lighting breakdown - fire scene
Calling cinematography nerds! Here's a breakdown of a few shots from the music video I created for Brisbane artists B Grade and Just Brooks. Check it out below or scroll straight down to the article.
The party scene goes from pumping to chill over the course of the choruses, and it was easy enough to shoot in sequence and let the fire die down over the course of the shoot. I knew the fire would spill enough light onto my partygoers, so to key my talent I simply matched the colour temperature on my camera and two LED panels to tungsten. I shot the whole thing on my Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8, and I don’t think I changed the f-stop all evening, instead controlling the exposure with shutter speed and ISO. This type of shoot is exactly why I choose to shoot on a Sony a7S II - it handles low light like an absolute champ. I didn’t need a lot of light from the panels because I only needed to match the luminance from the fire, and we wanted that dark, intimate feeling.
Set-up 1
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As I set up and adjusted, I tended to move the panels back and forth rather than adjusting the dimmer - partly because in the middle of the night it took barely any light from the panels to make a big difference, and partly because I wasn’t trying to eliminate shadow. In this shot, I put a key on Jesse’s left side so he’d have some lovely shadow across the right of his face, plus he's catching that nice edge from the fire.
You can just see here that when smoke blooms up from the fire, it catches a little moonlight and gives a blue cast, which I love. Subtle, but contributes to the mood.
Set-up 2
As we moved into the next set up, I also needed to key Brenton by basically mimicking Jesse’s light.
Each talent is still getting a clear delineation between their more brightly lit keyed side, but you can see that there isn’t as much contrast.
Set-up 3
For the next chorus, as Jesse and Brenton were performing solo I wanted them in the spotlight with a higher contrast between them and the party that had died down behind them. My objective was to light their faces evenly, and you can see by the shadow of Brenton’s body how I achieved that. Aesthetically it’s a shame to lose the edge light from the fire, but to separate the talent from the scene it’s effective.
Set-up 4
Finally, the party is totally over and the fire is dying down. Selling the illusion that Brenton and Jesse are lit only by the fire would be a bridge too far, but I did go back down to one light positioned a little lower to the ground to at least evoke that feeling.
Music videos are one of my favourite formats to create, and the lessons I learn from pushing the boundaries come with me to my next jobs. Thanks for the millionth time to Brenton, Jesse, and all the literal party people who dedicated their time and energy to this project.
Music videos are one of my favourite formats to create, and the lessons I learn from pushing the boundaries come with me to my next jobs. Thanks for the millionth time to Brenton, Jesse, and all the literal party people who dedicated their time and energy to this project.