Lighting is critical to being able to record the best image possible working around the limitations of your particular camera. Working in interiors you can use cheaper work lights on an indie budget but moving outdoors requires a completely different set of tools. HMI lights are pricey and expensive to rent. Enter the reflector and indie filmmakers best friend! ASC has a great little article on utilizing reflectors. Check it out.

Augmenting available daylight with reflectors requires planning and staging according to the arc of the sun throughout the day. Burum offers, “When the studios used to have their large backlots, they oriented their streets so that they were built running north and south. As far back as the silent-film days, they’d always try to shoot toward the south, because that way they’d always have a consistent backlight and would be able to use reflectors to fill and model the actors’ faces. Reflectors were positioned on the actors in exactly the same way you’d use lamps on a stage.

“You never want to plan your shoot for a whole day at a location that runs east or west, because you’ll only have half a day of consistent light. If you have a street running north and south, in the morning the west side of the street is lit and the east side is in shadow. If you choose to shoot in shadow, you’d start out in the morning shooting east. When the sun starts to flip over, you’d begin to turn around, shooting south into backlight; then, as the sun begins to set in the west, you’d shoot toward the west.