All scenes in the children’s den in ‘As We Were’ were filmed in a studio to create an artificial and dream-like atmosphere, making the children’s safe space feel disconnected from reality. This meant that all light in the scene would have to be created.
To set up a scene set at night, I used big soft sources of light to convincingly light the darkness while creating as little contrast as possible. Sheets surrounding the subjects acted as diffusion, making it easy to achieve this goal. I positioned one Dedolight behind the subjects to shine through the sheet, using the Gobo attachment to make it seem like moonlight shining through blinds on a window.
Another Dedolight was positioned toward camera left to shine through a gap in the sheets, backlighting them. This made it seem like the interior of the den was darker than the interior of the room it was built in, and some light was peeking through a gap in the sheets.
Additionally, I placed an Aputure MC behind them to boost the soft backlight on the subjects. As the sheets were rigged up by a series of C stands, I was able to use the MC’s magnetic backing to simply place it on the stand behind the subjects.
To achieve an even softer source of light on the subject’s face, particularly the one closer to the camera, I opted for a book light. Setting up a large bounce board diagonally to where the subject would be lying, I directed a Dedolight to shine onto it, away from the subjects. Adding a layer of diffusion between this and the subjects further softened the bounced light, resulting in the desired soft key light effect. The setup can be seen below.
All lights were set to 5500K. The frame was then darkened and made cooler in the grade, see before and after below.
The shot above is the following shot in the scene, cut together with a match cut. This meant I didn’t have to change the lighting setup very much. The only notable modification was an increase in the brightness of the Dedolight positioned between the two sheets, the one providing a backlight effect to the subject. The brightness was heightened adequately to produce a stark contrast between the ambient lighting in the room and the artificial “sunlight,” as it would appear in real life.
Additionally, I increased the brightness of the book light, acting as the key light on the subject’s face, to serve as “bounced” light from the “sun,” which is now brighter.
I really loved the pattern and texture of the bed sheets, especially when they were backlit by the light. My inspiration for this setup came from a scene in Joel Coen’s ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ that was set in a tent (see example shot below). I was aiming to emulate a ‘late afternoon’ lighting look. I used a Dedolight and a Swit E90 2×1 LED Panel to light up the back of the sheets behind the subject. The yellow patterning on the sheets created a beautiful soft yellow light that backlit the subjects, giving the lighting a different look from the previous setups.
I decided to keep the Dedolight, positioned between the two sheets, on but significantly lowered the brightness from the previous shot. This switched up the colour temperature and texture of the lighting for this shot, making it feel less one-dimensional.
Creating the wide shots proved to be more challenging, especially when it came to creating convincing interior ambient light, given that two of the walls and the ceiling were missing. To solve this, I decided to place two Swit E90 2×1 LED Panels, which were set to 5500K, where the two walls would be. This helped in creating the “ambient light” effect of bounced light from the “walls”. To replicate the ambient light coming from “outside”, I positioned a third Swit E90 to shine through the window with a more intense brightness.
I also positioned a Dedolight outside the window of the set to mimic sunlight. The director of photography suggested that the shadows of the children should be visible through the sheets of the den. Even though this wouldn’t be realistic, I thought it would work well since we were aiming for an artificial and surreal atmosphere. See the setup below.
For a scene later in the film, using the same wide shot, we determined to make some visual alterations by changing the colour temperature of the lights. This was so the scene would appear warmer as if it were later in the day. We opted to achieve this in-camera by changing the colour temperature of the lights, rather than just changing it in post-production.
