I was contacted last minute to substitute in for a DoP that could no longer make the shoot, so I began getting familiar with the scene I was going to shoot, reading the script and all provided pre-production notes. One of the bonuses of this production, was that we were shooting on the ARRI Alexa Mini.
Once I got on set, I went and figured out lighting. Our directors original intention, was to have blue moonlight coming in through the windows. However, we couldn’t do that as the place outside the windows was a massive, unaccessible ditch. So I had to think on the spot. I began looking around the room for practical options, we wanted something to motivate a light source but also keep the far side of the room dark for a ‘monster’ to be hidden in. I found an old glow-up heater, used for when the mechanics (yes, we filmed at a garage) would be cold in the winter. We used that practical in the wides to motivate the warm back light on the side and used my Aputure 300x to help amplify that, and then behind the blue curtain there were fluorescent tubes, so I used my Aputure MC to add some more colour contrast to the right side of our subject. I’ll try get a still with a lighting plan up here when I receive the footage.
So I finally got to shoot on the industry staple of cinema cameras, an ARRI. At first I thought it would be quite daunting, but having already been aware that they are quite simple to use compared to the likes of Sony’s menu systems (which I’ve used the FX9) that I think that relieved me a little.
Using the Arri was a blast, despite having no first or second AC (there was 4 of us, including the actor on set) I managed to chug out a ton of shots. It makes me feel a lot more confident working with ARRI cameras as I’m now aware how exposing for LOG C works and reading things such as the false colour for LOG C. I was definitely thrown into the deep ending DPing a scene I knew nothing about, with no camera/lighting department crew on an ARRI in the dark, but I think it went surprisingly well. I really hope to shoot on ARRI’s again in the future, as their image is definitely above all.