Club Lighting

[Matt Workman]

Hi,

 

I'm shooting a club scene and we have an okay budget for lights. I'm wondering if there are any music video DP's who can lend some tips on lighting a trendy club look.

 

I'm thinking of gelling some Kinos (green/blue) for the background and having red/white light for the foreground. I haven't done a lot with effects gels, mainly color correction gels. What are some good effects gels to experiment with.

 

I would love to rent a rotating laser light for the background but I'm going to keep it simple.

 

Thanks for any tips.

 

Matt

[Brian Wells]

I'm thinking of gelling some Kinos (green/blue) for the background and having red/white light for the foreground. I haven't done a lot with effects gels, mainly color correction gels. What are some good effects gels to experiment with.

Matt,

 

I think you're on the right track. I suggest finding a DVD with Young Jeezy's "And Then What" music video for inspiration. Your description of the lighting setup reminds me of the club scenes in that music video.

 

Good luck!

[Dan Dumouchel]

I lit a club once and I found that using theatric gels worked great! We shot the scene using 500T Fuji if I remember correctly. I used Red and Purple gels. I cranked a 2k off of an already present Disco ball and accented any glass with regular 1/2 CTB gel'd tungsten light. The actors were shot slightly warm... I think 1/4 CTO and I created as much negative space in the frame as I could to blink lights into.

 

I also found that having moving/blinking lights and the Disco Ball wasn't distracting at all but helped sell the scene... but that's just my opinion.

 

I'm sure whatever you decide will work great. Experiment with some gels and let us know your results.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Work with colours, silhouettes and moods. It's easy to get club lighting really messy and theatrical with multiple sources (often hard, often par's) that clash and make everything unflattering. KISS applies here, as to most other things.

 

And if in doubt on music videos - always front light :D

[Rolfe Klement]

In order of importance

 

Make up artist

nice venue | location + set dressing

Ringlight (LED or Kamio)

Hazemaker or similar smoke machines

Moving 2 K Mole pars into lens - with fog (think early Claudio Miranda)

T2 to T4

 

Finally a nice Spirit telecine grade

 

job done - doesn't matter about the artist :D

 

thanks

 

Rolfe