The Forth Degree of Lighting: On the Set of the Independent Film 6 DEGREES of DESPERATION

It's Sunday, August 12th on the set of the Movie Tao production 6 Degrees of Desperation and we are at Cosa High School filming the pivotal school scenes. Yesterday, we spent time at the new and old Cosa Middle school filming and shot one scene at Cosa High School exterior of the school (although in the final version of the film you'll never be able to tell this). Today, I find myself at Cosa High School once more (when I expected to be at the new middle school) to finish off scenes that had already begun in this location.

Since the film is a high school comedy it's expected that the majority of the major scenes would be featured in a high school. I arrive late (due to other commitments) and the major location, which is the lobby of the school, has already been dressed and lit by cinematographer Hawk Pettengill. Since the location is already heavily overlit by the overhead fluorescents, Hawk uses additional diffused kickers to highlight the actors. Although when using actual film we wouldn't have used the fluorescents, with this film while shooting on mini-DV (director Bren Pettengill is filming this on a Cannon GL-2) the look is exactly what the director wants. I switch to Best Boy mode today as I want to maintain the look that Hawk has already established in the scenes already filmed.