new frame grab

Ckulakov · January 9, 2006

Dear Filmmakers,

What do you think of the following still. I whanted something elegant romatic with a stylized highlight. I didnt whant it to look boring so i used a 500 watt photoflood backlight (3200). Then I used a gold reflector board which made the face look warmer. I balanced daylight to make it look even more warm.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e341/Ckulakov/IMG_0471.jpg

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INPUT

Michael Collier · January 9, 2006

I feel like im in the carabean. good lighting. One thing I try to avoid when shooting so warm is white walls. It really highlights the color of the light, if it were a dark warm color it would blend in nicely. overall nice look.

Chris Cooke · January 10, 2006

looks nice. I would've given her a small eye light. Also, Michael makes a good point about the color of the walls. If I was working with this particular background, I would've flagged the light off the top of the wall and put a little hilight in the top right corner for more contrast. Your key hits her face and body quite elegantly. The picture is overall too orange for my taste but you could get away with it a little more if you had some more contrast in the background and even some color seperation.

Mario C. Jackson · January 11, 2006

I think the picture looks good. You said you used a 500w photo flood backlight but I didn't see a back light. I really do like the picture though. Perhaps maybe if you kept the exact the same lighting and just repositioned you actor it would have been alot better.

Mario C. Jackson

Chris Keth · January 11, 2006

That looks quite, nice, though it's quite a lot too warm for my taste. I think I would have balanced to tungsten or perhaps to a card with 1/8 or 1/4 CTB, not full blue. That is, of course, personal taste. I also think Vittorio Storaro often goes too far with color, too ;) :P

James Brown · January 12, 2006

I like it...

It looks alot better from the first frames you posted all that time ago...The contrast looks good but i think a little bit of frontal soft light is needed to get rid of those bags under the eyes and then krank up your key to still give you the contrast...

Good work...

James.

Edited January 12, 2006 by James Brown

Matthew Parnell · January 12, 2006

To me the background is the biggest weakness of the grab. as previously said it feels like it needs something to seperate it, the backround is very sparse and too close to skintone to be left flat. perhaps if you can reasonably justify it some shadow or a flare or a bit of a graduated background would just help seperate it a little.

I also agree about the comment on the eyelight. would set it off. maybe even just a subtle bit of backlight on the hair on the left might also look good and help with the seperation.

pretty nice grab.

cheers.

Chris Cooke · January 12, 2006

i think a little bit of frontal soft light is needed to get rid of those bags under the eyes

Good makeup would also help. I put my hand over her eyes and all of a sudden the whole frame looked a little better. One bad aspect of a frame can spoil the whole thing.

Jonathan Spear · January 13, 2006

Hey Ckulakov,

The excessive warmness almost negates the romantic effect. It's like the room swallows up her natural beauty. She's a gorgeous girl (girlfriend?) and would probably look better seperated from her background, with an added eyelight, and no distracting artifacts behind her (picture frame, etc).

Now I don't know enough to be handing out any advice, but if I had to reshoot it i'd opt for a darker background, 5600k flo's + generous fill, eyelight, hard backlight (hairlight?), some very subtle diffusion on the lens.

You did however capture a 'look' from her eyes that brings the shot up a notch. As distracted as I was from the overall color, background and lighting -- it's a shot that grabs your attention. Nicely done.

And it's a lot better than your previous pics so keep up the good work. You'll nail it soon.