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eye lights


Jon Erwin

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I think you guys are being too dismissive of the "Kirk light" idea. I use it all the time, only generally fairly subtly. In "Northfork", for example, there are shots where the boy is lying in bed with his back to the window and his face is very dark. I have a very underexposed spot of light on one of this eyes. I just did that again for the moonlight scenes in "Dot" when people are sleeping or lying awake in bed, their face backlit by the moonlight coming through the window. I have some very weak fill plus a very underexposed slash of light across their eyes. This allows me to keep from filling in the shadows too much, thus keeping the room dark. Sure, there is a theatrical bent to the look, but when you're talking about moonlight coming through blinds in a smoked room with dancing patterns of leaves on the walls, it's got a German Expressionism feeling anyway.

 

"E.T." has some prominent "Kirk light" moments, and some very subtle ones too (often there was a little circle of light in one of E.T.'s eyes in very dark scenes.)

 

You can also find examples of this in Conrad Hall's work. Not the perfect rectangular slash of light in the eyes like in the original "Dracula", but still, he does (or did) put little spotlights and slashes that catch one or both eyes.

 

Like I said, it's a convention from German Expressionism and its descendent, Film Noir, and I don't think it should be dismissed simply because it is old-fashioned. Why do so many movies made today have to be stuck in a simplistic notion of Realism? My god, there's nothing realistic about a background score or jump cuts, so why does lighting have to be so limited to what is realistic?

Edited by David Mullen
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No David- you cite examples of it done CORRECTLY, while the "Kirk Light" refers to the lazy-ass moments when DPs (such as Roger Pratt on Harry Potter 2) just go "Hell I'm bored and this scene calls for uninspired visual signposting of the villain" and half assedly put two cutters up against the keylight facing the talent. POOR.

 

 

Alan Hume did it magificently for the darker moments of Selina (Faye Dunaway) in Supergirl I might add- he had not only alternating patterns of cutter light, but he also had the fresnels out of focus on some shots to add real "where'd that come from?" mystique.

 

There's good and bad of everything.

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I still think there are times when the theatrical effect can be emotionally effective. For example, the "Kirk light" was used on the Medusa stop-motion creature in the best sequence in "Clash of the Titans", in the dark temple. To me, the lighting effect made the creature more frightening; I seem to recall it only fades up when Medusa's intense stare is turning someone to stone.

 

And we can all recall the times when Power Windows was used during the D.I. to create false eyelight slashes in "Lord of the Rings", some more subtle than others. In fact, when I do the DaVinci color-correction for "Dot", I may use Power Windows to actually minimize the effect of the eyelight spots I used in those dark scenes, if they look too obvious.

Edited by David Mullen
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Hi,

 

Just so I can get an idea of how this all works - the backlight that's falling on the pillow is what, one under? One and a half? In video you'd certainly shoot it looking like that to keep detail in the specularity in the distance, but in film I could see shooting it as metered for safety then timing down. Am I anywhere near?

 

Phil

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I don't recall how I metered that, but I think I exposed for the backlight on the pillow at key exposure, set the fill by eye, and perhaps played the eyelight two stops under. But I may have only metered the soft backlight and done everything else by eye.

 

The eyelight was probably a Dedolight (corrected to 5500K) with a black wrap snoot, somewhat unevenly shaped.

 

Thanks J. for putting those photos up for me.

Edited by David Mullen
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Do you have your eye tuned to ENR? If I remember right you were also flashing so I guess you have to be pretty sure about where a subtle light is going to fall.

 

Just for clarity what are the units used to light the scene with the boy, a Dedo eye light and I guess an HMI back light?

Edited by J. Lamar King
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Behold-

 

This is the deplorable, lazy-ass Roger Pratt Harry Potter instant demonstrating the pure, off the shelf idle lighting of the "Kirk Light":

 

cos518.jpg

 

Intrusive, by-numbers, amateurish... C'mon- for a world class cinematographer on a world class cinematographers salary- Good God, it's WRETCHED work in an otherwise impressively lit film!

