Task 4

Task 4:

We had a lot of trouble with the printer in r19, but we still went through all the required steps that we learned from Beytan. 

Before coming to my slot in r19 I had already edited my two pictures to what I wanted them to look like for task 1 and 3. (In the end I chose a different picture for task 3, but at the time of printing this was still gonna be my choice.) I had edited them and saved them as TIF files, because TIF is supposed to offer the best quality when printing. 

When arriving we had already heard about some trouble with the printer, and some other groups not being able to print like they wanted. Still, after turning on the iMac and the Eizo, we continued to check that the colour space on the Eizo matched the colour space on the iMac. When customising the colours, we used a white paper to check the white on the screen with the white in real life. After getting the colours on the two screens synced, we turned off the house lights in the room, as those could interfere with the colour we see on screen. 

Task 3:

From workshop 3 

Studio: Lighting the portrait in the style of chiaroscuro art technique (Rembrandt vs. Caravaggio) 

Assessment Task:

Produce three studio portraits, two using the chiaroscuro lighting techniques demonstrated in the workshop (i.e. one Rembrandt and one Caravaggio) and one in the lighting technique of your own choice. All 3 images must be captured in RAW format and mastered as a Smart Object in TIF or PSD file format as outlined in workshop one). Use the techniques demonstrated in the portrait workshop to consider the quality, quantity and direction of light in relation to the subjects pose and this influences the composition of the portrait (e.g. broad and narrow light direction, subject pose and space around the subject and camera and lens settings.)

Caravaggio:

In my Caravaggio style image I took the soft box off the light to create an even starker contrast between the light and dark. I also asked my model to sit slight forward as to seem more imposing to the viewer. I did this to create a darker posture, that might make the viewer feel threatened, as was often wanted from the religious imagery Caravaggio used to paint.

Rembrandt:

For my rendition of Rembrandt I decided to add a little something. When lighting the scene I put one light to shine from the models right at a strength of 3, and another light to the left of the model, with a strength of 1. The secondary light had no flash, and was simply to give the broad side of the face a little light, while the narrow was illuminated and we had the triangle on his left cheek. I asked him to turn 90 degrees, turn his head back 45, and then his eyes towards me to create a dramatic and mysterious effect. I used soft boxes on both lights to create a soft, and smooth image, even though the contrasts between light and dark are very clear. 

Own style:

For my own style I wanted to create something that I felt like the two other styles were missing, although they were hugely inspirational. I put the light behind the model and shone it towards their back and side to create a silhouette of sorts. I didn't want the light to be too strong, as I wanted the silhouette to be nostalgic and dramatic. I discovered in my attempt to recreate Caravaggio and Rembrandt that I always look for facial structure when taking pictures, and that I use the light to better see it in images. For my style I wanted to elevate the cheekbones my model had, and also the outline of his biceps, to compliment his figure. I think it worked out very well. 

TJ

Task 1: 

From workshop One. Exploring and editing the RAW file using the non-destructive Adobe camera raw "Smart object" in Photoshop. 

Assessment Task Capture 5 different images from environments with different light sources (e.g. studio lighting, electronic flash, tungsten (bulb), daylight, mixed light-sources, etc.) using the RAW format from a Digital SLR camera. Process, correct and adjust the images using the appropriate workflow in Adobe Photoshop CC.

For this assignment I decided to first do the mixed light-sources picture, and I decided to shoot at night to better show the different light. I had the idea to use traffic light for my light source, and then also have a secondary one. At one point I also considered adding a third light source by waiting for a car to pass by, and catch its head lights, but after experimenting with this effect at a different location I decided not to use it. 

I played around with the blacks, whites, and shadows a bit to make more of the picture show, and save some of the information in the sky and the bushes behind my model.

The final image I chose to use for my two lighting sources is the one you see in the Camera Raw screen shot further up. 

I love the composition between red and green, good and bad, light and dark. With the the added prop of the cigarette and lighter it creates an aesthetic that I am really please with. When editing this I decided to play around with the following settings to bring more depth to her face, and also burn less of the white in flame. Her hair has more texture because I lowered shadows and contrast, while I slightly increased blacks. The duality of the image looks great and I'm really pleased with it. I did play around with some different setting as well, and I also removed the adobe presets. 

Pic 2:- Daylight

I took these pictures outside around midday so that the sun was above us shining down. On the first I stood right in front of the model with now obstruction, while on the second I stood behind the kitchen door, so that there was glass between us. I really like this because it gives it almost like a dreamy soft light filter. When it came to the edit I had to adjust the highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks all down to compensate for the strong sunlight. If you look at the original file you'll see that it is a little bit over exposed even though my ISO was set to 100. 

