In this video, I’m going to break down some of my favorite scenes and share some powerful principles
you can apply in your own films. We’ll focus a lot on lighting, but I’ll also share a few practical
cinematography tips. For the gear heads, I used the Sony Burano with a set of DZO Vespid Primes.
This camera is an absolute dream to shoot with, and I’m in love with how the sensor captures color
and the internal raw files are magic to work with in post. If you haven’t seen the full film yet,
I would highly recommend you go watch it first! Before I jump into the breakdown, I want to
give a special thanks to my mate Reilin Joey for flying out to South Africa and working his magic
on this project. Reilin not only directed the film but he’s also responsible for the
edit with the color grading done by yours truly! From a lighting perspective, our biggest challenge
was time! With only 2 shoot days, it was quite a stretch to get through all the scenes so we needed
to use gear that would accommodate this style of shooting. The location didn’t have any power but
even if it did, we simply didn’t have the time to lay cables for every scene because we moved around
so much it would have taken us twice as long. I needed something lightweight, that’s easy to
operate on V-mount batteries, but still performs well as a soft light. Meet PavoSlim, Nanlite’s
newest release of Flat Panel lights. I used both the 120C and 60C in practically every scene.
There’s so much I love about these lights but they were perfect for this shoot especially
because of their weight. Both are super compact and light so we could easily mount them on a boom
overhead or throw them around on a stand and even used it handheld for some of the quicker scenes.
A strong theme throughout the film is the use of Color Contrast with warm lighting
coming in from the windows and a cool light coming from the flashlight as a practical.
As straightforward as it sounds, I feel like I want to take a moment and talk about how
we achieved this look in a variety of scenes. In the opening, we have this wide establishing
shot of the location and this really sets the tone for the overall lighting. Without artificial
light, it’s actually pretty dark inside so I knew that we needed a strong light from outside to
create a pocket of focused light. The challenge however is that the windows are thick and super
diffused which means even a 1200 wouldn’t be enough. I recently purchased the Evoke 2400B and
this was the first shoot I had the opportunity to use it on. This light quite literally blew
us away. At 100%, it had enough power to shine through from the roof above and create a powerful
key light. The B stands for Bi-Color which means you can go from 2700K all the way up
to 6500K but it doesn’t stop there. It also has a Green and Magenta shift which worked pretty great
in this scene because the bounce coming from the walls created quite a bit of extra Magenta
in the scene. Going down to -25 on the Green side quickly fixed this without any tweaking
in-camera. Since we shot so many scenes in this main area, this light never moved position and
we powered it with a generator from the bottom. I decided to complement the warmer walls by going
warmer on the Evoke at 2700K. This emulates the idea of warmer sunlight coming and the
cooler natural daylight behind just created some separation on the actor. The flashlight
was a practical and realistic way to create contrast with a cooler color throughout the
scenes. From the moment it's switched on, it immediately makes the scenes feel dynamic.
Now here’s the catch. If you want to create decent color contrast in-camera your 2 light sources need
to be at least 3000 - 4000K apart. The only way to hit the sweet spot is to set your camera’s
white balance to somewhere in the middle. I opted for 4000K because the environment already bounced
extra warmth back into the scene. The challenge now is the white balance is off on the subject’s
skintone and the only way to combat this is to bring in a soft fill at a different temperature
to the Key light. I set up a PavoSlim 120C at the same temperature as my camera for a
subtle fill from the bright side which cools down the skin a bit more to a natural tone.
Adding the grid creates a focused light so we don’t lose the warm edge light or the warmth
in the background. This setup was copied and pasted in a lot of scenes throughout
the film. The PavoSlims are incredible to work with because it’s so easy to move around and
adjust and they also work seamlessly on the new Version 2.0 Nanlink App. The updated app opens
up new opportunities with the ability to plot out your scenes graphically so the gaffer can
easily make adjustments when instructed without guessing which light is where.
The PavoSlims served as fill lights, edge lights, overhead lights, and even effect lights. I have
the C-versions which means you can utilize the full color spectrum in HSI Mode. In this case,
we used a PavoSlim 120C on a warm orange to simulate the gunshots whenever the actor got shot.
