate-like shot. For these shots, I will do post production to make them look like they were shot in the night. This process involves color adjusting and applying filters. Then I will add fake head lights and light reflections, fog and shadows to create a convincing looking night scene.

For the gate scene I will also add fake gates and a mansion board reading "Loftin Manor" to the gates to make it look like the car is entering the mansion.

Cinematography - Mansion Gateway

This space is blue and foggy outside. Knight enters the mansion from the darkness. We enter the mansion along with Knight, and experience what he's feeling -- wondering where we are, why we're here. I feel like the butler is the dominant person in this scene, and he'll be lit in a way to make him look menacing and powerful. Once knight enters the mansion we look at Knight's face from up close, we become Knight as he's led through the door.

For the outdoor car scene I lit the scene with a total of 4 lights. I used fog to create a dense layer behind the car and the subject (Knight) to make a spooky feel. Since the fog machine we had wasn't powerful enough, I will create fog in post production. My lighting plot for this scene is below.

Cinematography

As a cinematographer/DoP, my role is to come up with lighting ideas (keys) for each shot, frame/stage the actors, and compose the shots in a way to tell the story better. I tell the crew (Cassie - gaffer; Jacob, Chris, Brian, Tyler - assistants) where to place which lights and how to position them. I also constantly come up with quick solutions for technical problems on the set (such as positioning dolly rig, alternative ideas to place furniture to better compose the shot, guiding actors what to do in order to better compose the shots). In brief my role is to actually capture the final frames of the film and to make them look beautiful.

I work within the limitations of having to use < 2500 watts of total energy (as allowed by the mansion) and work with limited lights (2 v lights, 2 rifas, 1 Cold light and 1 CFL). I also decide and tell the crew to hold diffusers, reflectors and flags etc. in order to control shadows, highlights and light bleeds.

The way I implemented lighting plots was to go back and watch the animatic repeatedly to decide and come up with lighting and mood concept for each shot.

On a side note -- for this shoot I invested in a 105W CFL light kit, which gives out a nice 5000K (cold bluish) light. I'm using it all over the shoot to create deep blue moon light atmosphere.

There will be three main places within the mansion where most of the story occurs, and in the following days I'll post brief descriptions of the reasoning behind the look and feel of the scenes and the lighting plots for each scene.