Eye lights & soft sources

[Jacqueline Donaldson]

Hi there,

 

I'm shooting indoors with lots of natural light and I'm wondering what I should be using just to add a nice eyelight to my actors? Also I will need to use some soft daylight balanced lights as were shooting one long through the day and the natural lighting is going to change a bit and I have some areas that need to be lit, space is tight though, what do you guys recommend?? Will some small Dedo's be enough for the eyes, or is there something smaller? I'm gonna use reflectors to help bounce the natural light, there is already alot of white walls and neg fill to help me mould faces. What soft, broad daylight sources are availible?

 

Thanks,

 

Jac

 

been a long time since I lit anything!

[Laurent Andrieux]

Dedolights sound good to me for the eyes/face effects especilly for CUs, but you could also go with some small HMI's like daylight sources, 125 or 200 W for instance, since you work daylight and dedolights are tungsten, if I'm right.

 

What soft, broad daylight sources are availible?

 

Since you don't have much of room, fluo tubes like kinoflos can be of a great help. They are not too cheap to rent nor are they very powerful, but it should be good for your needs (use daylight tubes).

 

An alternative can be one or two HMI Cinepars or luxarc (fresnel) (from 575 w to 1200 W or 2.5 kW) bounced or through a diffusion frame. If the set is tiny but let you the ability of putting the sources outside through a window, use 1200, 2.5 w or 4 kw HMIs, it will leave much more room on the set.

 

You can even send them through mirrors...

 

What are you using ? video ? film ? what sensitivity ?

[Jacqueline Donaldson]

Hi,

 

we are shooting on mini DV, when i went yesterday, it was very sunny, it's on the 14th floor, so no outside area availible, there was alot of natural light availible, but I want to be prepared incase it's a dull day, and I I don't want it to look too flat, so i guess some soft daylight sources Or should the soft for the background and use a harder light for lighting faces, and neg fill control the amount of light bouncing off every wall? I'm looking for lights probably less than 1K as there are small spaces to light. I'm so confused about all the different names of lights, when i studied more than a decade ago it was just much simpler.

 

What size of kit should I be ordering, I'm thinking 3 daylight balance lights at around 600w and 2 smaller 150w lights just as kickers, will these even show up with all the natural light or am i wasting my time? A couple of relectors and a couple of neg fills, it's just a one day shoot.

 

Thanks

 

Jac

[Jacqueline Donaldson]

I'm just surfing the net trying to work out what all the lights are, what output and colour temp, does anyone know of a good website that explains all these, or a good book I can buy.

 

Also I'm trying to work out how to light this apartment, the director wants if quite warm looking, but the daylight coming is in a little cool, I'm thinking about using some arrilites(3200k) to light our actors and gelling them maybe just 1/2 or 1/4 CTB, will this look wierd and how can I create a warm glow on the walls, can't gel the windows they are floor to ceiling, huge, can I flood them with something? I want it to look like a warm summer light, but since it's just end of winter here it's kind of a harsh grey.

 

Thanks

 

Jac