Eye Bar lighting, How to?

Jay Young · August 13, 2008

So I was thinking about light the other day, and I have a scene in which the damsel heroin has a tight close up. I wanted to light her softly and difused but I also wanted to use the eye bar effect where it looks as tho a bar of light which is brighter than the rest goes across her face.

Whats the best way to do this? Flag the secondary key off to just the position I want it?

Maybe dim the first key and have the secondary key less dim or full power?

Take a look at this attachment. This are the best examples I could find.

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j296/Brulin/miranda.jpg

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j296/Brulin/romulan.jpg

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j296/Brulin/amoktpau.jpg

Anyone familier with Star Trek: TOS knows what I am talking about.

Thoughts?

Edited August 13, 2008 by Jay Young

Dominic Cochran · August 13, 2008

I've done it before with a homemade Cinefoil snoot on a tweenie or baby on a dimmer. If you wrap it lengthwise you can get a nice long snoot for a hard edge, or crinkle the front edge of the black-wrap to break it up. For a softer edge you can put some opal on the end.

Michael Collier · August 13, 2008

You could also use just one key light, and use two double nets to cut the light off the forehead and lower part of the face. Also you could use a source-4 and use the blades to shape the light, if you want a hard light. If you want the light quality softer, I would just use one key and two 3x doubles farther away from the light.

John Brawley · August 13, 2008

So I was thinking about light the other day, and I have a scene in which the damsel heroin has a tight close up. I wanted to light her softly and difused but I also wanted to use the eye bar effect where it looks as tho a bar of light which is brighter than the rest goes across her face.

Whats the best way to do this? Flag the secondary key off to just the position I want it?

Dedo actually make an accessory for their projection attachments for this very purpose. I've not really bothered with this as there are other ways to do it, but this will give you a very precise way of doing this. The porjection attcahment is probably easier to actually come by, and you can do something simialr by setting up the shape you want using the little cutters. I've also done some cool stuff by cutting a shape into a bit of cinefoil or blackwrap and projecting through that. You can then diffuse or de-focus from there.

Dedo Eyelight accessory

jb

Tom Banks · August 13, 2008

I usually take a 12" by 12" piece of blackwrap and cut a tiny slit through the middle (about 3" long). The slit doesn't have to be more than a few millimeters wide. Then rig the blackwrap with a C-Stand or something with the cut going horizontal. Then take whatever size unit appropriate (the slit will knock it down quite a bit) and focus it through the slit so that the light coming through lands on the eyes. Depending on how far away the black wrap is from the light, the harder or softer the cut will be. Then just poke at the slit to widen it or make it narrower. This is pretty easy. The hard part is getting the actor to stay on their mark and making sure their movement doesn't give away the "eye bar". The more movement they might have in the shot, the softer I go with the cut.

J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR · August 14, 2008

Good thing you used Star Trek examples because I think many, many people refer to this effect as a "Kirk Light." I know I do. If you search the site for Kirk light I bet you will get lots of info.

Jay Young · August 14, 2008

So I did a search for "Kirk Light" and it only came up with 5 or 6 hits on this site, and NONE on any other search engine.

However on reading those posts, I do believe that is the effect I am going for. The best example I could find though was Angelica Huston in the Adams Family (1991). This is so amazing and I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

Seems like Harry Potter 2 did this as well, but that was not even close to the look I want.

Thanks for the ideas, now its testing time.

Michael Belanger · August 14, 2008

Here's a link to an article about Gerald Perry Finnerman, the DP for Star Trek, Moonlighting, etc. No mention of the eye light effect in particular, but lots of good info about cross lighting, color, diffusion, etc.

Gerald Perry Finnerman

Thanks to Curt McAloney of StarTrekHistory.com for the link.

Mitch Gross · August 14, 2008

Best to use some Hampshire or other extremely weak diffusion to take the edge off this lighting effect.

Mitch Gross · August 14, 2008

Best to use some Hampshire or other extremely weak diffusion to take the edge off this lighting effect.

J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR · August 17, 2008

So I did a search for "Kirk Light" and it only came up with 5 or 6 hits on this site, and NONE on any other search engine.
However on reading those posts, I do believe that is the effect I am going for. The best example I could find though was Angelica Huston in the Adams Family (1991). This is so amazing and I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

Seems like Harry Potter 2 did this as well, but that was not even close to the look I want.

Thanks for the ideas, now its testing time.

Well maybe we invented that term here then. :P Good luck!