Today we shot the entire 'Window' advert for the Kodak awards and for the client of Centrepoint. Due to a problem the Producer had we ended up running late by a few hours. Over the past few weeks things have seemed to go catastrophically wrong but we've always found a way to bounce back and get things done. Just like the other week when we loaded the wrong film and had to cancel shoot, today the film reel was dropped and took 2 hours to be rewound to its normal state. The shoot was supposed to commence at Grindon in Sunderland at 5PM. As I lived nearby in Sunderland I was waiting to be picked up. Luckily whilst the Director and Producer were setting up on set when they got there, they had someone on hand to come and pick me up. That meant by the time I got there we were ready to go. I had one final look at the shot list and one final chat to the director about what it was he wanted then we got going,
The first shots were exterior. We used two redheads powered by an interior source and with the use of an extension cable. We used one redhead to act as a light which belonged to the scene. As the scene goes, a young girl approaches a window of a house, inside a man and woman are enjoying a christmas dinner in their warm home. The young girl bangs on the window, but they cannot hear her. A car then suspiciously appears behind the girl to pick her up. The scene is used to show how young homeless people are shut out and their voice cannot be heard. Therefore we used one redhead to act as part of the scene almost as if it were a light coming from inside or from the side of the house. We decided to do so because without that light source the F stop reading I was getting from the light meter was too low to risk shooting at. I was consistently getting a reading of 0.7, whereas the camera lens we opted for only went down to 1.4. With the use of the redhead it upped the amount of light within the frame and in turn upped the light reading to 2.8. I felt like this was safe and that we had it right so we went with a take with the camera set at 2.8. The director was happy with this but I suggested we go again at 2.0 just so we have two options. I reminded him consistently that we had more than enough film. It was better to overshoot and to shoot at different aperture settings than to leave ourselves short knowing we had a few hundred foot of film left.
The second redhead we used belonged to the scene. At the end of the advert when the car pulls up behind the young girl, we needed some way to show that. We decided a redhead was a good option. We shot the young girl from behind as she was banging on the window, which also allowed us to see the car headlights (the redhead) in the reflection of the window. This took me a few attempts to frame and light correctly. When the lighting was too harsh, it meant that it would be very overexposed from the F stop we were using to shoot before the lights are turned on. The second problem being the reflections of myself in the window when the light was turned on and when the young girl moved out of shot. She eventually walks away from the window and toward the car, so at that point I could see myself. Again I made a suggestion to the director that when she walks away, she walks closer to the camera so that he had a catalyst to cut the shot when the full shot goes black from her standing infront of the lens. He liked the suggestion so we shot it that way. Going back to what I said about the overexposure issue. I think we found a way to fix it by finding a nice transition between F stops between the shot. Prior to the headlights (the redhead) appearing in the shot, we were at 1.4. When the light is turned on, allowing for a second of overexposure which can be used as an artistic decision, I then quickly changed the F stop to 2.8. Doubling down I believe this will correctly balance the light. I took light readings with and without the redhead to ensure this was the correct transition from 1.4 to 2.8. I did this whilst also pulling focus onto the facial expression of the young girl, attempting to capture her emotional vulnerability at that time.
We moved inside when we were done with the external shots. This meant that the young girl who was her actress was able to head off with her family who had come along with her. I felt like we were very professional on the shoot and held ourselves to a great standard. As we moved inside to shoot the interior stuff which involved shots of the man and woman eating their christmas dinner, we got a load of cut ins from around the room. The F stop was consistently at 2 within the room, a nice balance I found. The colours were very warm inside the house and extremely festive in contrast to the dark colours and greys in the exterior shots. I feel like this really contributed to what the director was going for, essentially showing two worlds in severe contrast. The warmth and depth of the reds, yellows and golds inside the room on the christmas decorations enabled us to experiment nicely with cutaway shots. I focus pulled a few times on things around the room including the subjects of the man and woman, to vary the shots. We also got a slider shot in there which is to act as the main focal point of the interior shots as it was shot with the wide lens, capturing as much of the room and atmosphere that was possible.
Overall the shoot was extremely successfully. I'm confident I got the lighting right for the most part as a lot of attention was taken to the smaller details. We went over each shot with strict rehearsals numerous times so there were very few unusable takes.
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