Pre-Production: Lighting Development

  

I took a voice recording of our meeting with George, the light director and found some important, hopeful and realistic suggestions. After listening to George, the lighting director, who simply discussed lighting with each group for our own music video. For instance, my group and I went first and was inspirationally hit by the options offered and several choices. George was a huge help as he made our music video seem more real and tried to match the lighting as close as we wanted it to look like.

I recorded a voice note of our meeting with George but I felt some points he was making and suggesting was hugely important and considerable. For instance, we started by showing George our location, so it was possible for him to imagine the lighting in that situ. We also promptly explained to him that we wanted our video to consist of a specific coloured temperature wash throughout, such as, having cold, crisp light blue/grey colouring for the duration of our video. However, George told us this specific idea of colour would depend on the weather that day. 

For instance, he explained if we wanted many shots outside, the perfect weather would be a cloudy day, which he said is tricky to rely on. Therefore, due to this he explained we need to be adaptable to the lighting direction. He summarised, he would want to match the natural lighting that day with the coloured lights; therefore, if its sunny and warm, we should match this and alter the lights to be more warm and tinted yellow, however hopefully it will be cold and cloudy for a prefect and intentional match.

He explained in order to achieve this type of tinted blue lighting, we would need to use gel lights to match the weather. For example, we would place the gel over an LED soft box and turn the temperature down or diffuse the light, to gain the specific milky blue colour effect we want. I understood, this type of effect works well with close ups.

However, George raised a potential problem with our location and lighting as he warned us an abandoned house doesn’t usually contain a powerful electricity source, so we would have to be fully prepared and research into machinery, such as generators but this could be difficult as it would have to be big.

Overall, George suggested we should bring some specific lighting equipment with us on shoot day. For instance, he advised we use three or four Redhead lights, which are normally yellow and also recommended bringing a softlight box, which is naturally fluorescent, crisp white. Lastly he suggested taking a few gels with us, in case we need extra support for the cold, blue colouring. He said maybe even a reflector would help for closer shots.

George thoroughly helped us with the lighting direction and allowed us to picture a more accurate and realistic image towards our music video. In preparation for our music video, I will research sources such as, ‘Lee Filters’ in case we need to order any blue gels and gain further information. But I will also research into the website ‘wallbe’ if there are no possible power sources. I will also constructively and hopefully research the weather around the time we are shooting, but overall our lighting is simple and can be achieved.

This is a screen recording I created, summarising the range of colours found on 'Lee Filters.'