Edited by fstop
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David, Nice to hear from you. Sorry for bending your ear at the DOT wrap party. :unsure:

 

The frames from Northfork that J. put up are most excellent. Subtle, just enough to let us see the character's "soul" without being distracted, wondering where the light is coming from. I'm looking forward to seeing the film.

 

Here's a rather obvious example of a "Kirk Light" from one of my amateur projects. Or perhaps it doesn't qualify since it is motivated by practical blinds on the set.

 

post-2570-1099608897.jpg

Edited by mmorlan62
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The funny thing is, it's a shot reverse shot between Dumbeldore and that guy, and for the duration of the scene the portrait is without cutters, but as soon as Dumbeldore says something like "There is a bad one among us!" then on the next shot of the bad guy there's those giant intrusive cutters on the lights! MEGA poor cliche! LOL

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LOL, you know I can even recall seeing something similar once where the camera pushed in and it seemed that the cutters actually moved closer together during the shot. I don't react to it as negatively as you fstop but it does look a bit strange being unmotivated.

 

This reminds me of one thing that I do hate and that's when an attempt is made at glamour lighting where they shade the actress forehead. This effect is classic and ok looking if it was achieved with an open end net or a couple of scrims fanned on a lolipop or something. I can't stand it when it looks as if they floated a solid in right above the camera that cuts a sharp shadow. Looks like something is caught in her key light rather than an effect done on purpose.

Edited by J. Lamar King
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I like the still that mmorlan62 posted,the eyelight and the cool,blue mood,

I get a sense of fear from the blind practical. So just a few minutes ago

I'm sitting here and watching one of those reality type shows on the HD. 5

or 6 people around a table(standing) here's this beautiful blonde,looks like

she just stepped off a plane from Sweden. So the camera pans around the

table to each character so that each one is in the frame(close-up) while they

are being asked questions. Well every girl but the blonde has very definitive

snappy eyelight and its driving me nuts! I'm ready to yell,sweet jesus will you

move that damn key light and put some snap in the girls eyes? Well every still pho-

tographer who has done portraiture knows how important eyelight is,and its not

hard to do in a studio where you have control of the light. Specially easy when

doing close-up. Now when I hear David Mullen ASC say its hard to do eyelight

when shooting wide, I know its gotta be tough. So whats the secret? Is it how

many lights you use,intensity,placement,direction,height? Will a light close to

the camera at lens height do it?

 

Greg Gross,Professional Photographer

Student Cinematographer

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For that shot of the boy in "Northfork", I had 12'x12' Griflons outside of the window hiding the real background (a busy street) and let the natural skylight come into the room from above the Griflons. I just augmented it by hanging a 4-bank Kinoflo above the bed as a backlight. In a later, darker scene at the bed, I had an HMI PAR on a stand behind the Griflon shining into the room, giving a hot backlight, and the key came from an 8-bank Kino hiding behind the headboard.

 

That shot of Daryl Hannah's face was lit with an 8-bank Kinoflo backlight, som Kino fill, and a Dedolight with a blackwrap snoot for the eyelight.

 

I don't mind the hard cut across an actress's forehead if it is motivated; otherwise, the net is a better approach for that effect than a solid flag.

 

Early in "Bugsy" there is a beautiful close-up of a woman in a black veil in an elevator, with just a glow on the center of her face, and net diffusion on the lens.

 

Anyone ever noticed that Robert Krasker lit Sophie Loren the same way in almost every shot in both "El Cid" and "Fall of the Roman Empire"? She always looked like she was being shadowed by some ceiling beams or something, with a shadow across her forehead and across her neck. She looked great but it does get repetitive. I prefer a few knock-out close-ups of the leading actress because if every one of her close-ups is lit that way, it loses the impact.

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You can see in Gordon Willis' toplit work that he often sneaks an eyelight into the close-ups but not in the wide shot. In "Devil's Own" there was a particular scene at a dinner table where I noticed the eye light / fill in the close-ups but the wide shot was harsher.

