Future Lighting

[Kieran Scannell]

I'm due to shoot a series of interviews next week that are supposedly set 15 yrs. in the future.

When i got the gig it started me thinking about how can i make this look different to today's

lighting sensibilities? what feasibly could be different to portrait lighting in the future that when

looking at it today the viewer thinks HHMMM.. that looks different.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Kieran.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Using primarily Kinoflo fluorescents comes to mind. Incandescents in general are being phased out and replaced by CFL's nowadays, so I imagine in the future our world will be plagued with them. Just getting that fluorescent look I think would be key to your lighting setup.

[Kieran Scannell]

I wasn't thinking specifically about equipment Jonathan more about style, framing, exposure levels, something that would be out of place

to our aesthetics visually today.

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

Kieran.

[Sam Wells]

EI 8000, 6K resolution with the highlights clipping ? :lol:

 

-Sam

 

forgive me....

[e gustavo petersen]

I can't imagine that the aesthetic of interview/portrait lighting will change much in the future since we're still using the aesthetics of hundreds of years past. It also seems unlikely that the technological advances that are likely to come in the next 15 years (as you question) will change what our collective conscious' view as beauty. Older folks carry on what they know, younger folks learn from the older ones and occasionally, someone comes along and changes everything. But that's the rub, no one really knows.

 

I wouldn't dismiss Jonathan's comments outright. As technology changes, society changes and so does art - it's all interconnected. Some other technologies which are making headways now and will likely come to the forefront in the coming years are LED lights, stereography, virtual avatars, etc. But composition and how light falls on the face (whether that light is real or a computer construct) seems unlikely to change.

 

Perhaps you'll best be served by reviewing what was in the artistic zeitgeist of years past. What's old, is new.

 

Who knows, maybe you'll come up with something that'll change the way we do things today while imaging someting from the future?

[Stuart Brereton]

Incandescents in general are being phased out and replaced by CFL's nowadays

 

don't wish to derail the thread, but the Film industry will be amongst the last to adopt CFL lamps, there are simply too many incandescent fixtures in existence to make a wholesale changeover viable

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

don't wish to derail the thread, but the Film industry will be amongst the last to adopt CFL lamps, there are simply too many incandescent fixtures in existence to make a wholesale changeover viable

 

I agree completely Stuart, I was just speaking in a broader sense, where society is headed. Not so much what filmmakers will be using. I have nightmares sometimes of being in the future with only CFL's everywhere.

[Chris Walters]

If your looking for the future look you can go with what other films set in the future have done. Take Minority Report for example.. the industrial, clean crisp, contrasty with a green-silver unsaturated edge to it. Although this is the way I see typical futuristic. Have fun with it, its really up to you and if you feel the audience will believe its from the future.

 

Chris

[Michael Nash]

In the future all interviews will be shot with cell phone cameras at arm's length, lit with onboard LED's.

 

Oh, wait -- there's already a tooth-whitening commercial like that!

[Kieran Scannell]

Thank you all for your comments! and they more or less are my own conclusions. I really don't think we'll light an interview very differently 15yrs

from now, but! I liked Michael's cell phone comment so much i actually discussed it with the director this morning, he was initially very enthusiastic but eventually we both decided that the producer would poop himself at the loss of production value!

 

I also apologise to Jonathan if i sounded dismissive that certainly wasn't my intention i think his kinoflo idea is what i'll go for!

 

Thanks again to everyone.

 

Kieran.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

I also apologise to Jonathan if i sounded dismissive that certainly wasn't my intention i think his kinoflo idea is what i'll go for!

 

Yeah, I was seriously pissed off about that ;) Just jokin', Kinoflos have a different quality of light than incandescents, so that's what I was trying to say rather than getting all technical about it.

 

Take Minority Report for example.. the industrial, clean crisp, contrasty with a green-silver unsaturated edge to it.

 

We all know you meant "DEsaturated"

[Chris Keth]

I predict that clipped highlights will become more routine and accepted. With so many people seeing the products of mediocre-quality digital systems, the viewing public is getting more and more used to clipped highlights just being a part of video.

