Over exposing skin tones

[jon lawrence]

I read that in Buffalo 66 Lance Acord overexposed skin tones 2/3 of a stop and was curious to how this would be done. Would it be that rather than taking a incident reading of the face, you would take a reflected reading and then adjust exposure acordingly? How would this effect the exposure for the rest of the shot?

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

-Jon

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Well if you wanted to just over expose the face, you would light it brighter on it's own (or bring down the lighting on everything else). If you wanted to over-expose everything slightly, which I normally do, you can just figure what you want to expose for in the scene, take a reading, and open up 2/3rds of a stop.

What you expose for is subjective to the scene; e.g. would you over-expose a body in an INT night love scene if you wanted it dark and moody, or would you under-expose the body and let, say, a light in the b/g go slightly over exposed for some separation? There is no really 1 size fits all for all situations.

For myself, I over-expose (on 500T normally) in order to tighten up the film grain, knowing I can add in more contrast in the Telecine-- that's just me. Conversely, I don't over-expose, say, 250D, which I rate normally, or 200T (normally I take it @ 200, but sometimes I'd do it at 160/125).

[jon lawrence]

Thanks so much for the reply- answered my question fully :)

 

-Jon