12 mtr long white paper corridor light?

Daniel Urrutia · December 12, 2007

Hello. Im a student working on my final project on 35mm and I have to light a 12 mtr long and 3 mtr high white corridor that is made of paper. The idea all allong is to have a white soft light corridor so Im going for a 32x1k tungsten lights (one light every 75cm) bounced at white reflector boards 2x1mtr making a 2nd corridor about 75 cm from the paper. The problems are that the paper which was given to us free (Its a lot of paper so we cant just buy some) is giving me a 25 magenta so im thinking of making the 25 magenta my white. So then in the lab I can correct all of it to a neutral white. But im worried about the shadows. And the second problem is to get even light for the whole corridor so I can get it to be 4 or 5 stops over my neutral grey. Im shoting on Eterna 400T. Any tips, sugestions and help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Daniel Urrutia · December 12, 2007

No one?! <_<

Chris Keth · December 13, 2007

The color correction issue isn't a problem. Your solution will work fine. The problem here is one of quantity of light. A baby every 75cm is not going to do the job on a 3 meter tall paper hallway if you want it 4 or 5 stops over key. I'm guessing to get that sort of level of light, you would need maybe 4 6k HMI pars. Two for each side of the corridor. Maybe more than that, especially if the paper is thick.

Daniel Urrutia · December 13, 2007

The problem here is one of quantity of light. A baby every 75cm is not going to do the job on a 3 meter tall paper hallway if you want it 4 or 5 stops over key. I'm guessing to get that sort of level of light, you would need maybe 4 6k HMI pars. Two for each side of the corridor. Maybe more than that, especially if the paper is thick.

Thank you for your input. I was worried the the magentas would become a problem in the shadows.

Yes the paper takes 2 stops, but I can´t afford 4 6k HMI nor I have the distance to set them up correctly (I have a wall 1mtr allong one of the paper walls).

And I would like a very soft light that fades in the middle of the corridor so Im boucing the light on 2x1mtr white porexpan sheets. I think Im in trouble.

Maby I could use the fade to the top and bottom in my favour but I dont like it.

Hmmm... :blink:

Kiarash Sadigh · December 18, 2007

Your main hallway paper material should be good enough for diffusion, and even better if you take your lights as far back as possible, I don't think you need to bounce those lights before sending them through the main paper. I would say that you need more lamp heads though, if there are no more at your school or no budget to rent a good few Blondes then I would go to Home Depot and buy 500w work lights and then you can return them after you''re done...that's what we did at film school ;)

Another way of bringing up your overall brightness is to use a smoke machine inside the studio...when light hits the particles in the air, each particle turns into a reflecting material...very effective.

hope it helps.

Daniel Urrutia · December 22, 2007

Thank you Kiarash!

I tried directing them towards the paper bur i get to many hot spots and the reflected light solves that at the cost of Steps.

The smoke idea is great, I will think about it further, keeping the smoke under controll is allways the problem, you allways end up with to much here and to little there, and the set is big with wide shots. Any ideas on how to keep smoke difuse and steady in the set wit only a couple of cheap smoke machines?

Chris Keth · December 22, 2007

Thank you Kiarash!

I tried directing them towards the paper bur i get to many hot spots and the reflected light solves that at the cost of Steps.

Do you know how to blend together multiple sources so they appear to be one?

Kiarash Sadigh · December 22, 2007

If taking your lights far back and flooding them won't get rid of the spots on the paper then you want to perhaps bouce it off of a big ( I'd say two six by's on each side) piece of silver or white foam core...this needs less labour than building an entire second hallway around your original one and gives you more control as in where to point your bounce....it'll also make all those small sources appear as one big one.

You also don't need to smoke too much to bring your overall brighness up a bit...I think a single smoke machine will do....just remmeber to have at least one person dedicated to wafting...they can use a solid flag or whatever to control the smoke....you gotta run the smoke machine...waft it a little then roll camera and you sort of have to rely on your digital stills of each set up ( continuty person?) to be able to repeat the same density of smoke...remember that the longer the focal length the less smoke you need....also the drection of your lights will vary that too: if your smoke is back-lit then you see a lot of it...but there is nothing super tricky about it...