There are locations dotted up and down the whole of Southern California that I’d like to test, but this one park caught my attention. Not because it stood out for any excellent reason, but simply for the fact that it is there and near to a place that I am familiar with: Downtown Fullerton.

I asked Sean if I could borrow the camera for the night. What do you need it for? he asked. Location scouting, I said, to which he cautioned me about the potential of being mugged. Not for my own personal safety, mind you, but for the sake of the camera, which I think costs more than me. I don’t know what I cost my parents all these years, but I like to think I’m pretty expensive.

Fact: real-world lighting is like the flash bulb on the digital camera you got at Best Buy. It is out to make you look as ugly as possible. Oh sure, in a vague Michael Mann sorta way, the shots in the video could be mistaken for intentional urban romanticism, in which I’m out to capture the soul of city life by incorporating conflicting color temperatures. But I am not Mann (I am Men) and I’d rather stick to traditional modes of lighting.

The key problem is the lack of separation of the subject from the environment (which can be avoided by placing the subject in front of a darker background). But the Eww! factor comes in the form of chiseled shadows: depending on where the coincidence of light falls on the subject, it renders most of the facial detail as flat or unseemly. Shots like that have the clumsy appeal of shining a flashlight off camera and onto the actors. No thanks.

The heck is all this testing for? For my short film, or something like that, which I have yet to commit to paper. I think I will have Sean do most of the acting, along with perhaps Drew and Lainey, if they’re available. It is narrow-minded of me, as an aspiring filmmaker, to not branch out and work with new people. But in an Ingmar Bergman sorta way, it allows me to focus on the task at hand with folks who I don’t have to struggle to communicate with. And this is a small, personal project, intended to nurture the growth of the baby filmmaker inside me. It’s a practice piece, plain and simple.