Dusk

Jan Kielland · September 16, 2006

Hi

Would a 1 1/4 CTO on a HMI give me a dusk look shining trough a window?

David Mullen ASC · September 16, 2006

Hi

Would a 1 1/4 CTO on a HMI give me a dusk look shining trough a window?

You have to give us more information, like if you are working with daylight or tungsten-balanced film stock. 1 + 1/4 CTO on an HMI on tungsten film would look the same as a tungsten lamp with 1/4 CTO.

Jan Kielland · September 16, 2006

You have to give us more information, like if you are working with daylight or tungsten-balanced film stock. 1 + 1/4 CTO on an HMI on tungsten film would look the same as a tungsten lamp with 1/4 CTO.

Sorry, David.

Your reply is much appreciated. I'm shooting on 200T and I was basically wondering how to get a scene to look like dusk, without it looking ugly on my actors.. I basically only have the colour correcting gels to work with. The rest of the scene will have 1/4 CTO here and there in the background to make it look a bit dirty and old, but I'm unsure about the HMI because it will shine on my actors as well and I'd prefer to keep them a bit whiter than the background.

I know its all up to me but it is still really helpful to hear what you and the other professionals here got to say.

I am really impressed by your work and it is just wonderful that you take time to answer my questions.

Your help on the moonlight was great.

By the way, those screenshots from "Northfork" in the lighting setup post of yours is really amazing. In my film there is a guy with very very similar glasses :) If I can make some of my film look anything like that I will be thrilled.

Jan Kielland

This is what I want.

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...ost&id=1451

David Mullen ASC · September 17, 2006

Is this a daylight-balanced real location, shot in the daytime?

When you say "dusk" do you mean a warm orangey sunset look or a blue-ish twilight look? And are you trying to fake this look during the daytime on a real location?

Jan Kielland · September 17, 2006

Were shooting inside with daylight coming in trough the windows. I'm planing on covering the windows with tracingpaper from a artstore, and a full CTO then shining the 2,4 at the windows. The only thing I can't seem to work out is whether to use a quarter CTO on the HMI or not. Alot of the action will happen just infront of those windows, and I want my actors to look as pretty as possible.

Sorry I'm so bad at specifying my questions

Thanks David

David Mullen ASC · September 17, 2006

Is this a daylight-balanced real location, shot in the daytime?

When you say "dusk" do you mean a warm orangey sunset look or a blue-ish twilight look? And are you trying to fake this look during the daytime on a real location?

Judging from the still, you want a warm late afternoon effect coming through a window. If the location is naturally daylight-balanced (shot in the daytime with windows), then you'd add a 85B correction filter to the camera to convert the 200T stock to 5500K balance, and you'd shoot a grey scale under a white light (ungelled HMI in this case), then light the scene with an HMI with some degree of warming gel (probably 1/2 CTO, unless you really wanted an orangey sunset effect, then try Full CTO) coming through the window.

In terms of the actor's face, in this still, Harry is lit by the light from his wand so I'm not sure what you want. The actor could be standing in the hard warm late afternoon light from the gelled HMI, or he could be standing in some cool (slightly blueish or white) soft window skylight. He could be backlit by the orange light from the window and then filled with some soft cooler light that is underexposed.

Late afternoon light is a mix of harder warm sunlight and dimmer, cooler shadows / shade from skylight.

Jan Kielland · September 17, 2006

I can't shoot with the 85 filter because I got this big machine with 300 praclights in the same room as well. So I think I need the CTO on the windows. Might just go with 3200K

David Mullen ASC · September 17, 2006

OK, so all the windows get Sun 85 or Full CTO gel, the camera is unfiltered with 200T stock, so your HMI's outside would be close to "white" compared to the tungstens inside, so yes, you'd need to add some level of CTO to the HMI's to make them warmer.

Trouble with tracing the windows is that you won't get a warm sunlight effect on the walls, just a warm soft glow that spreads everywhere. That might look pretty, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to be realistically. At dusk, windows don't glow bright white. Generally you would white-out a window in a far background to suggest blown-out daytime, and even probably put a half-opened venetian shades or white sheers in front to take the curse off the white blank window view.