By adjust the shadows and highlights I gave her hair more texture, as well as making her make up and facial features more visible. Her left shoulder is also less burnt out, as well as her roots. I played around with a couple of different white balance presets here, and among my favourite were Flash and Daylight. I also tried doing a custom white balance by using her shirt and the window frame in the background. Both the Flash and the custom tool added a bit of a tint that I did not think suited the image, so I ended up going with the Daylight setting. 

Pic 3:- Tungsten

This picture was taken in my kitchen fairly late one day, so that the main light source was the tungsten light in the ceiling. As you can see it gave the image quite a warm, yellow tint. To change this I decided to play around with the setting and bring the yellow down to a more natural colour. I decided to contradict the original feel of the image to fit the imagery better - dead flowers. I feel like my end result was a good rendition of cold, and hard realities. 

Pic 4:- Flash

For this one I decided to do something a bit different. I did try some edits where I changed the setting so that I could see what was in the back, and I got amazing amounts of info back from the darkness. You can see my settings in the file I included in my hand in. I decided in the end to go a different way though - not having used black and white on any of the other pictures, I felt like it felt very right here. Considering flash photography creates very high contrast images, using black and white creates a great grey spectrum. This shows us a lot of detail in her face, while completely removing the distractions of the background. 

Pic 5:- Shade

With this one I struggled. I went out looking for shadows that were very clear and diagonal stripes, to create a partition between the light and dark, but alas, I could never find it. This was sadly a last minute picture. In a way I was able to create the difference I wanted to show the shade, and through editing I managed to make the shade more visible, turning the light into an almost glow or aura. 

TJ

VFX - Production

Scene 1: Pieces on black screen

I started off with the first frame of the storyboard and created the geometric shapes with the Pen Tool, so that i could change the size of the shape after I'd created this. I used the pen tool instead of the shape tool, because I feel like the shapes created with the pen tool gives me more freedom to shape the shapes. I used scaling to make it look like the shapes pop onto the screen simply by making them go from 0%, to 150%, and then back to 100%. Doing this over 4-5 frames makes it look the pieces come into existence smoothly, instead of just suddenly being there. I feel like using this effect makes the shapes look more cartoony and playful - it also works better with the music. I made the chimney piece come in a little bit later to show that it played a slightly different role than the other pieces, and to give the pieces a sort of personality - making them act a bit human ads to the feel of it being a childrens movie. To create the smoke coming from the chimney I used the particle playground tool, to essentially just create a stream of visible particles spouting from a certain point on screen. I turned the gravity dial so that the particles would float upwards, and then I played around with scattering, opacity, colour, and frequency, until it looked like smoke floating up from the chimney. This was also to set it apart from the rest a little bit, and make it look playful. I then used positioning, rotation, and the pen tool to make the pieces float off screen in different ways, again, I did this to give them personalities, and to stick to my style of Pixar/Disney. I also used pre-comps with each piece and animation to keep my work space tidy, and to make it easier to keep my animations separate. At the end of the scene I also turned all of the individual compositions into one big one, so that I can move it around easily, and make space for the next scene. 

Scene 2: House and Title

Creating the house itself took ages and four millennia. I created each part of it with the pen tool, and then coloured in based on what I could find on the internet. It has a cartoony feel, and the simplistic lines and colours makes it look very nice a Pixar-y. After saving the entire house as a pre-comp, I carried on the animation of how the pieces move from the previous screen, until they safely landed on the house, so that the house would be completed. After that I made the balloons pop in the same way I did with the pieces in the first scene. I figured this would be a fun way to spell out Pixar, before covering them up with more balloons, and then having the house float away and reveal the title. I feel like this whimsical style really fits the tone of the film, and ads to the sense of strange adventure.

Scene 3: Clouds and Director

I wanted the rest of the title sequence to be about the houses journey through the sky. So in this scene I wanted it to swoop by while revealing the name of the director. The clouds were drawn in Photoshop, and then imported into After Effects as psd files. This allowed me to move them around as I please as transparent layers. I made them move across the screen with a simple position change, as well as the house.

