FREE WILL — DP Lighting Guide

For Stan · Two scenes, two light recipes, one rule: light her mark, not the room. Suggestions, not scripture — you'll know what the space gives you. Look-locks and the director's refs live in Cassy Vid\Look Dev\.
Void look
📐 Overhead plot — for Stan
BLACK SPACE · wet/reflective floor · hazer runningHER MARK (one mark, all day)TOP BEAM — directly above herBACKLIGHTHAZERCAMERA ARC — push · orbit · low · overhead (35/50/85/100mm)protect the blacks — rim reads her, never a flat key
One hard top-beam over her mark + backlight through haze. Nothing else — the dark does the work. V-B9 shot clean as the wings plate.

SCENE 1 · THE VOID

One hard top-beam is the entire scene. Everything else is subtraction.

The Build

The void isn't a set — it's darkness, distance, and negative fill. Rig one hard source high, directly above her mark and cheated 10–15° behind, so it rims the hair and shoulders and lets the face live in fall-off. The steeper the angle, the more it reads as prison. Keep the pool tight — 4–6 ft at the floor — with barn doors or a top hat; the edge of the pool is the edge of her world.

The beamBiggest hard daylight unit you've got — 1200D/600D hard COB or a 5K/10K fresnel at full spot. NO diffusion. Flown, menace arm, or high boom. One source; resist adding a second.
Color — two ways in(a) Run the source clean 5600K and set camera WB 3800–4300K → deep blue-teal, no gels, cleanest plates. (b) WB 5600 + ½ CTB and ⅛ plus-green on the source, pull the green halfway back in grade for that teal edge. I'd test both and expect (a) to win.
HazeHazer, not fogger. Heavy but EVEN — fill the space, let it settle 60–90s before each take, doors shut, AC off. The beam only exists as haze density. Re-haze every setup; keep a reference frame up on the monitor to match density all day.
The floorWet the black floor with a garden sprayer (or lay black gloss vinyl). The reflection doubles your beam and gives the bottom of frame its life for free.
Negative fill4×4 floppies both sides plus camera side. The void is made by what you take away, not what you add.
Whisper edge (optional)If the ivory dress fully melts into black on the wides: one dim cool tube low, ¾-back, 2–3 stops under the beam. The moment it reads as a second source, kill it.
ExposureRate for the rim highlights; her face sits 2½–3 stops under; blacks buried but not clipped — shoot log, the crush lives in the grade. Ratio 16:1 or past it. Deep matte box and flag the lens hard — haze veils flare fast.

Special Setups

V-B4 · the eye close-up: one tiny bounce or dim tube at lens height, 4–5 stops under key — twin catch-lights only, face stays in shadow. Strike it the second the setup's done.
V-B9 · the wings plate: lock the beam and haze density, then shoot three passes — (1) clean empty frame, (2) her arms-spread hold, 5+ seconds, (3) gray ball + chrome ball + color chart under the beam. The compositor will kiss you.
V-A3 · the struggle: worth a 48fps pass for the hair whips; the beam flicker the editor wants gets added in post, so keep your light constant.
The warm build (V-B7→9): the gold creep at the end — recommend leaving it entirely to the grade so every plate matches. If you want it in-camera, sneak ¼ CTS into the beam for the last block only.
Living space look
📐 Overhead plot — for Stan
BIG WINDOW — the keydaylight blast through sheers · warm bloomCOUCH — her spotRED DRAPE accentPRACTICAL LAMP (amber · key-kill on cue)CAMERA — sings to lens ONLY at L-A7/8 · window side favoredwarm / lived-in · bloom welcome · cold strip outside the window band
Window blast through sheers is the key; amber practical for depth; red drape kicks the frame. Key-kill on cue closes the video.

SCENE 2 · THE LIVING SPACE

One over-driven window and darkness everywhere else. The sheers are the diffusion; the clip is the look.

The Build

Everything comes through the window. Park the biggest daylight unit you have outside it — two stacked high/low if the studio allows — and blast straight through sheer curtains with nothing else in the path. Rake it 30–45° so the beam carves across the couch instead of hitting flat-on. Her mark sits where the hot core grazes her key side; the room behind falls to black.