There are also a few scenes where we didn’t have the time or opportunity to put a key light on the
outside like this hallway over here and in the bathroom. The natural light that came through
these windows was just enough to use as is but now we had a color temperature problem. Instead
of shining a warm light through the window, I increased the Kelvin on the camera all the way
to 6500. This gave me a warmth similar to the previous scenes but now the flashlight would
not be cool enough so we cut out a double layer of CTB gels and put it inside the flashlight to
retain the contrast between warm and cool. For the darker scenes, I didn’t even bother
with a fill light because the flashlight was bouncing off the wall creating motivated fill
light on the face. The hallway scene where the protagonist steps on the glass was lit with just
2 lights. The backlight here is 100% natural but this strong light coming through on the left is
a Forza 500 II Bi-Color which creates these nice shadows on the floor. This light could easily be
motivated with a fill from the same side as he stepped into frame so we just used a PavoSlim
60C handheld. The PavoSlims are not just handy because they’re small and light but one of the
main selling points is how quick they are to setup. The softbox is permanently attached to
the light and just pops out by releasing the straps on the side. If you want more power,
you can take off the diffusion cloth and adding the egg crate snaps on in a jiffy.
Now let’s face it, the location itself was epic to start with but there are a few specific reasons
we chose it. All throughout the film, you will see pretty much everything is backlit. This is
the first thing I look for in a location. Does the background automatically enable me to shoot
from the shadow side? The second thing I look for is contrast. Do pockets of light already
exist naturally and will I be able to create it or enhance it with minimal effort? Take this scene
for example. You have this patch of bright light coming through the door, some shadows around it,
and then another patch of bright light at the back. The light coming through the door is a
PavoSlim 60C. The light in the back is natural and the flashlight on the steps creates a
realistic edge light because it has a reason to be there. The 3rd thing I look for in a location
is texture. This could be anything from textured walls, reflective surfaces, shadows or dust and
this location had no shortage of it. Shooting low to the floor into the light gave us these
nice reflections and lighting from a clever angle created a lot of interesting shadows.
A quick update on my Colour Grading Course! Yes it’s 100% still happening
it’s just taking much longer than I anticipated. I left a full explainer in the description below
for those are interested! On the morning of Day 2, we had the final scene of the protagonist
on the roof and I was so happy that we didn’t shoot it on Day 1 because at the end of Day 1,
it started raining and we got treated to natural reflections of water, something that is often
done intentionally on bigger shoots. Although I don’t have any footage of the rain, the Evoke was
still out on the roof when it started and I’m happy to say that the light is 100% rainproof
rated at IP55 just like the 1200B which meant we could have shot this while it was raining.
On the cinematography side, we used a variety of techniques to amplify the feeling in scenes for
example, the second time the actor wakes up in the loop I tilted the camera with a dutch angle
because the actor is uneasy and hasn’t made sense of what’s going on yet. We used a lot of handheld
shaky movements to keep this theme and suspense going. Closer to the end as the protagonist starts
to memorize the experiences he gets more confident and here we used a gimbal shot to communicate this
confidence. These decisions were intentional and although some are more subtle than others,
it all contributes to the final experience. It’s one thing to have good lighting and a
great location but apart from the solid acting, it’s also the wardrobe and styling that made
this film shine. The character had a sweaty and gritty look, something that was maintained by our
stylist throughout the shoot. Add in a real prop gun and great on-location sound recording and you
have a recipe for success. In some scenes, we used a double to show the mysterious character
and here Louw Lemmer stepped up to the plate. The scene just before the protagonist escapes
was a complete night for day. It was already dark and again only 3 lights did the trick. We put the
two PavoSlims next to the windows at 5600K with a Forza 500 II Bi-Color on the roof shooting through
the hole down. There was a lot of dust in the room so we didn’t even bother with a projector
or fresnel, simply blasting through the hole did the job. We shot it from both angles and I
still can’t decide which one I like the most! To make a project like this work requires a special
kind of crew. From Sound to Sharps, Styling and BTS, the energy on set was simply amazing
and I’m super grateful for the opportunity to partner with such a variety of talents. Special
thanks to Lardo & MovieVision South Africa for their amazing assistance on the lighting side.
MovieVision is the official supplier of Nanlite in South Africa and on that note, a massive
thanks to Nanlite Global for sponsoring this video. See you in the next one!