Scene 4: The change from day to night

As well as showing the house travel, I wanted to show that this was a long journey. I did this by doing one long scene where we see the scenery change from a warm sunset to a star filled night. The sun and moon both move with simple positioning, the moon being slightly larger for the larger than life cartoon feel. I also had the name of the co-director here, and just as with the first one I put a mask on it so that the object moving over the text "reveals" it. The background was a gradient, which I set to change hue over a certain amount of time - first from sunset to early night, and then to dark night. I also created a star effect by creating a normal shape with the shape tool, and then applying the Ball Action filter. After playing around with the different settings to make sure that the scale, distance between particles, random movement, etc was correct, I made sure I put expansion to a lower level, so that I could make it expand slowly while the house floats across the sky. I feel like this scene in particular captures the feeling I hoped to portray with the entire sequence - the small explorer in a big world feeling. 

Scene 5: Disney and balloons flying off

Every good adventure has to come to an end, and like in the film this sequence ends when the balloons deflate/ fly off, and the house starts falling down. This was all done by simple positioning, and the text was hidden under the house so that it was revealed when the house fell. I was trying to create a feeling of dawn in the background, as to bring the cycle of day, evening, night, and dawn to an end, but I'm not sure I succeeded completely. 

Scene 6: The End

The end image was drawn in Photoshop and then put into After Effects. The background is a gradient I created to show the morning, and the sun rising on a new day and a new world. All in all I think my title sequence tell the story of adventure, and captures the feeling of the film very well. Accompanied with music from the film, it gives a sense of childish adventure, as well as a cosy feel.


TJ

VFX - Storyboarding and idea

I went through a lot of different ideas before I decided which style and film I wanted to do. After three workshops with Phil, and testing out (and refreshing) my After Effects skills, I decided I wanted to do something minimalistic, and simplistic, with the skills I know very well, instead of trying to create something using 3D and camera effects poorly, as these were very new concepts to me, and not something I was comfortable using yet. I did try to play around with it briefly, but I quickly decided that I could create something better with the skills I was comfortable with. 

I think it was in my fourth lesson that I started looking at different title sequences, and came across the opening of Pixars Monsters Inc.

It's a very simple title sequence, but it still does what it's designed to do, all while keeping true to the cartoony, playful, feeling that Disney and Pixar films inspire in all of us. This is what I wanted to recreate, without copying them. After trying out the different effects shown in the above video I had a rough idea of how to use positioning, scaling, and mask paths to create simple, but effective animations. 

Keeping true to the cartoony feel of other Disney and Pixar films, I decided to do my title sequence to the Pixar film Up. Below you can see the storyboard I drew. 

I decided to start the sequence similarly to how the Monsters Inc opening was, but I then wanted to go into how colourful and adventurous Up is. Considering it is about an old man rediscovering what adventure and youth feels like, I wanted the sequence to be colourful, light, and childish. Starting on a black background with just some pieces of the house, and then turning it into a simplistic narrative about his journey from the darkness to the light jungle - just like in the film. 

TJ

"Editors deserve so much respect"

Avid - The choices I made

 

Over the course of three weeks we were tasked with editing the rushes from our studio shoot late last year with Avid, the editing software we have been taught through the Professional Toolkit unit. I chose this unit because I this year wanted to improve my technical skills, and become a better artist by being able to better edit and complete my own projects. Avid is probably the most complicated software I have ever been taught, and I would be lying if I didn´t say I found it very difficult. 

So starting off I wanted to make an edit that was different from the script and the planned story. Having been DoP for the studio shoot I was a big part of the pre production and production of this film, and thusly I´ve had a very close relationship to how the film developed and ended up. For this reason I wanted to challenge myself and create something other than just the normal narration of the film. 

Trailers

The last month I have been obsessed with the trailer for the upcoming movie "Logan". It´s a very simple trailer, but it really intrigues and catches the watcher, and by the end of it you almost can´t wait for the film to come out. 

As you can see it resembles the beats of many trailers, in that it has an old song, it crescendoes towards the end, revleases just enough to intrigue, and tells part of the story. I think trailers are their own unique type of media and they don´t get nearly enough credit compared to films. Of course films take way longer to create and edit, but when it comes to the financial success of a film, a trailer can either make it or break it. I want to create a trailer for Exhale, My Love, and try to create that sense of intrigue and interest that the trailer for Logan did. 

During the editing process I sadly didn´t take any screenshots, but I can explain everything I did and why I did it. To begin with I created bins for all the rushes (one bin for day 1 of the shoot, one bin for day 2, one for the audio, one for the foley etc) I then proceeded to go through all the clips, marking what the contain and if they were of interest for my edit. I wanted to build my trailer traditionally with it starting out with one or two scenes from the film to establish the conflict and set the story, and the give a glimpse of the rest in short clips meant to intrigue. 

