The greatest challenge I faced while shooting were the various lighting set ups required for the various locations within the market. Generally speaking I was able to get away with just altering the actual lights in the market, either this or varying the ISO or F.stops. There were three scenes however that required extensive lighting, the first being the conversation between the characters Adam and John that occurs over a desk. The other two were the scenes that see Lily make extended appearances.
The grab below partly shows how I improvised a three-point-light-set-up to work around the constraints of the location. The Kino-flo on the far right acts as the back light, lighting the back of the actor, defining him against the background. The Kino-flo on the left acted as the key light, flooding the scene with natural looking light. Lastly, behind the camera, through a door, I used a Dedo lamp as a filler, reducing shadow and lighting the other side of the actors faces.
The hardest lighting challenge was the scene in which Lily makes direct contact with Adam. To sustain any of the suspense and mystery surrounding her character it was necessary to see as little of her facer as possible. I shot this scene on an ISO of 100, this allowed me to be very precise about what was being lit and when. The grab below shows how the scene was lit at the time of shooting.
These are the results.
I justified the extreme spotlight effect by the fact its never explicitly explained whether or not this scene is the characters imagination or not. The fact its somewhat of a 'dream sequence' allowed us to be quite experimental with the use of Dedo lamps.
The framing I used in this scene also relates to the fact its meant to be suggestive of a dream. Positioning Adam in the far left of the frame goes against convention however seemed fitting at the time being that it puts forward the idea that he's in fact not talking to anyone. Another reason that I now really like the decision to shoot the angle like this is the black gulf that falls away behind him. It was our intention to make the scene feel like it was possibly happening inside his head, the featureless space helps connote this desire.
Lastly, in the last scene where Adam discovers the body of Bill and a much more physical Lily we still wanted to hide her features and refrain from identifying her too much as being human. Due to constraints in regard to power supplies we had to improvise and use only one Kino-flo where as originally I would have liked to make use of a Dedo kit as well. The method we used was to hide the one light we could use in a small room off the main hallway we were shooting in and pump light though the gap at such an angle that we could light the body while keeping the monster of the scene in the shadows.
The one aspect of the light that I'm not happy with is the fact that it looks entirely fake. The glare off the painted door frame draws much too much attention to its self, this being said however, by happy accident the fact its red paint helps to connote a hellish motif, something I picked up on while shooting then in turn found a red chair to continue to theme. Overall I'm pleased with the shot we managed to achieve, however less for the way in which it matches my expectations but more for the result we achieved despite the constraints we had to over come.
