Basic Thoughts and Ideas

When watching films or videos I always find myself in awe of the beauty of natural light: the way it reacts when hitting objects and how it affects the objects / characters in the scene.

A good example of this is the film "Tree of Life" from Terrence Malick. This particular film is shot very well with an excellent use of natural light: the glowing around a charater from a strong back light, the soft falloff of shadows, the use of lens flares, and also the way that a shot is set up, for example compositionally as well as the use of contrast; putting lighter toned faces onto darker backgrounds.

 

This has lead me into wanting to experiment with how to use natural light in different ways for example the different between using natural light in dark and light scenes: though I am very much aware of the capabilities of the cameras we have available to use and that minimal natural light in a dark scene is going to require a very high ISO, and this will cause a lot more grain than I would like. Due to this problem, I have decided that I am going to focus my piece on a combination of both natural and practical light: Using as few off camera lights as possible and only really relying on the use of relective boards to aid lighting.