I decided to use clips from scene 2 were Elliot first started coughing, and the following scene when they visit the doctors to find out whats wrong. By showing these two scenes in not too much detail but enough to give a rough idea of what´s going on I show the viewer the main plot of the story and what starts the conflict, without giving away the course of how the story evolves during the reminding scenes. 

Poster by Natalie Hodgins

The editing process itself was fairly straight forward, for the short clips I used bits of the film that I knew would be interesting, and would make people want to see the film itself. For an example, there is one suspenseful shot of Elliot sitting by the table eating and looking very angry and upset. Now, if you know the film you that he´s not actually angry, but rather confused and ill, and the scene it actually showing the straining relationship between him and Bella, but by using that clip out context I hoped to create some wonder about what the film actually about, and make the viewer question in what direction the film would go after the intial scenes. 

I ended the trailer with two longer clips around the title because I wanted to slow it down towards the end to let the viewer relax and process what they just saw. The final clip is of Elliot crying before you see the clock on the wall start to blink. I wanted to make that the final clip to make people wonder what the blinking meant, and why he was so upset about it. Is it an alarm? How is it connected to him? Does it have anything to do with his disease? Those are the types of questions I want people to have after they finish the trailer. At this point I was happy with the length of trailer and the clips I had used. I am aware that it´s shorter than what the brief wanted, but I felt that if added more clips it would feel drawn out, and crowded. 

After that I moved on to sound. First I muted all the audio tracks that belonged to the actual footage, and then added 4 more audio tracks. Mono left and right for music, and mono left and right for foley. For the foley I looked for key sounds that would give the clips some dimension and space. In the beginning of the trailer I added sounds of the keyboard, walking, cereal, and Elliot sighing. I mostly only wanted foley in this part of the trailer because I wanted the music to take over after the first scene and towards the crescendo, before dying out after the title and the final clip. In the final I again added the sounds of Elliot crying, to bring the trailer back to reality, and to the seriousness of the film. 

"Cello Suite No. 1" by Beethoven

As for the music for the trailer I wanted something that increased in intensity, but almost had a beautiful seriousness to it. I know it´s very in to use music from the 70s and 80s in trailers nowadays, but that wasn´t the feeling I wanted for the trailer. But when in doubt, classical music to the rescue! This piece by Beethoven not only fit the trailer perfectly, but it also fit my edit - as in that the piece became more instense around the part of the trailer where I started to increase the intensity. I then made it die off at the title, so that the impact of the final clip was more effective. 

In the final part of the edit I did colour grading. I didn´t do too much here because I didn´t want to change that much, but I did want to make the hospital scenes lighter, and the room scenes a bit darker. I did by adjusting the hue and gamma in the colour correction tool, to fit the scenes, but also depending on which character was in the shot. Our actress for Bella has a fairer complexion than our actor for Jacob, so in scenes with her I would get rid of things like redness. 

All in all I´m very happy with my edit. I think that as a trailer it does what it´s supposed to do - it creates intrigue, and it prepares you for the film without giving too much away. 

TJ

Where my job starts taking off

Before our first meeting with a complete script I prepared by having a through look at the script, and making some basic ideas for shots I wanted to have in the film. Taking inspiration from Wes Anderson, and based on the fact that our set would be a square with three walls, a centered table, window to the left, and digital screen to the right, I found it fitting to use Andersons centered and symmetrical style. I tried my best to make this visual apparent through the shots I designed. 

As our storyboard artist sadly dropped out just before pre-production started I had to draw the storyboard myself. As I am very bad at drawing, we decided that I would draw what I visualised as clearly as possible, and then hand it over to Arturs who would make them look more presentable. Natalie and myself bounced ideas off each other for what we wanted the look to be during the storyboarding of the first scene, so that I could get a better understanding of what she wanted. 

This specific storyboard was drawn by Natalie, but it gives a rough idea of what the initial storyboards looked like.

Over the next two weeks I had a lot of contact with Natalie while I was drawing up the storyboard, and I finished it the week after study week. A lot of the scenes are short, and happen quite quickly, which is why I decided to make the last scene, scene 7, longer and slowed down. For this scene I took a lot of inspiration from Tod Campbell in which I wanted to show the distance between the characters, but also their love, and how hopeless the situation feels. 

