You’re the Director of Photography – Make it Happen!

Any time your video shoot is planned inside a dark interior with large windows that show bright sunlight outside, it can become a lighting nightmare. Especially if you’ve not been allowed to scout the location in advance. You can, of course, simply close the blinds or curtains on the windows. But, as was the case with this commercial, if shooting toward those windows is the director’s plan or “vision”, then you need a lot of light to compete with the sun. Artificial daylight requires a lot of AC power. And if that wasn’t tricky enough, add other reflective surfaces, a dolly move, teleprompter and multiple people moving on camera in front of those windows, and suddenly it’s a real complex situation.

Fortunately, I had a great crew helping on this one and when we first started rolling, I was also lucky in that the sun stayed mostly behind the clouds. But of course, several takes in and the sun decided it wanted to become a fourth cast member. My camera’s dynamic range and lattitude (and a little grading in post) certainly helped but honestly, good lighting and an affable on-camera talent really carried the day! All I really had to do was to remember to press record on the camera and then say “action”.