light with no light

[Ram Shani]

hi

 

i am shooting a drama and need to do a top shot of the actress laying in bad at night with no lights and still see here and that she is awake.

i am shooting with sony z-7 minipro and arri T/2.1 LENSES

 

any tip of how much underexposed what light to use?(i am thinking 4-bank kino)

 

it's two shoots with dissolve. one is night and then early morning.

 

i need to do the transition

 

any idea will be great

[Steve McBride]

I would put a light outside of an open window and put a blue filter in front of it and make sure the window has the wooden framing in it so that you can get the shadows cast on the girl. Then for the transition you can do the same thing with a tungsten light through the window.

 

Also think about light coming from a digital clock, a TV/ computer that was left on. You can get good shots and lighting from a TV with the flicker, just make sure for when it's night everything is tinted towards a cooler color (blue).

[John Brawley]

hi

 

i am shooting a drama and need to do a top shot of the actress laying in bad at night with no lights and still see here and that she is awake.

i am shooting with sony z-7 minipro and arri T/2.1 LENSES

 

any tip of how much underexposed what light to use?(i am thinking 4-bank kino)

 

it's two shoots with dissolve. one is night and then early morning.

 

i need to do the transition

 

any idea will be great

 

Steve has the right idea with using cooler colour tempretures.

 

I tend to try and be very edgy and softly backlit so that you have a lot of darkness *to* camera, but you can still see the shapes of things. I don't think it's so much about underexposing, as creating a lot of dark areas (shadow) with some edges so you can still see the shape of things.

 

By top shot, do you mean from above the bed ? So you can try and use your kino to skim across the bed from the side, but being a soft source it will tend to spray around a bit. I'd probably look at something a little harder here. You can easily create some darkness around her face, and use a very small point light close to camera as an eyelight. I like using dedo's for this on a dimmer....

 

jb

[Adrian Sierkowski]

It also might help to give her skin a little bit of a sheen, not too much, but just slightly glisten-ey, almost. I think the scene in the 300 was like that and it appealed to me, but I cant recall @ 720 am. . .

definitely cooler color schemes.

[Ram Shani]

thanks all

 

yes it's a top shot only bad.

it's shot in day so window has to be closed.

no light source at all total black.

for shore cooler color scheme.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Be sure to get a good eyelight to make those eyes sparkle, so we see clearly that her eyes are open and any emotion she might be showing with those eyes is noticeable.

 

A kino hanging over the camera might be enough both to "not light" or front light your scene so it's still underexposed and not stylized to look like it's lit. Plus it'll provide that eyelight.

[Brian Shaw]

it's shot in day so window has to be closed.

 

 

How about laying a load of ND gel on the window till it's dim enough, then just control what comes in and create shadows that are completely black for most of the frame.

[timHealy]

thanks all

 

yes it's a top shot only bad.

it's shot in day so window has to be closed.

no light source at all total black.

for shore cooler color scheme.

 

Your approach is a bit off.

 

You need some kind of light to have an exposure. The trick is to light it in such a way that it appears to be dark. That is what cinematographers do. If you have no light in a room with closed doors and windows you might as well leave your lens cap on. Or use black footage over dialogue.

 

By lighting it, using the right color, some break up for the light you can make it appear to be dark and night.

 

Good luck

 

Best

 

Tim

[John Brawley]

thanks all

 

yes it's a top shot only bad.

it's shot in day so window has to be closed.

no light source at all total black.

for shore cooler color scheme.

 

 

Well there's real darkness and "film" darkness isn't there....

 

If it's a day shoot then build a tent from blacks that extends away from the window. Then you can place your *night* souce, be it moonlight or street light or ambience whatever and you can still light through the window. Brian's suggestion of using ND is also an excellent idea, which ive done many times before. If you tungsten balance the camera, it'll come through blue anyway.

[Steve McBride]

I'll try to find the video where this idea comes from for you as it will probably explain it better.

 

Take you light, whatever you choose, and put a frame infront of it on a c-stand and cross gaffers tape horizontally across it, then add the blue filter infront of the light. When you use the two together you get a phoenician blind feel as well as the cool color of the blue.

[Frank Barrera]

A fairly standard "No light" light is a bounce board (usually white side bead board 4X4 or 4X8) directly over camera with a 2K Mighty w/ full (or double) CTB and on a dimmer to dial it in just right. Naturally with video you need a bit more signal than you may think.

 

the bounce will give you that eye light twinkle.

 

an unmotivated edge or slash on a wall is not a bad idea so the image has some contrast. a "dark room" looks gd on paper but not do much on tv.

[Ram Shani]

thanks for the replays

 

this is what i did i bounced to the ceiling 4-bank daylight kino +FULL CTB

 

and from far to the side i put barfly200 daylight on low angel

 

for the morning i just open the window a little let the light create pattern on the red curtain.(it look like brush stork of paint)

 

it look good on the monitor.

just hope that if we do need a little CC it wont fall apart

[David Mullen ASC]

The thing to keep in mind is that unless you are balancing with some source in the frame with a limited intensity (candle, flashlight, etc.) then just because the scene is very dark and in real life, takes place in very low levels of illumination, doesn't mean you have to use very low levels of illumination. It doesn't really matter if you bounce a Dedolight off of the ceiling versus a 5K, it just affects what stop you use and how many stops of underexposure you need to get the effect you want.

 

Plus generally it looks better to not underexpose as much as you'd like and finish the last bit of darkening in post, to reduce noise / grain problems.

[Ram Shani]

thank David

 

i see your point and i agree.

 

i decided to go with the kino looked at the monitor and camera histogram

i was something like 1 1/2 stop under

the set was dark curtains and bad-poop