Changing vapor lights to a blueish light

[Chris Saul]

I just saw Iron Man and there is a night scene where the street vapor lights are blue. What filters do you add on camera and what filters would you add on your lights you use to light the talent with? If you have the gel recipes for both tungsten and HMI that would be great!

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I haven't seen Iron Man (well I saw some of it on my last flight; then fell asleep), but certain vapor lights will render blueish cyan. Normally these are metal halide, as opposed to sodium vapor, which is your typical streetlight. This blueish cyan cast can then be pushed further in the grade.

[David Rakoczy]

They probably weren't 'vapor'.. but Halide (Blue/Greenish). You can then add CTO to your Talent Lamps so when the CTO is timed out the Halides will go Blue(er). Of course, shoot your Color Chart with the CTO added...

[Mike Williamson]

Of the common industrial lights, mercury vapor lights would give you a cyan (aka blue-green) color. It's also possible that you could get that color temperature from some metal halide lights.

 

There have been a number of posts about gel formulas for mercury vapor lights, check the archives as I know I've posted on the topic several times including Paul Camreron's gel formulas. A number of David Mullen's production journals have notes on different gel formulas that he's used as well.

 

You will not have much luck in terms of getting sodium vapor lights (which are usually orange or pinkish orange) to appear as anything other than orange or pinkish orange. They are discontinuous sources and only produce a very narrow spectrum of light, unlike daylight or a tungsten light which produces a full spectrum of color and can therefore be pushed in different directions. There's just nothing else there, so camera filters or lighting filters really won't do you much good.

[Serge Teulon]

There have been a number of posts about gel formulas for mercury vapor lights, check the archives as I know I've posted on the topic several times including Paul Camreron's gel formulas. A number of David Mullen's production journals have notes on different gel formulas that he's used as well.

 

 

Hi Mike,

 

i just did a search and nothing came back, either through a "gel formula" or a "paul cameron gel formula" search.

Any chance you can post a link?

 

Cheers

[Mike Williamson]

A search on "mercury vapor" worked for me. Here are three topics, many more available on that search.

 

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...l=mercury+vapor

 

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...l=mercury+vapor

 

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...l=mercury+vapor