Using Maya, I was able to determine what angles the light needed to be at to make this scene work, sit down in front of Maya with the sets, props, and people loaded up, and begin to block and shoot the scene with the director and production designer. Then have a discussion over lighting and production design, then go back and make those adjustments, and end up with this "sketch" quality render of one of the shots. [inserted further down]

Doing so makes things so much easier - as I now know what lens I need, which lights, which camera angle, which gels, etc. And setting up and shooting should be a breeze. I have in essence already shot the scene, now I only need to recreate it. Which is faster and less stressful than trying to figure it all out on set.

I'll do some tutorials on this at some point. One using Maya, and another using some of my Storyboard Artist friends.