Night exterior scene 1945

[Matteo Cocco]

Hello,

 

 

I´ll be shooting in a few weeks a TV-Movie set in 1945, just at the end of WWII. It´s not a movie about war, it´s mainly about the charachters. The general atmosphere is very intimate.

For the general look, I´ll mainly rely on soft but contrasty lighting sources simulating daylight coming through windows.

 

However, there´s a scene which I still don´t know how to light properly. The scene takes place at night in a street built in the studio backlot in Berlin, Babelsberg. This street has been used on the last Tarantino movie "Inglorious Basterds". There are going to be street lights, the director doesn´t want to wet the street and the budget doesn´t allow us to light from the top (eg with scissor lifts or similar).

That means all the light has to be on stands on the floor. We mainly have HMIs, but we´ll get Tungsten units for this shooting day (5ks, I guess...).

I´m not really worried about the close-ups. Do you have any suggestions for the wide shots? The idea is to maintain a very natural and soft look, without the scene to be overlit...

 

I would really appreciate any suggestion. If you need further details, I´ll be more than happy to tell you.

 

Thanks for your time.

[Ken Keeler]

Well you can still get lights pretty high without a condor or scissor lift, you can use crank-o-vator stands or use some sky high's as for a soft wide I would suggest a 12 or 20x frame with a silk I don't know how big the area is but that should do it and I would consider using something with more throw then a 5k depending on what your shooting on the silk would cut down a 5 k quick. maybe try either an 12 or 18k HMI cause you are competing with the sun also you can all ways put the frame set over head to and soften the sun but be careful of your background an other parts of the frame because the frame set will only cover so much. I hope this helps or gives ya some ideas. Its hard not seeing the location and know what your shooting on.

 

Ken

[Ale Reynoso]

try either an 12 or 18k HMI cause you are competing with the sun

 

Its hard not seeing the location and know what your shooting on.

 

Ken

 

Hello! At least a sketch of the location could be helpull in this cases.

It´s a night shot, isn´it?

Your first intention was to suspend big frames with difussion and light through/or bounced on them?

May be you can suspend them from the top of the buildings of the set? and hide lights on alleys or anything that would bounce on the frames?

helium baloons?

One or two rows of skirted chinaballs with 1K lamps each?....

Try to upload a photo of the set...

Good luck!!

Alejandro