Season one of Ren: The Girl with the Mark has come to an end, and to ease the pain a little, here’s one last video breakdown of the show’s cinematography. This week I talk about the exterior scenes from daylight through sunset to night. Here is the lighting plan for the final scene: Check out the article I […]
On Tuesday the penultimate episode of Ren: The Girl with the Mark was released and so here’s my video breaking down the cinematography of that fourth episode. This week I cover lighting the guardroom and the prison cell, and demonstrate cross-backlighting. Here are the lighting plans for the guardroom and the cell: You may also be interested to […]
It’s the mid-point of season one of Ren: The Girl with the Mark and here’s my video breaking down the cinematography of that third episode. Topics covered this week include grip equipment, aspect ratio, smoke and faking candlelight. Here is the lighting plan for Ren’s bedroom: There is more on simulating firelight in my First […]
Here’s my video breaking down the cinematography of episode two of Ren: The Girl with the Mark. This week I discuss lighting Ren’s house, tweaking wide-shot lighting for close-ups, and depth of field. Here is the lighting plan for Ren’s house: And here is a video blog from the set of Ren’s house: Check out […]
Here is the first in a series of cinematography videos I’m publishing to compliment the five episodes of Ren: The Girl with the Mark as they are released over the coming weeks. These videos will tell you the how, what and why of photographing the show. This week I discuss the camera equipment used, differentiating […]
Firelight adds colour and dynamism to any lighting set-up, not to mention being essential for period and fantasy films. But often it’s not practical to use real firelight as your source. Even if you could do it safely, continuity could be a problem. A production that can afford an experienced SFX crew might be able […]
In the final episode of Lighting I Like, I discuss perhaps one of the most beautiful pieces of cinematography I’ve ever seen in television: the “Dance of the Druids” from the premiere episode of Outlander. A Starz series available on Amazon Prime in the UK, Outlander tells the story of a nurse from 1945 who accidentally travels back […]
2016 has not been the best of years, at least not according to the sinister algorithms that run my Facebook feed. The year has been kinder to me than it has been to seventies and eighties celebrities, however. Ren: The Girl with the Mark, the short-form fantasy action series I photographed in 2014 and spent […]
In this final part of the Know Your Lights series, I’m taking a look at some of the LED fixtures currently available. LEDs (light emitting diodes) generate light through electroluminescence. When a controlled direct current is applied to the electrodes, electrons in the semi-conductor reconfigure, releasing energy as light. LEDs have been around since the […]
Back in 2013 I wrote a blog about Poor Man’s Process, a low-tech method of faking shots inside a supposedly moving car, using lighting gags and camera movement to sell the illusion. But Poor Man’s Process doesn’t have to be limited to cars. While gaffering for DP Paul Dudbridge on By Any Name, we had to […]