Post one of your setups

[Stuart Brereton]

the problem is getting the highlights sufficiently over that exposure to look in any way hot or bright - you pump kilowatts at it and it never rises above a kind of uninteresting mid-grey murkiness.

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Those highlights are a specular refelection of the overhead fluorescents. You spot meter them, decide how bright/burnt out you want them to be, and adjust your exposure accordingly. With a 500asa stock and some fast lenses you would have no problem at all shooting with the existing fixtures.

 

Stuart

[drew_town]

Those highlights are a specular refelection of the overhead fluorescents. You spot meter them, decide how bright/burnt out you want them to be, and adjust your exposure accordingly. With a 500asa stock and some fast lenses you would have no problem at all shooting with the existing fixtures.

 

Stuart

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

True. I wonder how the depth of field would change with that setup. I don't think the shot would have been near as effective if the end of the hallway were out of focus. Which would lend to a setup more like Phil's thinking where you'd brighten up the hotspots on the floor. A wide angle lens wouldn't be the answer because the framing would drastically change. The hallway was roughly 100 feet long.

[Stuart Brereton]

I'm going to take a reasonably informed punt at this and say that with 500asa, the fluorescents themselves would spot meter at about T45. If we assume that their reflections in the floor would read 2 stops less than this, we have a reflected reading of T22. To render this as white,as in the picture, we would open up to T8, or wider.

 

Even if the the reflections were 4 stops less than the tubes themselves, we could still shoot at about T2.4 or T4.

 

Without knowing what your camera setup was for the shot, it's difficult to say how another would differ. But it's obviously not necessary to shoot wide open in a film setup.

 

If we want to go further and really burn out the reflections, we can. We can open up more, and then print down to recover the deep shadows close to camera.

 

All of this possible without "gigantic amounts of power" or "pumping kilowatts at it" or even ultra fast lenses.

 

Stuart

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Yes, yes, I know all that, but you're rather elegantly avoiding the issue; I'd have loved to have the sunlight in that old tosh I shot be more like three stops over than one, but the lens doesn't go that far. And that was a 2K Arri tungsten fresnel from about ten feet away. What d'you want, fer chrissake?

 

Phil

[Stuart Brereton]

How am I avoiding the issue? I've just explained that there is more than enough light to shoot this. You don't need lenses that open up to t0.7 or whatever.

 

You're not trying to take an incident reading off these reflections. you're exposing for the reflections themselves.

 

I can't remember what stock you ended up using on your short, so I can't comment on what exposures you were getting.

 

Stuart

[Bill Totolo]

Here's some stills I took.  Both are really, really simple setups where some nice natural things happened to work out for me.

 

 

On this one I benefitted from the wickedly cool steel blue flourescents that you can see in the frame.  I supplemented it with a china ball with a 250w Photoflood 4800k bulb and I think some 1/4 CTB, but I'm not sure about that.  I would have loved for a dedo or such so that I could only have hit the girl, but alas, this is all I had available at the time.  The light in the hall in the hall in the background is just a clamplight with 1/2 CTB on it and I think a 150w 3200k bulb.  Shot on Kodak Portra 160VC.

 

 

This one is about as simple as it gets, almost entirely in natural light supplemented by a 750w strobe with a softbox in front of it to give her the wrap you see around her body.  The blue smear on the wall is from my crappy scanner.  Also shot on Portra 160VC.

 

Oh, and a note on both of these, when I scan them into my computer the contrast is upped notably and they tend to get a little dark, so these images aren't 100% of what you get but it's enough to give you an idea.

 

Here are two stills from the same scene in a feature I shot last august, on the DVX100a.

 

 

This first one is one light, a 150w dedo with full CTB on it, mounted on top of the set (about 10 ft high).  The computer screen is a composite, there was a green screen mounted in that space that was lit with a 2x2 kino.  The spill from the screen worked nicely with the green letters on the computer.

 

 

This one is just a reverse CU of the previous shot, same 150W dedo but with 251 in front of it to be a bit nicer to the actress.  For the letters of the computer screen, the director programmed a string of blurred letters and numbers to run vertically, with intermittent red spots representing the names of people who have deceased.  We hooked his laptop up to an LCD Projector and simply ran the program, and the projector made a dandy eyelight.

