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I was looking around online today and found a shot from burton's Sleepy Hollow. The image should be attatched.How much light from behind the camera was there? There's obviously some huge lights outside of the window but, for a shot like this, how much fill light would one need? Do you think any filters were used? I love this shot - especially the contrast and the deep black of the shadows cast by the coffin and the table. Can anyone guess at how this was composed?

post-2016-1098483592.jpg

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Hi,

 

Softsun outside the window, just above the visible level? It doesn't look point-sourcey, but it's casting sharp enough shadows on the window bay. Smallish bounce, maybe. By the angle of the shadow of the pipe on the wall, I get the feeling it's being filled by natural bounce off the floor, which is reasonable, considering much of the floor is burnt out.

 

Deep black shadows and blasted hilights are either a bleach bypass thing or a video thing! Also don't overlook the use of colour - it's practically monochrome.

 

Phil

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Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks slightly diffused to me, the way the light flares up. Something that also occurs with video, as Phil said.

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?Sleepy Hollow? was shot on Kodak's Vision 200T 5274. And they used some silver retention process called CCE. Which actually makes this image MORE contrasty then it was. It looks like they used one large source, perhaps a 10K or 20k, hung above the window and at least 30? away. That means it would have to be about 80? off the floor. Burton had some huge stages so this wasn?t impossible. I bet the hung it from a crane. You?d need to blow out the windows so they may have hung a 20? x 20? white grifflon out the window. It looks like they used a warming filter on the lens like a tobacco, chocolate, or Coral. But I believe they did color correction in the lab. It looks like they used a ¼ Black promist on the lens. But again I don?t think ?Sleepy Hollow? used diffusion. It looks like the image was filled by natural bounce off the floor.

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I'm pretty sure it was a higher angle than just out of sight... look at the shadow of the table on the floor. I think the only fill was natural bounce off the body, table and floor, and that the image was exposed for the talent's face recieving the bounce off the floor and the rest of the room, but with no direct light on it. Since much of the light was diffused in reflection, there was probably a 3 or 4 stop (possibly more) difference between his face and an area of direct exposure to the light.

 

I'd imagine that the color was done in digital post production, and that some of the contrasty feel of it was accentuated in digital intermediate as well, but I could be wrong.

 

The floors' diffusion I would attribute to over-exposure, obviously what they wanted.

 

...this is all IMHO, in any case.

 

-Kris

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I believe that scene was filled in by the bounce off of the soft back/toplight, which is overexposed. There may have been white frames of material like muslin or Ultrabounce by camera, not so much to shine a light onto, but to increase the general ambient fill level to compensate for the increase in contrast from the CCE process (silver retention) used in the prints. In other scenes, smoke was used to reduce contrast to compensate for the silver retention. Probably the video transfer used a normal 35mm IP and the silver retention look was simulated with color-correction.

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Wouldn't they have had to have a big white Gryff or a cyc wall behind those windows to get the blown out effect? I mean, you could shine a 100K down onto the set through that window but it's not going to blow it out unless they had tracing paper on them. Clearly they didn't because the light is so directional.

 

So I would assume that they used another big unit to blow out a backing opposite those windows.

 

Or were they shooting a big light through a big frame of some light diffusion straight into the room. As in if the diffusion frame wasn't there you would see the luminare outside the window.

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...not sure if there's something behind the glass, I would bet on it being underneath the light, just within sight, but not inbetween the light and the windows (probably with a separate light just to illuminate the white background). If you look at the shadows on the floor, they're a LITTLE diffused, but still, there are some hard edges. If he used a net, it must have been a THIN one, IMHO.

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My guess is that the big backlight is actually in the room just off frame above the pottery shelf and window. It might even be a horizontal mirror hung above the window with the light(s) closer to the center of the room and aimed at the mirror.

 

The white outside is probably just a hot cyc or something.

 

I also suspect there is a source similar in "shape" to the big backlight, but slightly more diffused, over the camera position pointed at the floor and table, and highly controlled with flags and such.

 

(I can't see any window pane shadows on the floor on this old laptop I'm typing on now. That would change my backlight theory if I could)

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Hey Daniel,

Whats with the gun anyway?

Why do'nt you let me do a real environmental portrait of you? You know

a man and his rifle. Right now the rifle is occluding your face sort like a

Mann Ray deal, know what I mean? Lets have a huge prop(polar bear)

behind you ever so slightly,softly out of focus. I'll use Kodak Ultra Color

and light you with key,fill,background light and a small accent light on the

rifle. I think rembrandt would be great to give you that rugged,safari,Ernest

Hemmingway look.

 

I love the rich blacks in this scene. I can see some details in blacks but

then they fall off in other areas. Its contrasty,I like it.

 

 

Greg Gross,Professional Photographer

Student Director of Photography

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What's a hot cyc?

 

 

A cyc is short for cyclorama, which is a stage you use to get the white 'limbo' effect. It covers the floor then curves up to connect with the wall and goes to the ceiling. Some bigger stages have them permanently built around 1 or 2 corners of the room. You can light the cyc various ways, Hot would be to over expose it so it's a blown out white. You could also light it with daylight units and it will look like sky outside the windows or doors.

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