Tips for shooting Tight Spaces

[Ali Nusrat]

Hi,

I am starting production on a super 16mm short very soon. One of our locations is extremely tight. The room measures about 11 feet x 8 feet and it is filled up with items that we are not allowed to move out. The bed is backed into the far left corner of the room(it is a queen size) so essentailly the camera has about 2-3 feet on each side of the bed to move. It is an interior night scene in a bedroom. We are shooting on 7218 for night interiors.

 

I was curious if you guys had any tips for shooting tight spaces. Is it possible to light mainly with practicals on 7218? How is the stock in low light?

 

I was interested in covering it like the opening scene in Y Tu Ma Ma Tambien. I would post a picture but it there is graphic nudity/sex in the scene. It appears to be lit by a single source practical from behind the characters that is casting diffused light onto them and wrapping around them a bit. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Robert Hughes]

You might consider placing a mirror in an appropriate spot and shooting through the mirror. It will give you some extra distance to work with, allow for a less wide angle lens, and perhaps you can work the imagery and metaphor of the mirror into your scene.

[David Mullen ASC]

Having just spent last night doing pick-up shots inside a NASA Mercury capsule not much larger than a Lazee-Boy chair...

 

The main thing is to make sure you have absoluely exhausted the possibility of shooting in a larger room, because you can always make a larger room look smaller on film. If you can't get any interesting angles or lighting, then what's so attractive about the small space if you can't show it off, capture it on film? You end up using very wide-angle lenses that make the space look larger than it really is. And you end up putting the camera in one of the few places you can back-up into, like the doorway.

 

Especially a space full of junk which you're not allowed to move -- it would be easy to fake that with junk you CAN move.

 

The one plus about a tiny space is that the right practical lamp can do most of the lighting for you since the light does not have to travel far.