Martini Shot

Today was our martini shot - the last bit of shooting for us before wrapping our sets and our equipment and going our separate ways. Apparently the "martini shot" is so named because the very next shot one enjoys is out of a glass instead of in front of a camera - however I would counter that there is no better shot in the world; no shot more delicious or intoxicating than those that are captured through a camera with the aid of human interaction, interpretation, consideration, dissection and ostentation.

Tomorrow morning we'll view the entire week's footage, critique our work, make statements about how we should have or would have done something different time or space or thought permitting. But at some level we'll all be incredibly intoxicated by the fact that we came, we light and we saw. Well, at least I will be.

Thursday night

Lights in the rain. Dandelions on the wind. Skippy light. The Abyss. Lamé sparkles. A Jeff draped table. The nature of our being. Overhead silk softness. Backlight meets silhouette. Superhero in the bathroom. Area of interest. Continuous light. Hard light softness. Hot crossed keys. The light you turn off. A process to enjoy. In good company.

A few of our favorite things - Wednesday and Thursday.

It's a late early Thursday night and the day's events are finally starting to unravel into moments of interest. We spent the morning and afternoon folded into a small kitchen in a tiny, moldy ranch house in mid-coast Maine. Outside the sky spat rain - the same rain we played in with lights the previous night. But inside was warm with the fun and excitement of lighting a scene with standard coverage - and all the various lamps burning brightly. It was a good exercise and a great example of cooperative lighting with everyone providing insight, opinion and queries to discover a lighting scenario that seemed to bring life and interest to our quickly arranged scene. As the day progressed the scene became its own reality and the lighting reflected it. A wonderous example of lighting implying story implying lighting such that both become manifest as real.

We create reality photon by photon.

Wednesday morning

Where did Tuesday night go? It seems it fell prey to the mid-week need for a modicum of rest. But yesterday was a great day of lighting and learning. The morning had us filling the sound stage with beautiful, nostalgic interview lighting that we gently placed across the visage of our own Jeff Patridge - TA extraordinaire. The afternoon saw us playing the roles of lighting crew and housekeeping as we lit a dark, brooding motel room interior and then spent some quality time making beds and folding towels.

This morning, with clouds brewing on the horizon we will roll out to a beautiful morning sky above a rocky harbor in Maine to attempt to wrangle the climbing sun. It'll be both fun and soothing to spend some time on a day exterior manipulating natural light with butterflies and shiny things.

Monday Night Roundup

It's Monday night and class has just wound down. It was a long and satisfying day, though it seems to have disappeared in a blur now that I'm sitting down to think about it and pick out tidbits of takeaway moments.

I believe we all became one with the light meter by the end of the day - at least, it started to register as such on everyone's face as they took a reading and looked satisfied that what the meter was suggesting was something meaningful. That was a great moment to experience. It seemed to happen around the second half of figuring out the ISO of our classes SDX900 - and it was interesting that the moment of zen occurred while we were using the meter to solve a problem that's really more about camera than about lighting. Perhaps it was working the problem of light backwards, from shutter-speed to f-stop to ISO that made it all click together. Or maybe it was the discussion earlier in the day about powers of the square root of two. Or perhaps it was all the coffee some of us had been drinking. But I believe I heard an audible click when everyone truly believed that the light meter was a viable tool for lighting with video.

Clicks are good.

There was also a moment of happiness around the time that everyone accepted that light hardness or softness was (at least in large part) based on the relative size of the lighting instrument to the subject being lit. That was also a very nice click.

Tomorrow brings our first day of getting out of the sound stage into the real world to play with lite in situ. I'm sure there will be many more wonderful moments and lots of good clicking sounds.

Sunday night roundup

We have just wrapped up our first gathering as a class and hopefully everyone is settling down a good night's rest. The evening was a good introduction to each other and provided a great chance to see how the class will pull together over the next week.

This class is unique in that a good portion of the students come from a perspective other than the traditional camera and/or lighting route. The mix will, I believe, provide a broader insight into the lighting motivation and process than might otherwise be expected - and provide greater breadth of collaboration than we might usually encounter.

I've just finished up making a few adjustments to class talk/question points for tomorrow and fine-tuning details of the exercises - it should be a great day, even if it will be spent within the confines of the soundstage; but Tuesday will see us getting out into the wild, away from the staid control of the big steel box.

Now, where did the wee LED light go?