Self Directed Portfolio Image- Final

Self Directed Portfolio Image

10/24/16

Location II

Description:

For my self directed portfolio image, I am trying a cinematic portrait with a film noir feel. I am going for cinderella meets early 1940’s film noir.

http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

Final Image:

Final Lighting:

Lighting:

I used three lights for my models shot and a single on the background in another capture and a single at the top of the stairs for the third image. With the model shot, we used a strip bank to light the side of her dress a hair light to emulate the street lamp and a key light to her right. I used the ambient as a very low fill light. For the background, I kept the ambient the same and added a light to the background from around the position of the street lamp. For the staircase, I did the same thing. I kept the ambient the same and added a light at the top of the stairs, pointing down to highlight the railing and give the shadow something to stand out against simulating another street lamp.

This has been my favorite image to create! I love that I was able to have a vision and then see it truly come to life! I may have had to watch about a billion youtube videos (thank you Phlearn) but it came out almost exactly like what was in my head! The one thing I would have loved is to have a more stable tripod with stakes. I ran into a few issues with masking some of my images in because I had a slight shift in my tripod while changing lights. Overall though, I am extremely happy with my little mashup and can’t wait to do the next one!

Internet Research Images:

I like the shadow look, so I think I’ll light a subject at the top of the staircase to cast a hard shadow onto the top of the staircase coming down.

The left is the hairstyle I would like to go for. With the models dark hair, I will need to have a bright hair light for the separation from background. On the right is the makeup and the body position the model will have at the bottom of the stairs.

I like the high angle of lighting in these images because all of my lights are going to have a street light look to them. Also, the hard shadows lend to the film noir effect of bright highlights and dark shadows. There is a high level of contrast to the images.

Pre production Scouting Images:

Lighting and Technical:

This is going to be a fairly large area to light but since the feel is at night with street lamps, the opposite lighting directions shouldn’t be an issue. I do need to figure out how to make something look like it is lit in post production since the street lamp will not actually be on.