[Role Playing]

I knew something was wrong right then. Something just didn’t seem right with the shoot. Rajo told me that he just didn’t think it was happening and that he was sorry. What could I do? He had lost something.

Maybe a demon spirit had taken his life stone or soul energy. I would find it.

Rajo had lost the twinkle in his eye and I knew just what to do. It turns out it was my fault all along. I had lit Rajo with soft diffused lights, Chinese lanterns to be exact, and that meant that there were not eye lights in his eye. He looked like a cold dead fish, but the godfather. There was no reflection in his shiny orb, and it made him look dull and lifeless. And that was the dullness and the lifelessness that we could feel as an audience in a crew. So what should I do? Set up an eye light and you should to. It can be anything. A tote on a stand or a flashlight taped to a stick held behind the camera. It doesn’t have to be a light that adds any light to your subject’s face because eyes are really reflective. They’ll reflect back anything and it will give your actor’s faces certain zip and life.

So if you remember those helpful tips, you won’t confuse a microphone with a telephone ever again.