negative fill

[kpv rajkumar]

what is negative fill ? can somebody explain when this becomes a necessity and how you set about finessing it ? many thanks in advance, rajkumar

[David Mullen ASC]

Negative fill just involves using black cards or cloth on frames off-camera to reduce the amount of ambient bounce lighting filling-in the shadows.

 

This is used often either on overcast days to create a little contrast, or in a white-walled room, for example, when the key light or backlight is bouncing back into the shadows and lowering the contrast too much, so you tape some black cloth over the white wall where the light is hitting it to get rid of the bounce-back.

[kpv rajkumar]

Negative fill just involves using black cards or cloth on frames off-camera to reduce the amount of ambient bounce lighting filling-in the shadows.

 

This is used often either on overcast days to create a little contrast, or in a white-walled room, for example, when the key light or backlight is bouncing back into the shadows and lowering the contrast too much, so you tape some black cloth over the white wall where the light is hitting it to get rid of the bounce-back.

 

thank you, dave. now i got it !

[Jess Haas]

Negative fill is also extremely useful in places such as supermarkets with lots of overhead lighting. If you don't need to bring the light level up you can often use a flag for a bit of negative fill and a bounce board to create better looking lighting without having to add any lights. Not always the right tool for the job but a great one to have in your bag of tricks.

 

~Jess

[David Mullen ASC]

Watch Robert Richardson's work in "Four Feathers" where he used a lot of negative fill shooting the desert scenes to make them harsher-looking, especially the fight on the sand dunes near the end.

[Mark Dunn]

I'm more of a Georges Périnal/ Osmond Borradaile 3-strip fan myself. And not a fan of remakes. Zoltan Korda's 1939 version was magnificently restored in the 90's without a DI in sight. Mind you, the claret looked more like Ribena.

[John Holland]

i expect it was .

[Leo Anthony Vale]

I'm more of a Georges Périnal/ Osmond Borradaile 3-strip fan myself. And not a fan of remakes. Zoltan Korda's 1939 version was magnificently restored in the 90's without a DI in sight. Mind you, the claret looked more like Ribena.

 

Have you seen Korda/T.young's CinemaScope remake, 'Storm over the Nile'?

 

I suspect Korda's co-directing credit is based strictly on the amount of footage and entire scenes blown up from the '39 version.

 

& IMDb lists Borradaile for "exterior photography in the Sudan". Ted Scaife as DP.

[Mike Williamson]

There's some good examples of negative fill in "The Thin Red Line" and "The Last Samurai". In those two films, Toll was generally shooting backlit or in soft skylight, so he used the negative fill to give some shape to the faces, you see it often as a darker edge on the near side of the face.

 

[Kevin Zanit]

Old topic that goes over much of the same, don't ask how I remembered it.

 

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...opic=794&st

 

Kevin Zanit

[Tom Lowe]

There's some good examples of negative fill in "The Thin Red Line" and "The Last Samurai". In those two films, Toll was generally shooting backlit or in soft skylight, so he used the negative fill to give some shape to the faces, you see it often as a darker edge on the near side of the face.

 

 

 

I learn something new here every day. :lol:

[Mark Dunn]

Have you seen Korda/T.young's CinemaScope remake, 'Storm over the Nile'?

 

I suspect Korda's co-directing credit is based strictly on the amount of footage and entire scenes blown up from the '39 version.

 

& IMDb lists Borradaile for "exterior photography in the Sudan". Ted Scaife as DP.

 

It's enjoyable enough if you can put up with Anthony Steel, but I'm not sure they even bothered to crop and squeeze the stuff they copied. It looked stretched to me.

 

Yes, definitely Ribena. And a granule or two of coffee in water looks more like Scotch than cold tea. Anyway, have you actually tried cold tea?

[robert duke]

It's enjoyable enough if you can put up with Anthony Steel, but I'm not sure they even bothered to crop and squeeze the stuff they copied. It looked stretched to me.

 

Yes, definitely Ribena. And a granule or two of coffee in water looks more like Scotch than cold tea. Anyway, have you actually tried cold tea?

 

 

Here is the south (usa that is ) we drink it sweet.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

It's enjoyable enough if you can put up with Anthony Steel, but I'm not sure they even bothered to crop and squeeze the stuff they copied. It looked stretched to me.

 

Also the Lithuanian actor Laurence Harvey is usually fun to watch.

 

Most of it was cropped and squeezed. The flag above the wall in the climactic battle was stretched out.

There was at least one shot of camels that had a break in a wall matted over it so it didn't have to be verticaly cropped.