working with shadows and planes

[emjen]

In one of the scens in my next film I'm going to need shadow/light difference. Here's a quick scetch of the
'mise en scene' :

<- they need to be in shadow
:-) <- needs to be in light
<-shadow
:camera:

What I thought of was search for a street with houses/buildings at two sides and use their cast shadow. Searching will be a pain in the ass, and the time we have to film will be a pain as well, so does anyone have any tips for having an effect which remotely looks like the above one?

[twister!]

How about doing it at night and putting a light (you'll need to minimise the spill) on the person you want to be in the light?

Or am I missing something from your description?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 07, 2004 05:25 AM: Message edited by: Justin M. ]</font>

[Kigo]

I wasn't too clear either from your description, but if the camera is going to be where you say it is then do as Justin says.
A Directional light on the main character should work. Also, if you space the rows of people out then the light should be less likely to reflect off the shaded characters, whilst the camera position should fool the eye to thinking they are much closer together than they actually are.
Dark clothing and lots of powder make up should dull out a lot of reflection from those other characters as well.

[emjen]

Nighttime won't work, I think I'm going to put some extra lights on the center character and tune down the expore a little bit?

[curtinparloe]

you could always do some post production on your footage, increase the brightness/gamma around your guy, or alternatively darken the other guys with a translucent overlay...