SHOOT RECAP - Lighting

Was there really any lighting package on this shoot???... Well, that’d be, ah, almost non-existent... almost.

IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS - we pretty much had just this big bounce board, white cards, and a silver/gold reflector. Shooting out here mostly consisted of the usual running and gunning, while making quick adjustments with the little tools we did have. The monitor almost never came outside. 

FOR INTERIORS - there was a couple small lights and c-stands from Gonzo, what ever Kelly had laying around, an arri kit for about eight days, and kino flos  borrowed for the one green screen screen shot in a large garage... rest of the green screen being shot with natural light in a driveway and parking lot. Natural light was used much as possible, making all the necessary adjustments.

Biggest issue we had was fighting daylight, cuz we could NEVER shoot night for day. Some scenes suffered from this, ending up very much lacking in coverage. Same scenario over and over. First scene takes WAY too long to set up and finish. So the last scenes only get one or two takes and next to no coverage. But such is life on the budget of air.

And yet, the biggest advantage of not having much of a lighting rig meant having very little set ups to slow us down. Fighting day light actually acted like a first AD, FORCING us to stay on schedule. Would have been VERY hard to keep making our 10 pages a day if there were lots of lights and almost no crew to set that stuff up. The rare times we did have a lot of set ups, like in the mother of all locations, the Set General just lit the whole set and shot.

Bottom line is if you got a great DP who knows what the hell they’re doing, ya can get results under almost any circumstances. 

Just gotta be a little creative.