Indie filmmaking is entirely about doing a lot with a little. You’re not going to have the whole crew you need, the equipment package you want or the locations you’d prefer.

A scene in the forthcoming Walnuts The Movie was scripted as taking place in an attic space in the daytime, but unfortunately our single location (which was what made the movie possible and was very generously donated) didn’t have an attic. But it did have a basement. Without any windows.

If you can’t have daylight you need the idea of daylight, and an idea of daylight which fits the tone and mood of the story you’re telling. In this case we were already deep into surreality and psychological interiority by this point in the movie so it was much more important to produce an abstract feeling of daytime than to really sell the audience on the location being lit by a sunny (late afternoon sunny, in this case) exterior.

For the majority of the scene (looking this direction, there’s a relight for the reverse using the same gear arranged slightly differently) this came down to using two lights and a small number of modifiers.

The key light is an ARRI 2K tungsten fresnel fired into a large white bounce card (showcard, I believe, in this case), and the bounce source is cut with a single 18x24” solid. Then to create the light slash on the back wall I used an ARRI 300 tungsten fresnel and its barn doors, unmodified, to land the highlight exactly where it needed to be.

When we dropped back for Cat’s exit I added another bounce source powered by a dimmed ARRI 650 with 1/4 Straw gel clipped to the light in order to pick up her shadow side as she leaves the main area of action.

And that’s all there was to it! A lot with a little.

Many thanks to my gaffer Minu Park KSC and my grip Charlie Hager. Walnuts was directed by Jonas Ball and produced by Sarah Jo Dillon. The music in the above clip is by Tristan Chilvers.