Blog #2: Lighting on a Film Set

I was acting in a short film last weekend for a friend and I found the lighting process on set very interesting. The DP (director of photography) is a film student at UCI and he often posts pictures of his work. The picture I attached is a screen grab of a shot taken in the kitchen (I am the girl pictured). He explains in the image how he created the lighting for the whole shot, and I really wanted to talk in more depth about it.

We were already filming at night, but they were able to create an artificial moonlight effect by putting a Fresnel light on a stand outside the kitchen window. There was a reflection through the neighbor's window above the white fence outside, so they took a "flag" (basically a black fabric screen) to block the light reflecting back and showing up on camera. Another light that had a cool effect was the camping light. It is an LED light with built-in magnets that were used to attach it under the microwave. They also added a gel to get the orange tinted effect of an actual microwave light. You can faintly see the orange tape matching the gel in the picture, but I was told when they edit the film it will be masked out. Also, not pictured, in the fridge they used a large quasar light to make it look like a bright fridge light when I opened the door to get soda. On top of all of this there was also haze sprayed, literally from an aerosol can, to catch the light coming in from the window. The downside to the spray was the slight dryness that developed in our throats as the night went by, but since there was little dialogue it was not too bad. Though it is not exactly a picture from everyday life, this film set taught me a lot about how lighting works and how practical light can be created in film.