Make sure to watch your back. I mean really, walking down an alley this day and age you're just asking for trouble. Always remember: He who fights and runs away, lives to run away another day.

--QD Jones

We're bringing somebody with a concealed weapons permit and a big group.

if the light form the ally is overhead you are likely to get patches where your characters come into complete shadow, whilst this might be the effect you are looking for, it could easily look a bit tacky (for lack of a better word).

I would suggest using a bounce board or lastolite reflector to bounce a bit of light back into the shadows and give a subtle detail to the image. depending on your camera, this might be vital in getting any kind of exposure into the shadows.

You could think about gelling the bounced light to give a more varied colour pallette to the scene.

also in terms of the orange from the lights, I would expereiment with colour balancing on different coloured cards (all very light in colur still, or the camera won't accept it as any kind of 'white').

enjoy.

Thanks, I'll look into the bounced light. They aren't directly overhead but overhead and on the side of the alley wall. Pretty good span too, but again the first time we shot anything there, the color was more magenta than orange! 😉