'Temptation' - Cradle of Filth

Stuart Brereton · January 16, 2007

One of the challenges on this promo was that the set was fairly small (30' x 20') and the backcloth was only 40' wide and 15' high. This meant that we could only really shoot in one direction.

Our main camera setup was a 30' track laid parallel to the front of the set, which was about 15' back. We had plenty of dingle set up much closer to camera to give us some foreground.

We then shot 2 or 3 takes of each band member, usually a mid shot and a closeup which alternated between instrument and face. The Director, Adam Mason, also likes to zoom a lot while tracking to give some variety to the shots. The singer was covered in 8 or 9 takes.

The 'day' setup was covered in the same way. a couple of wides, then mids, then in CU. Lots of zooms.

There were other setups, a lot of which didn't make the cut, but probably 90% of the finished video was shot from the same track.

All in all, probably 40 setups, but as I've said, a lot of them were very similar.

There were comments earlier in the thread about the pace of the edit. Some of that was down to the nature of the thing - it's a rock video, after all, but some of it was down to having to disguise the limitations of the set.

Nicholas Jenkins · January 17, 2007

Well, it worked really well. And I quite like this version of the song :P

How do you go about storyboarding/shot listing something like that? Every single thing you'll need or just know the basic set ups and go from there?

Stuart Brereton · January 17, 2007

In this case, the director and I turned up on set the day before the shoot, looked at the size of the backcloth, looked at each other, said 'poop' and decided to shoot everything one way, and to keep the camera moving as much as possible to disguise it.

There was only one shot storyboarded. That was the closeup of the girl lying down, shot from slightly above and behind her. It was a reference to a Nick Cave promo.

Nicholas Jenkins · January 17, 2007

Nice, I think it worked well. Thanks for all the info :)

Daniel Smith · January 18, 2007

Out of interest, where do you actually buy these spacelights from?

I've seen them being used on various film sets, yet I've never seen them for sale anywhere.

Thanks.

Stuart Brereton · January 21, 2007

Mole Richardson make them, as do other companies, but quite often the Lighting rental firms will make their own. Lee Lighting apparently made over 1500 of them for 'Sleepy Hollow'.

It's such a simple design, anyone with electrical and workshop skills could make them.

Matthew Buick · January 28, 2007

My gosh, Stuart, they're wonderful.

I especially love those low light shots, I love the way they are lit and framed.

Good luck. :D

Phil Rhodes · January 28, 2007

Hi,

I don't get spacelights at all. Unless you're in a very tall studio with black drapes surrounding, they seem to produce exactly the sort of light I spend half my time trying desperately to avoid - slightly toppy, but flat, directionless, sourceless, shadowless. Completely boring - BBC lighting, the only tendency being to make people look hollow-eyed. Clearly I'm missing something. What's the attraction?

Phil

Michael Nash · January 29, 2007

Hi,

I don't get spacelights at all. Unless you're in a very tall studio with black drapes surrounding, they seem to produce exactly the sort of light I spend half my time trying desperately to avoid - slightly toppy, but flat, directionless, sourceless, shadowless. Completely boring - BBC lighting, the only tendency being to make people look hollow-eyed. Clearly I'm missing something. What's the attraction?

Phil

That's exactly the way light looks in a forest, or under an overcast sky. If that's what you're trying to emulate on a stage, then they are the perfect tool. If you didn't have soft, toppy "skylight" on a forest set, it wouldn't look quite real.

Of course, this particular video takes "real" only as a starting point and then pushes well past into fantasy, by design.

Stuart Brereton · January 29, 2007

As Michael says, if you lighting a set where you need to duplicate skylight, then spacelights are good way of doing it. It is a top light, although very soft, so you would need to key from lower down, unless you wanted dark eye sockets on everyone. They give you a good base illumination, that you can then add your keys and kickers and whatever to. In this video, I was keying with 4x4 kinos from just above eye level.