Sep 30, 2024 | Short Film

“Night Whispers” by Yash Kanesan

Gaffer

I’m always excited when Nova (Khang) Nguyen calls me to light one of his projects and this one was no exception. The majority of this dark thriller occurs inside a car they are driving through the night.

To achieve a simulated travel affect we projected a plate behind the vehicle and another over the vehicle onto an 8’ x 8’ scrim. This overhead frame cast fantastic reflections onto the windscreen making the impression of movement feel very real. The projections where driven by MapMapper software which also controlled four Arri Skypanels via DMX using pixel mapping to create lighting effects that matched the visuals in the projections. Four Nanlite tubes where programmed with a driving effect to complement the Skypanels with moving light effects.

I then used four Arri L7 fresnels to throw light inside the car to light up the actors. It was especially fun occluding the light past the A and B pillars of the car and other objects inside the car to cast shadows across the actors faces. An Arri Orbiter provided some gentle front fill onto the car and some Nanlite tubes inside the car allowed me to lift the level of the shadows slightly to avoid noise from the digital sensor of the camera. An Aputure MC on the dashboard simulated dashboard lights and a pair of Nanlie Forza 300s where spun on top of a stand to simulate the car passing under street lights.

When the lead character sets the car on fire I used a pair of Aputure F22Cs with a fire effect to simulate the light of the flames from the fire. We shot an extreme close up of the eye of the male character using the F22s. A large OLED TV played a video of a car on fire which the actor stood adjacent to in order to cast an image of the fire into his eye.

"Night Whispers" by Yash Kanesan coming soon

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