 

edit: now resized, sorry about that

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Love those shots, Tim.

[Guest Tim van der Linden]

Love those shots, Tim.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks, Bill! It means a lot to get a compliment from a working professional such as yourself, there will definitely be more to come. Now it's your turn ;)

[Guest will]

These are just head shots, but that's what the spot called for.

 

Sam is lit mainly by one available flourescent.

 

Terry is standing in front of a screen lit by a 2k

open face fixture. There is half a 4x4 Kino (half blocked

by large flag produce square light source) off the

left of the frame and another 4x4 (bare bulbs)

about 10 ft back and to the right.

 

 

-will

[Rolfe Klement]

Very very nice shots Will and great characters.

 

My only tiny thing would be to bring a tiny eyelight on Sam - but if it was intentional to leave it out then...

 

thanks

 

Rolfe

[Guest will]

Thanks Rolfe.

 

but if it was intentional to leave it out then...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We were going for strong and masculine since most of the other spots are warm n' fuzzy stuff for nurses, etc. (Trying to show variety of positions in a healthcare facility.)

 

-will

[Bill Totolo]

Let's give this a shot...

 

[Mike Pecci]

So here is a great example of getting lucky. I was recently tested on an extremely low budget feature at a ?slightly? controlled location. Basically we didn?t have control of this diner until after 3PM..but the production had us show up two hours early to basically do what we always do in film?wait. The script called for the actors to be in front of a giant front window during the day. Well shooting this in the dead of January in New England means the sun is useless by 3:30 and that I would have a BIG set-up ahead of me and not the time or amount of crew for it. So I sat waiting? and watching this family finish their meal in front of the window drooling over the light set-up the God had provided. It was perfect, and I was sad because I knew there was no way I could recreate that with the tools I had. So as soon as that family finished their last bite I hustled the crew and was able to jam out the scene just barely before the sun died. It?s one of my favorite set-ups in the film and I will lie my ass off about how long it took us to light it when asked. With lighting sometimes you just get lucky.

 

Shot on XL-2 with mini55 and Zeiss super speed primes.

 

 

[Guest fstop]

Continuously great work, guys! I love the diversity of the work, everyone has something to say!!!

 

I've decided to post some of my stuff to kind of show the community where I am at - If you've read any of my posts you'll know I'm more interested in the art history of cinematography and am not a techno-wizard like the majority of those who have already posted in this thread.

 

ALL of these are ungraded and from the DXC35+DSR1 camera as a sub for Sony's DSR500. Both projects production budgets were £1000 and in the 20 minute region running time wise, shot over a weekend.

 

This first bunch of images are from a ghost story short I shot last October/November that is STILL in post, crawling slowly towards it's completion- this was alot of fun as the director is fantastic and cares more about the script, characters, storyboarding and plot and completely trusts me with a look we both agree on. The guy is decisive, assertive and with a vision. I got to use practically every trick in the book and we did all the driving scenes in camera as poor man's process shots.

 

I shot everything with a high contrast ratio designed for photochemical- I didn't want to tip toe around highlights, I wanted to play with the clipping, do something different- and was encouraged to go with the warmer colours I established in the first scenes shot (a motif that is explored in the interior house scenes) which made some sequences really noisey but visually interesting. Infact I was feeling hesitant about this instinctive approach but our sound guy came over while we setting up and assured me not to doubt myself. When the least pretentious person on our set tells the most pretentious he's doing great work, who could argue? :D

 

All of these ghost story short shots use a #2 black promist and a denier 10/8 net behind the lens, f2.8 or wider.

 

I rarely used any fill throughout because the driving shots would get reflections from the angles we were shooting and compromise the contrast, although for the prosthetic shots I bounced some in (or else it looks fake)- this is just lit by a 550w HMI (uncorrected) to the right backlighting the rain and the artistes, an 800w fresnel backlight.