The windowM18 / 1200D-class (or bigger) outside the glass, full spot, through sheers only. No added diffusion — soften it and you lose the hard bloom core that makes the director's refs sing.
The goldFull CTO on daylight units, or run WB ~4300K with ½ CTO if you're gel-poor. Target that 2800–3200K amber blast from the look-lock. The practical amber lamp rides a hand dimmer with a 2700K bulb — it's your warm anchor for later.
The bloomIt's three things stacked: sheers overexposed +2⅓ to +3 over key, real haze in the room, and glass — start at ½ Black Pro-Mist, go to 1 BPM if the lens is clinical, or Glimmerglass 1 if you want rounder halation. Test at the window before committing; bloom bakes in.
ContrastNo fill. Negative fill camera side; let the far cheek fall off. If skin disappears, one unbleached muslin bounce way off, 3+ stops under — and be suspicious of it.
The red drapeHang it just OUTSIDE the hot core so it glows deep red instead of clipping pink. If the studio has no red, a gelled kicker on the drape position fakes it.
ExposureRate for her key-side skin; window +2⅓ to +3 and clipping gracefully through the Pro-Mist; shadow side −2 to −3. Log, always.

Special Setups

The cold strip (L-B6→B10): shoot it as its own lighting block. Pull the CTO (raw 5600K through the same sheers), drop the source ~2 stops, kill the practical, halve the haze — same room, zero re-rigging, reads stripped and cold.
L-B10 · the key kill: source on a dimmer board or contactor; camera rolls, fade to black over ~2 seconds on cue. LEDs step ugly at the bottom — if you're on LED, ride a fast manual fade instead of a preset. The practical is already dead by then.
L-A7/8 · the sing-to-lens: she plays straight to camera in the window key — keep the lens just off the hot axis so you get the bloom wrap without flaring the element.
L-B2 · the verse: optional 48fps pass on the hand-slicing beat; everything else lives at 24.

Bedroom Alt · Board B (the re-block)

Same grief→prayer beats staged in the real bedroom: bed pushed to the LEFT, she works the RIGHT / open side. Softer and cozier than the couch board — a naturalistic window wash, not the hard beam. Lighting is identical for the Tripod and Handheld versions; only the camera changes.
WINDOW · DAYLIGHT KEY BED · cream spread HER MARK (right / open side) LAMP 2700K warm anchor plant CAM · foot of bed
Top-down — window daylight keys from frame-left; the practical lamp is the warm anchor frame-right where she performs. Don't cross the room.
The key (window, frame-left)Soft daylight through the sheers off frame-left — the bright wash you see across the pillows in the reference. Big daylight unit or a bounce, ½–1 CTO for warm-gold, feathered WIDE so it wraps the whole bed instead of a hard core. It's her key when she faces the bed / kneels, and a ¾-back cross-key when she sits facing camera.
The warm anchor (practical, frame-right)The nightstand lamp (2700K bulb on a hand dimmer) is the near-side warm fill on the RIGHT, where she works. Let it glow hot in frame — it motivates the amber and shapes her shadow side. Ride it up as the room drifts cozy, down for the stripped tail.
Look matchSame family as the couch board — warm gold, extreme contrast, bloom + haze — but dial the window ~1 stop softer and protect the cream faux-fur's texture (don't crush it to grey). ½ Black Pro-Mist to start; add haze to taste.
L-B8→B10 · the prayer: she kneels at the RIGHT side of the bed facing the window — the window becomes the key and the practical rims her from behind-right. For the cold/stripped tail, kill the practical and drop the window ~2 stops (same move as the couch board's cold strip).
Continuity + housekeeping: daylight key stays frame-left, practical stays frame-right the whole board — never cross the room. Clear the floor extension cord + cardboard before the wides (L-B1 / B5 / B10).

Stan's Cheat Sheet

All of it in service of the two look-locks — when in doubt, hold the still up next to the monitor and match. — prepped with love by the AI dept.