Modify Sunlight with Bounce + Diffusion = Cinematic Lighting - James Cracknell Promo

For this shoot we had a very limited window to capture a fun cinematic social ad for Cheltenham Half Marathon.

It also happened to be one of the hottest days of the year!

This meant ample sunlight.... but that it was very toppy and harsh as James Cracknell had a limited window to shoot which was around midday.

We turned to some Lastolite Skylite frames with bounce and diffusion fabric to control the light in a number of different ways.

Under the shade of some trees we used silver bounce on 2m*2m frames to fire light onto James, this meant we got a good level and some shape and also helped to balance out some of the backgrounds.

We also used 0.75 stop diffusion when in direct light to take the level down, soften it but still keep the ratios with the background convincing. This kind of diffusion is easy in principal but can be tricky with a moving subject!

All shot on URSA mIni pro mounted on a DJI Ronin 2 with a Ready Rig.

cinematic lighting