This scene was shot in the busy market of Peckham Rye during blue hour, right in the middle of rush hour. Capturing the opening sequence relied heavily on precise coordination between production, 1st AD Melissa Cheng and myself. We scheduled the shoot for mid-November, when blue hour fell at around 6pm, giving us a very narrow window where the fading daylight and rush-hour activity could exist together.
From the beginning, the intention was to let the location do as much of the visual work as possible. During our scouts, we identified areas that gave us enough ambient exposure, practical sources and movement in the background to create depth without having to artificially construct the environment. The busy market naturally provided layers of activity, while the highlights throughout the frame were essential in separating Siobhan from the background.
Read the rest
The colour contrast of the location became an important part of that separation. The cool, soft ambient light of blue hour sat against the warmer sodium-vapour street lighting, creating a natural complementary contrast around Siobhan. Rather than trying to overpower the environment with additional lighting, we wanted to preserve this relationship and build the image around what was already there.
We were shooting for a dark, moody image, so I rated the camera at 320 ASA to give myself additional exposure and retain as much information as possible in the lower end of the image. This gave us greater flexibility in the grade with colourist Anri Alder to shape the shadows and create separation without allowing them to become completely compressed.
Handheld was an important creative decision. Director Rhys Warlow wanted the camera to feel closely connected to reality, which was a key theme throughout the film. We wanted to stay physically close to Siobhan while still allowing the audience to understand the world surrounding her. The 32mm Cooke S4s gave us that balance — intimate enough to stay with her, but wide enough to retain the environment and the energy of the market. Shooting wide open at T2 helped us maintain exposure as the available light continued to fall. The camera was set around 5100K, allowing us to preserve the cool character of the remaining daylight while keeping the warmer practical sources distinct.
Lighting Siobhan was deliberately kept lightweight and responsive. Gaffer Jack Gould used an Aladdin on a boom pole with a soft lantern to lift her exposure without flattening the contrast of the environment. The key challenge was balancing the key, fill and background while working within a location where we had very little control over the existing fixtures. My exposure was therefore primarily dictated by the background, with the lighting on Siobhan being shaped around it rather than the other way around.
Fortunately, the location gave us another element for free. The dark brick walls to camera right acted as natural negative fill, helping to control the ambient light wrapping around Siobhan and naturally establishing the key-to-fill ratio we were looking for.
Ultimately, the shot became a balance between preparation and unpredictability. We had carefully scouted the environment, coordinated the schedule around rush hour and planned our lighting around the existing conditions, but blue hour gave us only around twenty minutes before the image changed completely.
It became a ticking time bomb — and that pressure was part of what made the shot work.
