Shooting a Graphic Novel

When Bangkok based Actor Chris Wegoda sent me the script for “The Kill,” I got really excited. The story itself is simple: betrayal, friendship, conflict, murder, regret, mystery. What really got me excited was the chance to shoot with a still camera a series of emotive scenes that would normally require video to work. So my creative problem was, how do I light and direct a photoshoot so it looks like a movie?

We shot the scenes after three weeks of planning and preparation. The shoot itself was at just two locations, one a room with a shower, and another a parking lot with a grungy wall. The rest was portable flashes and the excellent work of three actors–Chris Wegoda, Stephen Thomas, and Faye Nightingale.

The whole shoot took about seven hours, from 5 pm indoor scenes to midnight for the dark scenes.

One of the photos from the shoot on a "movie poster."

Shooting this graphic novel taught me a lot about lighting. I used four SB-900s bare, to visually create the harsh feeling of the story. I used a lot of rim light when possible to outline the characters against the dark backgrounds, like a comic book would. In postproduction, I processed the RAW color file before converting to monochrome and adding a yellow filter to give it that motion picture film look.

And since it’s Christmas, go ahead and DOWNLOAD the graphic novel for FREE from this link.

The Kill A Graphic Novel –