Warm afternoon vs. Cold Morning lighting

[bolshevik]

I would like to light a bedrom in three different ways on a soundstage using HMIs. In the first scene it's mid to late afternoon and in the second scene it is a foggy morning. what should i do to my lights to get these two effects? also there is a scene in the room at night when the only thing on is the tv and it illuminates the person in bed being illuminated by it. can i do this with kinos dimmers and ctbs or is there some better solution???

[Lars.Erik]

How big are the lamps you're using? Is there any windows in the room? Film or video?

 

On the foggy morning I'd bounce the HMI lights in to the room. In this way I think you'll remake foggy light the best way. Maybe make this a bit cooler?

 

For the second set, I'd go for a direct light set-up. You could think about adding a 1/4 - 1/2 CTO on this to add some sense of a warmer setting sun.

 

For the tv set-up, you'd be better off just switching the tubes on the Kino's to 3200K. Full CTB will take almost all of your light. Specially from Kino's who have a very quick drop off.

[bolshevik]

How big are the lamps you're using? Is there any windows in the room? Film or video?

 

On the foggy morning I'd bounce the HMI lights in to the room. In this way I think you'll remake foggy light the best way. Maybe make this a bit cooler?

 

For the second set, I'd go for a direct light set-up. You could think about adding a 1/4 - 1/2 CTO on this to add some sense of a warmer setting sun.

 

For the tv set-up, you'd be better off just switching the tubes on the Kino's to 3200K. Full CTB will take almost all of your light. Specially from Kino's who have a very quick drop off.

 

i would liek to maybe use one 1200 par HMI coming through a large bay window. im shooting on 16 i dont know what stock yet.

[Walter Graff]

For me I find mornings to be less direct, more ambient and cool where as afternoons warmer and more direct. But then again it also depends on the script. I find that a little camera filtration of a light pro mist gives me a nice morning feel. And afternoons are usually more direct coming in a window whether it's direct or diffuse.

 

Walter Graff

www.bluesky-web.com

[David Mullen ASC]

You're lighting a set on a soundstage and the biggest light you have is only a 1200w HMI?

 

A foggy morning day interior should be soft-lit through the windows, slightly cool. For a large bay window, you'd want something at least 8'x8', if not 12'x12', outside the window to bounce off of (like UltraBounce or Muslin) or shine through diffusion (like Light Grid or Full Grid). But you're going to need several 1200w HMI's or a couple of larger HMI's to create a big even soft light.

 

For the day scene, a hard, spotty bright (overexposed) HMI coming in from a higher raking angle (gelled a little warm, for sunlight) and softer light coming through the window for skylight. Again, a 1200w HMI doesn't have the spread to create bright daylight coming through a window unless it is a very small window. With a narrow lens, it might have the intensity but then it won't fill much of the window.

 

And if you're lighting all these scenes with HMI's, I assume you are using 250D stock.

[Jarin Blaschke]

A foggy day outside would create very soft, cool light. If it was me, I'd probably opt for tungsten stock and bounce some 9 lights into large frames of bleached muslin over grif or ultrabounce. Use large frames, and fill them fully and evenly. A 9-light will fill a frame much more evenly than an HMI, and has a much better color spectrum. Make sure that the frames are large and plentiful enough to bring light into the set from as many angles as possible from outside the window in a wide arc configuration of frames. Ideally, the encircling soft source would be as far from the window as possible so there isn't huge light drop-off from one end of the room to the other. As far as the 'cool' color of a foggy morn, blue gels eat a lot of light, so perhaps use only 1/4 CTB and cool the rest in timing later.

 

For the TV effect, I prefer putting a light with 1/2 CTB into a diffusion frame that is the size of the implied television screen - around the size of a 2x3 frame usually. I would use very heavy diffusion, so the 'box' of light is as evenly lit as possible - perhaps a couple layers of 216 or 129. I find that slow dimming effects or quick but lingering lighting changes are much more realistic than the spastic 'flicker' we see so often. Another idea is to have 2 or more lights that are gelled slightly differently going into the diffusion frame, riding each of the dimmers independently, so both the brightness and the color change as the imaginary tv show goes from scene to scene. Unless this TV effect is front-lighting your shot, you'll need some 'room tone' fill. I prefer fill light as a very broad bounce from above. Others like it coming from camera angle. If the fill is very soft and very dim (like -3 1/2 stops incident or less for a mid tone set), you won't 'feel' it so much.

Edited March 7, 2006 by JarinBlaschke