hey everyone. I plan on applying to grad film school in one year and know that I need to make a really good short film to help my chances of getting in. I think I have a pretty good idea, but can think of a lot of technical issues that are going to arise and I would like to think about them now so I can have solutions thought up by the time I shoot the short film (which will be spring-early summer)

The main problem I can think of is going to be with lighting. For my idea to work I need to be able to shoot the following scene:

*Two people are sitting at a table in a pitch black room. There is one light shining down on the table that reveals one of the characters. You cannot see the other character, except maybe if their hands were on the table. It is very important that you cannot see the other person at the table until they choose to reveal themselves. My problem is how could I do this? I do know of a room at my university that is painted black where I could potentially do it, and another good thing about it is that there are stage lights on the ceiling of this room. However I have a fear that stage lighting is too harsh for what I want to do. I really doubt I will have the money to rent lighting equipment, so I don't know what to do.

Also, what quality camera would I need to make this look good? Obviously grad schools will not expect for you to have a professional looking short film, but I would like it to look as good as possible (though i'm sure that goes without saying hehe)

Any idea how I can pull this off? It's very important that it works because if the lighting doesn't work the entire short film will not work in the way I have it thought out.

Thanks for any input!

Step 1: Don;t stress... Film schools are not usually looking for great cinematography (unless you are applying to be a cinematographer). They want to see you as a storyteller.

Step 2: Rent a small light kit or borrow some lights... It will help you immensely...It will allow you to focus your light and have more control than you would with some other kind of lighting scheme (overheads in a drama room or something?). Plus you can always change the contrast in post to make one character darker than the other.

Step 3: you could always try to find somebody who is into photography or cinematography to help.

There are lots of videos out there about basic lighting... they are generally helpful.

The thing with lighting is, there are a thousand ways to pull of any shot and none of them are wrong. Its up to what you have access to and how much time you have to do it. What I'd recommended is to find someone who knows lighting better and ask them to help on set.

Also as long as the room doesn't have windows or if you can cover them up, it will be black if the only light source is that one head light. So don't worry so much about having a room with black walls. Try and think of the shot in terms of what the camera will see not what you see when you walk into the room with regular lights on. Filmmaking is about cheating, we constantly are changing how the real world looks when we put it to film.