Lighting
I recommend what we call the "Mitchell Riggs" lighting method. The thing with the MRLM is that it's backwards and upside-down.
Yep, it's exactly counter-intuitive and yet achieves better results faster.
Light backwards
Start by hitting your subjects with rim light. Now you've probably noticed that in most scenes the characters are facing one another. I know. Radical stuff.
The way we light tends to be backwards. We light behind the subject first. Then we light beneath them. If there's time, sometimes we'll throw light on their faces.
Yes, we're perfectly aware this is not the classic 3-point lighting technique all the books talk about. And we rest all blame for this lighting method squarely on Mitchell Riggs' shoulders.
The cold hard fact of the matter is that this is a great way to make sci-fi movies. Good-looking people tend to still look good even when the lighting is weird.
Sunlight, however, manages to look awesome all the time when it's not coming from straight up in the sky. If you can get the light behind your characters (and I realize that getting the sun behind each one of your characters is... a choice) it will look awesome (and the actors won't have to squint.)
For whatever reason, bounce light just doesn't work for me. I don't know why, it just always looks... meh.