getting rid of shadows on face !?!?

[sam williams]

hello friends,

 

i am fairly new to lighting studios, but i need some help evening out the shadows on the face of my actors. Im actually participating in a compositing project and i need to be able to replicate the lighting of an overcast day, so really diffuse with hardly any shadows.

 

However one of my actors in particular is very skinny and the shadows caused by his cheek bones are cast in strips down his face, making him look very skeletal and unnatractive. Is there a particular way of setting up the lights (with diffuse sheets on of course) so that you get a consistent diffuse lighting across the stage (where the actors are standing) so that there is always an even light across the face and creases in the clothing etc.

 

 

thanks,

 

 

sam

[robert duke]

The larger the source of light the softer the light. The more frontal the light the flatter the light.

[Kiarash Sadigh]

I once lit a studo with a number of source fours (around 25 to 35 if I remember correctly) shooting through 2x 12 by 12 silks, the first was about four feet away from the sources and the second about four feet away from the first silk, the entire studio was lit with this very diffused top light...

 

Another way of recreating overcast day light would be to shoot up your lights into big sheets of styrofoam or foamcore hung from the grids...the lights are on the floor aimed up at the ceiling.... and to stop light leak you can build a box of black around them i.e. 4by floppies etc...the goal is to have as big of a white bounce as possible...

good luck