Test Footage 3

Cinematography Test Footage 3 from Michael Barrett on Vimeo.

In this test footage I was trying to test how practical lights, particularly in the form of lamps, would look. I tested wide shots and close-ups and several different places to place the light.

While nice to look at, shots where the lamp is just in the corner of the frame meant the light tended to distract from the main subject.

The second and third shots show Mark lying in bed. Firstly there is only the main light seen in the top left of the frame which lights the left side of his face nicely. However, there is need for a fill light as the right of his face is to dark. Shot three uses a much less powerful lamp to provide that slight fill on the right of his face and makes for a much more comfortable image.

The Canon 550D was used for this test shoot and the ISO had to be around 800 in order to be bright enough on the cameras LCD screen itself. Quite often the footage looked to dark, particularly in the mirror shot, and therefore I uped the ISO to 1600.