In this episode, Jameson will create three different scenes set in an industrial warehouse, depicting the process of a violinist composing a song for a symphony. Through the use of lighting and camera shots, Jameson aims to convey a visual poem.

Background

Today's idea. We wanted to follow a violinist and see what her process was like as she created a song for a symphony. Chloe, who was our professional violinist, actually plays for a symphony. You know, her process is something that we really wanted to capture and just kind of tell a visual poem through lighting and through the shots that we tried to achieve. 

The Location

Because we needed a creative space, we thought an industrial warehouse would be a really good look. So we used Godox lights to transform the industrial location. This gave us three different scenes for three different looks. It actually helped us change the mood for each different scenario to kind of show the struggle and also the glory behind her process as a musician. 

Once you find a super interesting location, it's really fun to compliment it with your set dressing. We want to create a world, that she can just walk into, and be a part of. 

We had two different movement styles in this. As far as camera movement, we had a handheld look and then we had a stabilized look. Um, the handheld look gives it a little more of an organic real documentary sort of quality. And then the stabilizer look allows it to be very smooth and fluid. So when she's dancing around and spinning around, I can be right there with her.

The challenge was to work in multiple looks, alongside the sunlight, either using the sunlight and then working with it to compliment or augment that. And or to in some scenarios, try to create our own sun source.

We used the Godox M600D in all of the scenes to create a sunlight effect outside of the windows.

We had three KNOWLED M600Ds, and we also had a couple of fresnel attachments for two of them. Those lights are powerful, out of the Godox light family. They're the ones that can most emulate daylight because they're strong and powerful, just like the sun.

The Godox lights were pretty easy to use. They were turnkey. As soon as we turned them on, they were easy to access, and menus were quite easy and intuitive. I downloaded the app real fast and they quickly paired even, without having to go and hit each light and say pair, pair, pair. They were available to find via the app and right away I was able to control them.

The 1st Scene

For the first scene, we wanted to use a lot of color contrast just to give us a really unique look within the space. And we thought that using vibrant colors would really help her creative mind come to life. And that's kind of the way that we wanted to show it visually.

So we put blue gel on the windows, kind of a steel blue. And then we also had like a really color contrasted backlight, which is way orange. So you have this nice, like blue and orange.

Some of these lights is the first time I've seen these Godox lights, the LD150R was actually pretty fun, right out of the box again, great menus, easy to understand. And we were able to match lights that we gel'd up and windows that we gel'd up quite easily and able to just dial it right in adding the plus and minus screen if needed. It was really fun and intuitive.

We used a lot of TL120 lights. We threw them on the ground and changed them to different colors to have little up lights on the walls. A lot of times, we had our gaffer Richard literally holding them when I'm in a close-up shot of the girl. He's right there behind camera or next to camera with one of those. It's a very quick way to bring in some soft fill light. And those are also RGBs so you can match any color really quickly.

The 2nd Scene

For the second setup, we wanted something that was more of a natural approach. We wanted that natural light kicking in through the windows. So we used the M600Ds. We placed those outside and that gave us the natural sun look.

We didn't use any gels. We used all the Godox lights in sort of daylight mode, and we also used some ambient daylight that was coming in. So everything was sort of in the same color tone, lighting wise, you didn't have a bunch of different color contrast, different color lights. This is very different from the first scene. So it's a good contrast.

We were trying to shoot a passage of time shot of the light time lapsing across the table with the sunlight moving.

What we ended up doing is taking an M600D and physically sliding it across the floor. They were light enough and the floor was smooth enough. In a couple of instances, we even just popped it off and hand-held it, and just moved it across the table so that the light would travel in a seemingly natural way actually.

And when you were looking down on the table, it looks like a little time-lapse, like the sun is just sort of moving around the room. The big fresnel lens on the end of the M600D helped sell that sunlight look.

The 3rd Scene

For the third look, that was our big finale look. That's when the song really picks up, and that was when we wanted her to be in her full gown. We really wanted that golden hour light. But the problem was, it was a cloudy day. So we had to improvise and problem-solve and came up with a really good solution.

The sunset went behind the clouds. So instead of getting to match the sunlight and work with it, we had to actually recreate it completely with the M600Ds.

Sunset time came, the clouds rolled in, we had no hard sun. So we used the Godox lights outside the windows, which emulate that hard sunlight coming in. We gel'd them orange, which just gives us that nice evening feel.

And that's really the vibe that we wanted to go for, because it was so much different than the natural look that we had before. So using the Godox, lights in such different unique ways really allowed us so many different looks throughout the day.

At the end

It's really cool to see a musician come in and really put her talent on display. We get a chance to set up beautiful lighting for her and really it's an opportunity to create some art together with an artist that's different and exciting.

So it's always nice to be able to have a team like we did today that really just took this thing to a different level. And I think that whenever you are putting together a project, it definitely helps to have really good, talented people like we had here today to really bring the vision to life. Using the Godox lights in so many different ways really helped us achieve the look that we were going for. They helped us light this massive space, gave us multiple looks, and performed flawlessly.