Pre production

As research, I looked at several film noir films, including The Glass Key, Miller's Crossing and The Third Man. I also watched Citizen Kane, as I am going to be filming my project using black & white.
I took 'Painting with Light' by John Alton of of the library to get some tips on most effective and interesting ways of lighting.
I went online in search for some lighting tutorials, to learn some basic set ups and important things to consider when lighting a scene. I came across a page that had 20 various different lighting tutorials and so I picked out the ones which were relevant to what I am doing and took note of the different names and uses for the lights and the different set ups.

I sat and sketched out some of the key scenes I wanted to film. As I have limited time, preferably, I want to film the scenes that have the most interesting or significant lighting set ups planned. I did a few drawings of what I want the scene to actually look like, but the plan is to light the scene in different ways to see if and what effect the lighting will have in a scene.

 Scene 1 sketch

Scene 1 lighting floor plan

- One light focused on the character,
  illuminating his as he's sat on the chair.

- The two other lights shining either side of the
  set on a dim setting.








Scene 2 sketch

Scene 2 lighting floor plan

- Back light to help keep character 2 from
   blending into the background.
- A narrowed light (using the barn doors) to 
  light character 2's mouth
- A light to illuminate character 1 in high key.







Scene 3 sketch

Scene 3 lighting floor plan

- Backlight to silhouette character 2

- Two lights to illuminate  character 1.
  The right one with wire mesh in front.









I took out a set of Dedolights and a 7D and experimented with the lights in my house, just so I could get to grips with the lights and how they worked. Unfortunately, the kit I got was missing one of the lights and I later found out that one of the two lights left didn't work, so I could only do some basic lighting set ups.

The Dedos are probably my favourite set of lights to work with, due to their range of adjustable settings and because they're so easy to use.
After swapping the bad kit for a different one, I took a set of Dedo lights into the studio theatre and experimented with the lighting, taking pictures of my subject as I went. This activity was specifically to experiment how I can light a character, changing brightness and the position and angle of the light. Unfortunately, after swapping the previous kit I had with a new one, one of the lights' bulbs were blown, I was running out of time, so I just proceeded using the two working lights. It would have been useful to have a three point lighting set up going on, but this still allowed me to experiment with various techniques and set ups.