 

It's hard to project an eyelight across the room in a wide shot and not have some foreground object or person end up wiping through the frame and getting hit by the eyelight in some obvious way. Besides, the eyes are much smaller in the frame in a wide shot so the eyelight is less necessary.

 

Like I said before, realism is not that interesting to me, so I can forgive some dramatic flourish now and then. Scorsese stole a really obvious Kirk light effect from "Detour" and put it, in all places, in "Age of Innocence" when Archer is reading a letter by the fireplace; the camera pushes in and the room lights dim and a rectangle of light fades up on Archer's eyes just before a cut to a flashback. Obviously the ideas was not to be logical or realistic, but to be psychologically motivated and expressionistic.

Edited by David Mullen
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I don't mind it too much. It's a stylistic tool that kind of reminds me of older films and another era. Seale used it quite frequently in The English Patient.

 

But that Pratt shot wasn't very good - and the reason it wasn't very good is that it casts a double shadow, it's too bright and too wide. But I'm not opposed to the idea per se - villains with scary contact lenses can sometimes benefit from faint eyelights. And there is nothing wrong with scuplted and cut light - that's what makes frames interesting. Juan Ruiz-Anchia, ASC is a contemporary master of that very cut style.

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pspnorthfork3.jpg

 

pspnorthfork4.jpg

 

pspnorthfork5.jpg

 

Just wanted to put up these examples of using a Kinoflo (Image 80 or Wall-O-Lite) as the key light in small rooms where the light was against a wall, as one advantage to Kinoflos. The bottom one is the example where I blocked off the background with a Griflon but in this scene, I did not light it, left it darkish, and put an HMI PAR hidden by the Griflon, up high to come down as a backlight. Not necessarily realistic (looks like an overcast foggy day outside with hard sunlight?) but I wanted to see the halation from the backlight so I kept the background darker. The key is an big Kino at the headboard, flagged off of the practical (you can see it lighting the top of the headboard.) I cheated the bed out from the wall in order to squeeze the Kinoflo behind it.

 

I think I stole the lighting idea (low-key room with person in bed hit with intense cold backlight, augmented with ProMist diffusion) from "Empire of the Sun" when the boy wakes up inside that warehouse of detainees with a fever.

Edited by David Mullen
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Hi,

 

Heh, if I did that thing with the window, everyone'd scream "it's video, it's clipping, the horror!" Do I have this right - the source that's causing that nice volumetric shadow off his hat is the HMI PAR, and the fill (which is almost invisible on my dingy monitor) is the Kino?

 

Phil

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Hey, if "Iron Chef" doesn't care about clipping video for their stylish "intro to the chef" section, why should I?

 

The backlight is an HMI PAR (a 6K I believe, one window had a 2K Xenon). The side key is a Wall-O-Lite 10-bank Kino (maybe an 8-bank Image 80 -- I had one of each and used them rather interchangeably). The fill, which barely reads, was from a 4-bank Kino and is causing the shadow of the brim on the hat. What was tough on the shoot was HOW MUCH fill I was always pumping in, just to have it go nearly black after the skip-bleach printing. On the set, you'd think it was a 2:1 lighting ratio! In this case, using a normal IP for the transfer, I had to digitally create that skip-bleach look.

 

What was good about using fill, even if it would drop off in the skip-bleach printing, was that it usually created a glint in the eye. And I knew there was shadow detail on the negative so I had options (like less silver in the print, etc.)

Edited by David Mullen
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Nice work, David.

 

I'm kinda a bit wary about backlights in general, but when I use them I tend to key from the same side as the backlight comes from, just like you did in these frames. I'm not to fond of rimlighting the shadowside of a face - but you do see that a lot in films. I, Robot was lit like that in every single frame.

 

Do you think the UK distributor will give me a DVD copy of Northfork if I ring them up and say I know you? :D

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David, I'm actually a bit confused. In the shot with the boy in the bed you say the key is a Kino behind the headboard. So is that what is creating all that backlit look? Or is it what is giving the glow to Nolte's face and the HMI providing that backlight?

Edited by J. Lamar King
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