For the majority of our prison scenes in BLACK BIRD, we shot in an actual jail in New Orleans. All of the cell blocks, including Larry & Jimmy’s cells, the reading room, solitary confinement, various hallways, and the yard were all in this location. I worked with much of the existing practical lighting and augmented as needed. For daytime scenes, I’d push 18Ks through the slivers of windows that were in the cells. When we shot in the actual cells, I used a good bit of negative fill, small bounced sources and titan tubes. For night scenes, my approach was to turn off many of the existing fluorescent lights to create shape. I also created subtle moonlight with titan tubes and small LED fresnels and used the tungsten practical lamps that were in each cell. The wood shop, mess hall (in the first 2 photos) & psych offices were all sets built by our very talented production designer @charissecardenas. I approached lighting the same way as I would a practical location. For the most part, I lit from the outside the set using large HMIs.