Day one of my big shoot as Director of Photography for Sylvain Dumais. We spent all day in a huge house here in Mississauga, Ontario, to pre-light for our Sunday shoot. When we came in, a full crew was already at work putting carpeting on the floor, cardboard and bubble wrap everywhere else! Then we got to the gear. We had seven Profoto 7A 1200 w/s power packs, one 2400 w/s packs, 14 heads and a couple of monoblocks to play with. We spent about 6 hours lighting the scene, testing out sequences with our digital tech who plugged in to my computer to give the clients live feedback on his sweet 30 inches cinema display. We’re talking about a high end job here! I had 3 people working for me, putting stands, sand bags, powering lights, balancing out fluorescent lights, calling me sir… Odd feeling. So we got to light this kitchen in the most natural way possible, this is where the talent will come in to play. Pretty impressive seeing Sylvain at work, the most calm guy I’ve ever seen under pressure. As for me, I think I did pretty well lighting the scene to meet the high expectations. So tomorrow we shoot!