 

 

 

 

Here's my homage to Sergio Salvati (ripped straight off Fulci's The Beyond (E tu vivrai nel terrore L'aldilà) and Herb Ritt's LIVE TO TELL - trying to get it borderline burned out and then straight to black- this is the same 55ow HMI but with a few layers of muslin on the barn doors to soften everything up slightly :

 

 

 

 

Poor man's process- this is the same HMI/800w set up described above albeit with a child's windmill placed before the HMI to get some strobe in which worked with the bleed of the lens diffusion to create the illusion of movement:

 

 

 

A big fat Carravagio rip-off- the same HMI/800w set up, but just let her move from the dark into the light:

 

 

 

 

A big fat Unsworth/Watkin and every other of my heroes rip-off- smoked sets, lens diffusion and soft light from behind (the only thing I used beside the practical was a 2K behind the wall to the left bounced into the ceiling uncorrected):

 

 

 

 

Old fashioned, hard and theatrical - something nice, dated and fake to upset Michael Nash and Phil Rhodes ;) (same HMI/800w setup) :

 

 

 

This was hard to balance the smoke and keep it consistent- would've loved to have gone crazier and done an Excalibur forest scene with silouhettes and shafts of light from the practicals, however it would have undermined the performances and the story- this is just a 2K behind the camera fired into the ceiling ND'd slightly (the spread more than the illumination is what I was after) the practical is behind the talent:

 

 

 

Our make-up artist was so good, I actually couldn't tell the black bags were fake on set (assumed the actor had been up all night partying), so I had a 2K bounced into a bleached white sheet at the other side of the room to take it away! I really beat myself up about it- It was only during shooting I was told the director wanted the guy to look far more restless- there's a practical behind the actor's head to the right and to the left against the wall a metre or so back is my poor gaffer holding out a bleached cloth bouncing a 2K:

 

 

 

This was actually done as a steadicam shot tracking across the vehicle, and our operator Jason Torbitt did such an astounding job that it actually looked like the car was driving off! (lit from the left by one HMI):

 

 

 

Here's a couple of shots from another short I shot breakneck in oneday (To show my "range" ;) ), poorly sheduled largely improvised and set in a clinic waiting room - The film itself was an experiment and perhaps doesn't really work given the mixed tone which made it harder to realise (doco-drama romcom that goes from fluffy light to handling issues - one minute it's a TV sitcom, the next gritty), there were politics, there was no scout, no planning due to the tight budget and the fact it was worked out on weekends with everyone miles apart, no tests, no crew meeting prior with the director, decisions made in rehearsals discarded before takes, monumental pressure, a naive two camera set up (static A camera and one continuously moving steadicam/B camera, although this rarely worked out) with 12 actors in a room at one time- the aspect ratio we decided to shoot in was a mistake, IMO, and we should have had something more 4:3 - Keith Mottram made a bang-on point in another thread I learned on this and that is that if you are going to go with something more widescreen the art direction must also support the frame. The framing for continuously moving steadicam doesn't always benefit in screengrab form either and made compositions harder for both operators during multiple takes in widescreen, having to avoid filming each other! In my naivety I wanted to make it photogenic from any angle without looking flat, but of course the very nature of this kind of tracking is that not every shot will be a great image in itself, it's more about movement.

 

so 1.2K HMI bounced onto large reflective white covered ceiling with real kicker and some bounce from the HMI (which is actually to the right of the shot facing forwards up to the ceiling):

 

 

I chose to light as one set up (1.2K HMI bounced off foamcore/muslin/white paper taped to the ceiling, so the steadicam could go anywhere without casting shadows and to replicate the look of clinic flo strip lights) also using available window light as a kicker- of course I didn't want to play it safe, wanted the fill lower to avoid the standard BBC sitcom look when I could (even though there were many f5.6 steadicam shots where many artistes were in focus all at once), but as the shedule changed and their were delays or problems it got on so I had to fight the sun dying down too. As we all know, it's hard to bury your instincts, especially when you are tearing yourself apart trying to meet the shedule! We've all been there, desperately throwing everything together with what feels like a timebomb on your heart all in a mad blur.

 

my crew just did an unbelievable job and regardless of wether the film and it's images stand up I'm very proud of the work we did- It was REALLY ambitious photographically on a very ambitious project thatshouldn't have been made the way it was and the guys did everything I asked for and then some in a very uncomfortable situation. Sure if we'd had that extra day we lost it might've been a different story, but we would have also (wrongly) forever depended on future experiences being a smoothride. We all learned a ridiculous amount and while the film itself and it's visuals aren't a patch on the Ghost film (even if that's apples to oranges), I think it's important to celebrate work that not neccessarily looks GREAT but personal failures you learn from. This is a personal failure I stand by, and our crew did the best job possible given the circumstances - I wouldn't trade the experience for anything else! It is of course a highly collaborative artform, and I have been really lucky in my infancy below first rung.

