Daytime interiors with windows

[Tom Schlodder]

Here's the scenario:

 

We're a small start-up video production company that is experimenting with the idea of Real Estate Walk-Thru videos. The key to these are that we keep the costs next to nothing so that the price will reflect this.

 

I can only imagine that this has been asked before but since I couldn't find it while searching the forums, I'll just post it here. Shooting on mini-DV inside a house, the large windows are making me pull my hair out. Of course, the area around the window exposes with a blue tone while the rest of the room keeps that orange tint from the tungsten light bulbs throughout the house. White balancing to either the window lighting or the room lighting doesn't really produce favourable results. And then there's the issue of overexposure that I'm not having any luck curbing as well. I don't really have the option of covering all the windows in CTO or diffusion of some sort but am starting to think that there really isn't any other solution.

 

If there is a work-around that someone can suggest, I would LOVE to hear about it at this point.

 

Thanks in advance.

[David Mullen ASC]

You can use blue-dipped photofloods in the practicals, plus use daylight-balanced lights (daylight fluorescent tubes, HMI's, etc.). Also, you can use reflectors outside the windows.

 

Basically you need to bring your artificial lighting closer to daylight to minimize the color temperature difference, then balance your camera for daylight.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Shoot at night?

 

Phil

[Carlos M. Icaza]

Aside from Davi's suggestion, you might also want to consider shooting in early morning or in the afternoon. The midday sun cast's horrible shadows, blow outs and the highlights are just horrible. I would do most of the shoots in the afternoon, carry lots of daylight balanced practicals.

 

C.-

[Josh Bass]

Curtains? Blinds?

[Michael Nash]

One of my first professional gigs after college was doing just what you describe. At that time (1989) we were using 3/4" tape and industrial cameras.

 

There's just no getting around it, you HAVE to light up the interior of the house if you want it to look good and even come close to balancing with the outdoors. On a zero budget you end up using lights that are small, lightweight, and affordable, which usually means a Lowell video kit of some kind. You can gel the lights blue to balance with the outdoors, but that usually eats up too much light and won't let you get a proper exposure for both windows and interior. The best (although not the cheapest) solution is to carry a couple small HMI's like 575's or 1200's, but it will cost you manpower to keep lugging the ballasts and lights from room to room (not to mention the issue of hot re-strikes).

 

So you usually end up forced to light with tungsten lights and let the daylight spill through the windows go blue. The way to make the best of this situation is to white balance for each room, depending on whether daylight or tungsten light is most prominent. And regarding exposure, well, there's only so much you can do to balance with bright daylight seen through the windows. Let them blow out if it makes the interior of the room look better.

[Kevin Zanit]

I like Phil's suggestion. But if you can?t get in there at night, then I would do what David suggests.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Guest fstop]

I say keep the window blown out- bring the smoke machines and colour filters in and dub on the Flashdance soundtrack!! ;)

 

Seriously though, to anyone who doesn't use Kinos, have you ever had actors pass out on set when balancing for an interior without NDing the windows? I know this use to happen commonly pre-1990 on scenes shot at 800footcandles+.