Lighting Planning

The locations we have chosen, both rural and urban, are already well lit. The rural shoots will be shot during the day, as the light decreases quickly in winter. Because of this, the majority of indoor urban shoots, like the supermarket shoot, will have to be done at night. Lighting is not a problem for these locations, as the artificial light from these places is more then enough to allow the camera to be utilised to it's potential.

In the band room however, if we do decide to use this space, we will have to artificially light the interior. 2 desk lamps would be used to light the performance from below, to help create massive and quirky shadows against the blank white walls and a strobe light will be added to add a obscure effect to the scene.

I have used the 3d modelling programme Google Sketchup and the image manipulation package GIMP to simulate the potential lighting effects we are planning on using in our promo video. The top left image is a recreation of the band room we are planning on using. It has been cleared out and has rough models of the band members and the instruments in it. The top right image has had a semi realistic shadow effect applied. The bottom two images show the lighting we want to use for the majority of the performance, and then the effect we want the strobe to deliver when switched on.

These types of lights are certainly going to be used in our performance. The strobe light, top right has previously been discussed. The Desk lamp, top right, will be used to light certain features from below and give a sense of depth to the performance shots. The bottom lamp will have the lamp shade taken off it and will be placed at a low angle. It will be a static light that will be consistent throughout all performance shots to add a sense of continuity and familiarity whilst the strobe and the quick shot changes are taking place.

EDIT: The Band room idea was trialled and there just was not enough space for the shots to work effectively. In that case we are going to change the idea and location. Instead of being restricted because of the small space, we are going to use Sam's car which is tiny, and frame the shots really tightly. This will add a quirky and comical element, because everyone will be crowded in, but we are going to light the car from the exterior using flood lights. This is going to give a really crisp and professional look to the video and should raise the quality of the performance shots.

We wanted to give the music video a quirky narrative which is balanced out by a more serious performance. The inclusion of bright, strong lights will help to give the band shots a much more professional and high budget feel in contrast to the narrative which we are making for it to specifically look low budget.