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Soft light is more or less the contemporary style because it looks natural. I tend to follow that convention though I look for opportunities for realistically motivated hard light now and then, because I'm not one of those people who want to shoot a whole movie in just soft light. I think you need a little variety in textures to the lighting.
Yes, I sometimes fill or key by bouncing light off of the floor, or lower the contrast and increase the ambience by raking some light off of the ceiling, walls, etc.
Sometimes I look at my earlier work and think it looks more interesting because it's more contrasty and doesn't play it safe, because I didn't know better. I used to notice that my best work in some movies was in the first few days of shooting before I got back dailies and started adjusting my work to fix the flaws I saw. Then when the movie was cut, I start preferring the earlier shots that were rougher and bolder. So it's important to resist the temptation to fix everything in the frame. If I get a kick off of a piece of furniture or some part of the frame is too hot, I like those little accidents.
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David Mullen, ASC
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