 

A friend of mine shot his thesis with an HVX and a redrock adapter and there was a scene, shot in a car in natural light, where the exterior blows out in the most beautiful, slightly colored, out of focus, glory. I don't mind blown highlights when they are that beautiful.

[Chris Keth]

Here's a link to the film I refer to above. The part I was thinking of is at about 7:45, but the whole thing is worth watching.

[Kieran Scannell]

I did watch it all! Thanks Chris that's actually a good reference. 2 of the locations have these high post modern windows as backgrounds looking out to forest and sea respectively instead of NDíng them maybe letting them blow out would be an option.

 

The film looked great BTW my compliments to your friend!

 

Kieran.

[Chris Keth]

I did watch it all! Thanks Chris that's actually a good reference. 2 of the locations have these high post modern windows as backgrounds looking out to forest and sea respectively instead of NDíng them maybe letting them blow out would be an option.

 

The film looked great BTW my compliments to your friend!

 

Kieran.

 

Glad to help. I will tell him next time we talk. You could also give him a vote on that site if you like (hint hint) :)

[Kieran Scannell]

I rated it 4 stars ( always leave room for improvement!)

 

Kieran.

[Chris Keth]

By the way. A lot of the look of those blown out areas comes from the 35mm lens adapter. I did a lot of tests as did he and his Dp and we found that the adapter did wonder in making blown out areas more attractive. They're not just flat white but retain some tone and color.

 

Make sure you test your system to make sure it reacts how you want it to.

[Paul Bruening]

Ever see a little ditty of a movie called Brainstorm by Doug Trumbull. There's the future of cinema, boys. Direct, brain replay. Dougie knew. Dougie knows.

[Michael Nash]

I liked Michael's cell phone comment so much i actually discussed it with the director this morning, he was initially very enthusiastic but eventually we both decided that the producer would poop himself at the loss of production value!

 

Loss of production value? No... in 15 years Apple will have teamed with RED and will include a 4K camera in the iphone...

 

;)

[Dan Salzmann]

Perhaps it will be harder Expressionist direct lighting fresnel fixtures. Neo-noir glamour a la George Hurrell because people will be bored silly with Kinoflo's.

[Sam Wells]

Perhaps it will be harder Expressionist direct lighting fresnel fixtures. Neo-noir glamour a la George Hurrell because people will be bored silly with Kinoflo's.

 

And like the Avedon-ish see every wrinkle Storaro shot in the witnesses sections in "Reds" (no relation :)

 

-Sam

 

I was sorta bored with Optima 32's before they even invented Kinos........

[tom quinn]

it's an interesting question, because even Visions of Light, which is a great piece of work and is really interesting, definately feels very much of its time period (which is only about 15 years ago). Even though each interview compliments the style of the particular cinematographer interviewed, it still feels 'early 90's'. It'd be great to take that doc, break down what stylistic elements have changed and then double those. It'd be even more fun to take a few interviews from 1978, Visions of Light from 93, and then some from now and plot a timeline that you can project further.

 

sounds like a neat project. have fun!

[Hal Smith]

Take the London security camera phenomenom to its logical extreme: Cameras everywhere in posts, walls, sidewalks, roads, overhead in street lights - all of them hooked up to a uber-wifi system. The interviews take place using whichever camera is closest to the interviewee or otherwise gives an interesting angle to the shot.

[Sam Wells]

That's _now_ Hal, in 15 years they'll have all our biometrics and cell phone calls in a database; if our interviewer can access the data he or she can just construct the interview in Maya version 19 :o

 

-Sam

[Kieran Scannell]

Take the London security camera phenomenon to its logical extreme: Cameras everywhere in posts, walls, sidewalks, roads, overhead in street lights - all of them hooked up to a uber-wifi system. The interviews take place using whichever camera is closest to the interviewee or otherwise gives an interesting angle to the shot.

 

Now that really annoys me! You-know when the best ideas come 2 days into the shoot!

 

Thanks anyway Hal I've written it down for "future" reference.

 

Thanks everyone! I thought it was an interesting question too!

 

Kieran.