 

I know Jason Torbitt is a regular at the steadicam forum but I'd just like to speak up for how much patience, talent, enthusiasm, passion, stamina and professionalism this guy possesses - great work Jason! B)

 

 

 

So there you go- two completely different projects both of which I'd (obviously) do a million things differently for if given the chance again and I don't think I got it 100% right for either, however no regrets, I'm proud of the work and I look forward to doing something entirely new (photographically and storywise) for the future!

 

Check out the minisites for both films (GUM and ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS) HERE if you are interested in seeing more images/ learning about the shorts.

 

 

 

 

A big thankyou to everyone here who answered my questions in relation to these shots, gave me help and continue to do so on this forum and off it - I cannot emphasise how lucky we small fish are having access to such a resourceful info-village!

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

Tim, do you always go about your lighting thinking, "I'm ripping off so and so?" Doesn't seem like a good frame of mind to work in.

[Bill Totolo]

These are very simple setups. Mostly shot on miniDV cameras ranging from Canon XL1 to Panasonic DVX100. The Jon Voight shot was obviously shot in a studio, it was just a neat moment where we captured some emotions.

 

 

 

 

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Tim, do you always go about your lighting thinking, "I'm ripping off so and so?"  Doesn't seem like a good frame of mind to work in.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

He's a little like me in that we have this massive catalog of movie frames in our heads... I don't set out usually to copy something but often AFTER I have lit it, it reminds me of something else (of course -- since there are few truly unique shots or lighting techniques that have never been done.)

 

It's interesting to me that really heavy diffusion is often more acceptable for small screen work but on the large screen, you have to pull back a little more because resolution becomes more of a factor (i.e. you want more of it.) I liked the shots but I'd never get away with combining a net and heavy ProMist in my work except for a dream sequence or flashback. But it seems to me that one advantage of heavier diffusion in video work is that it calls attention to itself in a way that distracts you from the video look, plus some of the artifacts of diffusion remind one of film in an odd way.

 

Nice work! It does have a somewhat retro feeling though, sort of 1970's horror-film (the good ones).

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

(of course -- since there are few truly unique shots or lighting techniques that have never been done.)

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's what I was getting at. If I feel I may be inadvertantly copying something or even intentionally trying too, I like to embrace the techniques employed yet see where I can take it. His frames are very rich looking, nice.

[Stas Tagios]

Here are some grabs from a horror short I'm directing.

 

 

 

 

In the first, key is a 1k shooting through a window from the right. Another 1k shooting through a window in the right b.g. illuminating the lamp on the shelf. Shot on DVX100, using 3200 white balance preset, and color-corrected in FCP to desaturate, boost contrast, and blue up the image for a low-key "blue night" look. We didn't gel the lights with CTB since we didn't want to cut the output of our lights.

 

In the second, key is a 1k on frame right, fill is a Westcott reflector frame left, bouncing back the 1k. Another 1k shooting through blinds on a C-stand from down the hall, hitting the wall on frame right.

 

In the third, cabinet in f.g. is keyed from frame left with a 1k shooting through blinds. Hall in b.g., behind silhouetted actor is lit with a 650 open face, positioned directly behind the actor, at the far end of the hall. Actor is holding a Surefire flashlight. A 150 is off frame right, aimed at the edge of the cabinet, to give some kick to the actor's leather glove when he puts his hand on the cabinet to open it.

 

For the most part, we've tried to keep our "moonlight" direction consistent with the geography of our location, but opted to cheat it when it made for a better shot, rather than worry too much about maintaining the reality of one source, since this fits with the film's horror/fantasy tone.

[Phil Rhodes]

Wow, it's "Underworld!"

[Jonathan Spear]

""Wow, it's "Underworld!"""

 

:rolleyes:

 

looks really cool, Stas.

good job.

 

 

hey phil, those S16 frames you put up a while back?