I therefore decided that I wanted the lighting to be really dark and moody, a lot darker compared to a night scene slightly earlier in the film. The shots are drawn out, showing the characters on their own, and borrowing from Campbell, the characters are pushed to the sides in the frames, to better highlight the hopelessness felt. 

This is especially shown in the second shot of this page, as they are are sat on the floor against the wall. They are sat in the left bottom corner while the dark and badly illuminated wall looms over them. The only other thing in frame is the digital screen that shows how many verbal credits they have left. This to further show how this is controlling their lives to the point where it will end them and their relationship. 

I also sat down with Preston (Assistant Director) to write the shot list, but I had to redo a lot of it because we had to do cutbacks in the storyboard + the camera operator wanted a more detailed shot list when it came to camera movement. I agreed with him, and completed the final version of the shot list. 

Thoughts: 

Although a time consuming process I have enjoyed crating this storyboard. Never before have I felt such a creative freedom over such an important project. It seemed almost surreal to me that so many people were dependent and trusted my decisions and my creativity. I think Natalie noticed this as she multiple times had to say "that she trusted my decision on this as DoP". That really helped me realised the magnitude of my work, and encouraged me to create something memorable. 

-TJ

The Shoot - the stress, the problems, the victories

Before me stand the two most important days of this entire project - the shoot. I have a lot of expectations for these days, as well as some worries, and a whole lot of responsibility.

So what do I expect, what do l look forward to, and where do I think we'll have trouble?

I expect it to be stressful, at least the first day. We're all new to this, we've never had this much independence when it comes to a film, but as the same time we've never had the same amount of responsibility. We all know that the entire group is expecting us to do our part. So yeah, that is a lot of pressure, but I'm personally excited to see how I work under this kind of pressure. Will I be able to keep my head cool, and make important decisions when needed? Will my storyboard look as good in real life as it did in my head? I'll finally learn the answer to all those questions and doubts! 

So Monday comes around, and we're all on set. The first scene goes swimmingly, and the actors are doing amazing jobs. But then we encounter our first problem - the dolly won't fit on set and we can't make room for it because of the continuity of the shot. Because of this the camera scrambles a bit as it tries to build the shoulder rig and fin a solution to the problem, but this costs us a lot of time. For the rest of the first day we tried our best to make that time back, but because of all the dolly shots we have to change, and a generally bad work flow among the crew, we have to go overtime. We do manage to finish all the scenes we wanted to finish on the first day, but in the industry you could get fired if the production goes overtime, so after talking to Preston, I took note of how the work flow could be improved for the second day of the shoot. 

This is one of many many impromptu meetings Preston and I had during our two day shoot.
This seems to be a calmer one, with less panicked stress

That being said, I think the camera department managed to compensate for the lack of our missing equipment very well. I think any department would have a bit of trouble keeping time with that kind of obstacle, and although the communication between Preston, Natalie, and myself could have been better, I feel like the camera department was able to get the shots we needed efficiently so that we could finish everything for the day. Umor also did really well, and we worked well together to make the light changes as swiftly as possible. 

The second day went very well I think. The work flow was better, and the the whole crew worked well together. I was able to more thoroughly instruct Arturs in how I wanted the frame and the shot to move, and also I communicated better with Natalie so that we more easily and faster could get to an agreement on how we wanted the shot to look. 

I definitely felt like Arturs and I worked better on the second day,
and that our work flow was really good.

We did have some differences were we both had a vision for a shot, and thought it was the best fit, but ultimately we had to do whatever we had time for. I did notice during the shoot that I missed a lot of the shot that had to be cut, as I feel like they gave the film that little extra, but I understand that when we're limited to 3-5 minutes, we only have room for the highly necessary. We did have a slight difference of vision when it came to the centered shots, which as I described earlier was a conscious stylistic choice on my part as I feel like it would give the film a constant that tells a story of its own. In my mind if you took out all the establishing centered shots in the film, and cut them into a montage of stills, they would still tell the story. But, during the shoot I discussed it with Natalie, and she made it clear that it didn't fit her vision of the film. That was of course okay, she is the director, and I adjusted the shots so that they still made sense -like putting them at slight angles and a couple of over the shoulder shots. I think they still work well with the film, and that her vision makes a beautiful film. 

I've enjoyed working with Natalie as director a great deal, and I think she has a great eye for this.
I also feel like our styles complimented each other very well.

