Selects from "Bearing Existence", a short film about a family reeling from the loss of their son.
I was a producer and cinematographer on this film.
I had such a great time, and met such fantastic people while working on this little film. Nerva (our director) is so easy to work with. He really gives everyone on set the freedom to explore their own creative vision. Paige and Bobby, our leads, are extremely talented and were a pleasure - they made my job as a DP so much easier. And of course, we could not have pulled any of this off without Alex, Mel, and Erin, our awesome crew members!
Everything was shot between T/1.5 and T3.5, but mostly around a 2.0. We also shot with either the Vid Atlantic Cinemorph filter or the Vintage Looks filter at all times. I love these filters, because I love that stretched bokeh effect. I am not a huge fan of the vignette from the Vintage Looks filter but I am willing to put up with it because of the way it renders swirly bokeh at the edges.
Lighting:
We did some pretty unorthodox things to get the amount of light we needed. When you don't have a 5,000W head, you have to get creative. For sunlight, we often had several lights shining through a window at once. Usually diffused, but you can see in some of the shots we left the "sunlight" undiffused to get more of a morning look. In reality, we never got a sunny day. Every day of the shoot was either raining or cloudy, so the sunlight is 100% artificial. In between setups, we had to scramble to move like 8 light stands over to a new window. Craziness!!
For interior light we used LED panels and dimmed up or down to taste. I used them for fill, or to compliment practicals. I like LED panels because of their ease of use and portability. And they don't get hot. I can put them right up next to the talent and I don't have to worry about my actors working up a sweat. Most of the nighttime shots were lit with LED's as well.
Music: Jon Hopkins - How I Live Now