 

thery weren't that great...

[drew_town]

That's probably the cleanest set of stills pulled from a DVX100 I've seen yet, Stas Tagios. I've seen a lot of murky looking footage shot on that camera. The stills also have a nice contrast to them.

 

fstop, really good set of stills. I like the woman in the car with the flowers the best. The heavy diffusion really does make them a style all their own.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> thery weren't that great...

 

No, they weren't "not that great" - they were absolutlely rotten.

 

Phil

[Jonathan Spear]

aw c'mon..

 

they were pretty cool.

 

slightly uninspired maybe...

 

but better than anything i've done so far.

[Guest fstop]

Bill T-

The Hollywood producer shot is beautiful! How come you get all the best shoots? :D I also love your bedroom shot with the heavy areas of shade- your video stuff is really sharp and the colours are very pleasing to the eye!

 

Stas-

Your DP is doing one helluva job! That close up of the guy's face with all the pores visible is quite powerful - let us know how this one goes!

 

David and J Lamar-

Yeah, exactly what David said- being art history obsessives in aheavily post-modern society it's in our blood- I mentioned Salvati in my close up shot, but when I was shooting I just went and did it, it was only months later when I was watching The Beyond again the shot I was obviously inspired by reappeared and I started to blush!! I do however absolutely hate it when copycat homage is intentional because it's just both pointless and a great direspect to the original artist. It's one thing if David Mullen borrows lighting principals from Storaro he admires to make his own work, it's another thing for him to go off and recreate the Valkyrie chopper scene from Apocalypse Now out of context when filming a helicopter blowing things up.

 

About diff and video-

I have learned SO much from two brilliant video DPs here in the UK who do some of the best stuff on TV right now, Rob Kitzmann and Andy Hollis- I can't get enough of their digitbeta stuff shot through heavy promists, these guys are amazing and I'd love to get to learn directly from them someday because I think it's guys like them who are gonna move the eventual transition from film to video.

 

I was actually only going to use nets for flashbacks in the ghost story (only keeping the #2 black promist on throughout), but due to time (having to pull that fallapart lens out everytime) it was impractical. There was actually a close up I wanted to do in REALLY soft focus, having opened up to f1.5 or whatever it was (on what i recall was a pretty soft ENG style zoom which I prefer to more high clarity lenses for video) with the net and promist along with the soft focus I wanted to smear vaseline on the lens- however we didn't have enough time. Shame, because it would've looked REALLY ghostly.

 

I wanted to shoot the clinic short with little if no diffusion and had I shot film it would have definitely have been shot for the most part clean. I've found a #2 is a must for making DV look good, and that's all I had on the clinic film, but as every projects has it's own look and rules (and you can never do the same thing twice ever- my sig ;) ) I'd be more interested in going with something cleaner for my next project, and making that sharper DV look/feel great in it's own right. The ghost short was a fun project and the hyper diffusion aided the story most effectively, but that's where that look stays - gotta create soemthing completely different from scratch for everything in the future.

 

David- interesting comments about image clarity standards in film - reminds me of Unsworth's Lucky Lady and how Leslie Halliwell found the softness so intrusive he called it "washed out photography". Could you get away with such obvious formal experimentation today?

 

Thanks for the kind words everyone btw :)

Edited April 22, 2005 by fstop

[David Mullen ASC]

Heavy diffusion fell out of fashion by the 1980's at the same time as high-speed film was introduced, a bad combination (compare the original "Terminator" shot with Low-Cons to the second film shot clean, both by Adam Greenberg. The second is less grainy and sharper for a number of reasons.) Plus styles had changed, from diffusion to smoke then to neither.

 

Look at how some people complained about the combination of diffusion and fast film in the movie "Sideways"...

 

Now that we have finer-grained films again, and we've had "sharp" photography for awhile now, we may see more diffusion used again as a new style -- on the other hand, the softness of 2K digital intermediates is sort of a limiting factor again in terms of how much softness we can add to an already "soft" post process.

 

But we still have DP's who like filtration, like Robert Richardson, Andrew Dunn... and we've had fantasy films like LOTR and the Star Wars prequels that occasionally resort to a diffused look. And of course, there was "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", the most recent example of heavy digital diffusion at work.