Lighting Int. Night, with robbers

[Yaron Y. Dahan]

Hello,

I am soon to be shooting a short film in which burglars enter a house at night, and I need some lighting tips. I am shooting in DV on the once-pro SONY DSR390.

Basically, I need it to look like an interior night, but still need the characters to be seen in at least some detail.

 

I am now working on the lighting schema, and my a priori thoughts on this were to take a bunch of redheads and bounce them against foam core in order to bring up the light levels to acceptable levels, maybe blue-gel them to give it all amore "nighty look". Does nayone have experience with this type of situation? Is this a good idea?

 

Also from a technical point of view, how much under should I be shooting from the aperture reading?? 1 stop, 2???, and what should be the difference between the ambient light and the flashlights? are there any preferences for f-stop to use in this sort of situation?

 

Any help on this or any other advice is appreciated.

[Eugene Lehnert]

Greetings to you Mr. Dahan. I'm sure you have already shot this scene but I would have done what you did for the most part. I would have started out creating a large soft light source that was about 2 stops underexposed. I would also try and add some harder lights coming in from the outside to break up the scene so it's not totally flat. You could justify the lights by saying it's the moon or some street light or a light on the house next door. Then place them in strategic positions in your scene. The fill alone maybe too flat.

 

But that's just me. The blue gel thing is kinda overdone but definately has the look you want. Might be fun to mix an overall blue look with some more orange looking lights to mix it up a bit. Playing the orange against the blue.

 

Good luck!

 

And remember to never let smart ass Brazilians tell you that your film school sucks ass.