Another challenge we faced on the second day of shooting is that we had to polish the lighting plan for the morning scene. We decided to do a drastic change by adding a door on the fourth wall that would creative a slit of golden morning light on the back wall. I feel like it was the right creative decision to make, as it add some difference to the scene, and makes it more apparent that its a different part of the day. We created it by putting two large pieces of poly on c-stands and holding them up against a studio light with orange and nd gels on it. I think the final product looks amazing! 

We finished on time, and I think we were all pleased with the result!

-TJ

Writing down the equipment is easy, knowing everything you need is not

The Equipment List - Conscious Decisions 

The equipment I was responsible for getting out

As head of the camera and light department it was my responsibility that Mary (Producer) knew exactly what camera and light equipment she had to book out for the shoot. So if we needed anything extra we would have to take our chances that they still had what we needed when we needed it. So by giving Mary this list I was able to make sure that we would have all the equipment we needed. It was simple enough, as we were given a list from Anne over all the equipment she felt like we needed, all I had to do was add to the list with whatever specialised equipment I felt like would add to the film - much like I wrote in my research post that Tod Campbell chose a more rounded lens because the actors had big eyes. 

So what I added was three lenses. After talking to Arturs (Camera Operator) we decided that it would benefit us if we had a macro and a micro lens for certain scene. Particularly the hospital scene as we have to film that on the back of the set were there's limited space - our kit lens might be too big. For that we got the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 lens, as we knew that it comes with good image stabilisation, which is critical at close ranges. We also got a Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 for the wide angle establishing shots, as well as a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 to have a lens with a set focal length as well. During the shoot we ultimately didn't use any of these lenses, but I still stand by the decision to hire them just in case a shot could have been improved by it. 

-TJ

Lighting - a lot of new ground to cover

As head of the camera department and the visual look of the film it was very important that I got lighting right. Lighting can make or break a film, and can be the difference between a shoddy "student film" and a professional film. So once the storyboard was finished Umor (Gaffer) and I spent a lot of time on set imagining how we wanted to light the film. This posed a lot of challenges as it was the first time either of us had properly done lighting (outside of lighting workshops and minor personal projects.) And as this is our biggest film to date we wanted to do do it justice. 

We had to create five different moods; morning, day, early night and dark night; for scene six, as we wanted scene seven to be even darker, and ultimately we had to create the hospital lighting. At first we tried reasoning ourselves to a solution with the knowledge we both had of studio lighting, but we didn't really get anywhere until we asked Anne for help. She told us that it was important that we have enough light on our actors faces, as to give the shots a nice look. We took this piece of advice and created a very basic lighting plan. 

It had two studio light which we would use for modeling the actors faces, and one light shining through the window to act as daylight, moonlight/street lamp. We later realised that this would not be enough as there were a number of things we had not taken into consideration. Firstly we had a talk with Preston and Arturs, they had some ideas and concerns which we had to address. Mainly that the light shining through the window would not be enough to light up the room at all point during the shoot, as it would have to move, because the sun also moves in real life. We did some changes, but decided that we were still not done. We then had a talk with Chris, who is the studio supervisor, and he had some ideas that ended up using - primarily a large piece of poly roughly at the fourth wall, that would act as a fill for the entire scene. This gave us a set that was dimly illuminated, and easier to work with. After this we could start working out what our key light was (usually the one behind the window) and what gels we could use to create the different times of the day. 

We ended up using this design: 

The daytime scene

So we could not aim two 2ks at the poly to create a fill (we could alternate this for the other scenes as to create different effects, and add gels for the night and morning.) We had the 5k behind the window shining daylight through the blinds that we put over the window. This created a pattern on the wall that further created the illusion of daylight. And lastly we had the house lamp and the desk lamp on set to create an even more realistic feel. 

On the second day of shooting we made slight changes to the morning lighting plan as we felt it need to be a little bit different from the rest. We had used the light through the blinds on the day and night scenes, and it wouldn't make sense for the sun to be shining through the same window during the morning too. Therefore we created a door on the fourth wall that would let a slit of golden light into the room. This worked really well. 

Thoughts:

All in all I am really happy with the way we met the challenges and solved them. Umor was a great Gaffer to have, and him and Ollie (who helped us out) were an amazing help during the shoot. We definitely learned a lot, at least I did. I realise now how important it is that the DoP knows his lighting and how he wants the film to be lit, because if not you end up with a lot of back and forth without anyone actually knowing where this is headed. I don't think I did a bad job with the lighting, but it had to be a collaborative effort with multiple people on the crew because I was working it out. Towards the end of pre production, the set building, and the shoot, I felt like I had better control, and was able to properly instruct how I wanted the lighting to look. 

-TJ