lighting people in doorways, etc.

[David Mullen ASC]

Here's a little thing I've learned over the years. I always had problems in film school lighting people's faces when they were standing looking through a crack in the door. Since most doors are white, all I ever got was a well-lit door and if the light wasn't perfectly flat, the door or door jam would shadow their face. The problem is that when people are looking through a crack in a wall, or a hole or window, etc. their face is mostly up against a wall.

 

So in my second feature, "Lipstick Camera", I had this scene where a young woman opens a closet door and the camera was inside looking out. Since the shot begins with the door shut, I couldn't justify any frontal light because you'd see it on the door before it opened. I though about dimming up a light as she opened the door but that would look odd. So I ended up backlighting her and putting some white paper on the outer, off-camera side of the door, so she gets lit by her backlight bouncing back into her face. As she leans forward she goes out of this bounce into silhouette. The scene was shot on Fuji F-250D with a Coral filter. This is from a DVD.

 

 

 

 

A few years later, I used the same trick to light Michelle Hicks' face as she looks through a porthole in a hotel room door in "Twin Falls Idaho" (Fuji F-250T, from a DVD.) As you can see, her face is right up against the door yet there's light all over her face. You can even see the white paper reflected in her eyeballs.

 

 

[Chris Keth]

Wow, those look beautiful. Thank you for posting all these tips with pictures lately. I've picked up so many things in the last couple weeks. David Mullen, you rock! B)

[Allen Achterberg]

hmm, Im trying that! thanks man haha

[Wendell_Greene]

Thanks David! Viewing your frame grabs and reading about your creative solution to lighting is like having our very own "Reflections" online. Please continue.

[Justin Hayward]

For me, it?s always completely flat or I?d convince the director to re-block.

 

I?m surprised how much exposure a small white bounce provided. I guess the backlight was pretty hot though. For "Lipstick Camera", did you expose for the fill (adjusting the backlight accordingly)? Is the fill about a stop under (maybe more)? How hot was the backlight accordingly (2 stops over)? Did you ask her to keep her face the same relative distance from the door throughout the scene or did you just let the exposure change the closer or further she had the door from her face? In other words, did you giver her marks as to how far she can open the door before it?s too dark? If so, did she hit them or were some takes too dark?

 

Interesting. Really good post. Thanks.

[David Mullen ASC]

I may have told her how far forward she could lean before she was dark, but I can't remember (that was a decade ago). I don't measure backlights, almost never. I like them pretty hot so it's pointless to measure something six stops over, whatever. At that point, the more the backlight is overexposed, the burn-out looks the same on the hair but the amount of ambient bounce-back changes (unless you are using diffusion or smoke, where more overexposure of the backlight affects halation and how bright the beam looks.)

 

I would have measured the bounce back into the face and probably exposed her one-stop under or a stop and a half under.

[Justin Hayward]

I guess I don?t meter the backlight very often either. I was just curious, because it was directly related to your key.

[Greg Gross]

David,

I really like use of backlight in "Lipstick Camera". Do you remember what

lens and how far camera was from actress? I'm trying to visualize scene

with less light on wall in background. Only because I'm a stills photographer

use to portraiture, so you know I'm going to poke with,mess with the back-

ground! I'm sitting facing a Sony monitor, only light except for HD on and pla-

ying "King Arthur". When it goes from backlit with 1/2 of the face lit to(I think

I can barely see each ear lobe) silhouette with hair rimmed, it scares the hell

out of me! I love what I call selective focus in the first shot from "Twin Falls

Idaho". The foreground soft,out of focus with Michelle center framed. My eye

goes right to her eyes. The second shot is very appealing and stirs up emot-

ions,love the facial lighting and eyelight to right eye. I think the contrast of

the light intensity between the left and right eye is extraordinary and it makes

a statement of the character,it reveals. This post is so very helpful as it gives

a student cinematographer a methodology for learning to light a scene. Thank

you so very much David for sharing with us the art of cinematography. Quote-

"Sufficient time is rarely taken to study light. It is as important as the lines the

actors speak,or the direction given to them"- Sven Nykvist .

 

Greg

[David Mullen ASC]

That room was in the Wattles Mansion just a few blocks from the Samuel French bookstore on Sunset. We took an archway to a hallway and blocked it with a fake wall and closet door so I was in the hallway looking at the inner side of the closet door until she opened it. So I had plenty of room -- I probably was using a 75mm or something.

 

The bedroom was in the background which had already been lit for the scene before. Here's a wide shot of the bedroom (shot with a 25mm I bet):

 

 

I think it was lit with a 12K HMI with 1/2 CTO coming through the big window, plus a Coral filter on the camera for a sunset look. There was another HMI light coming through the other window, plus some Kino fill in the room. The camera angle in this master is basically where the closet door would be, so the background behind her close-up is the same. I just moved the 12K around I think to nail her with a hot backlight rather than rake the bed as in the master. Or I added another light so the bed would be lit the same, I don't remember.

 

The picture is a little fuzzy on this DVD. When I made this film in 1993, they tried to do a video transfer in NYC but said they couldn't figure out my color schemes (I was a big Storaro fan... still am) so they sent me a low-con print and booked me for one day with a Rank. But they had some problems with the set-up and I literally had two hours left to actually transfer the movie, so it was color-corrected on the fly in real time, only stopping the transfer a couple of times. They told me that it was temporary -- to 4x3 NTSC D2 composite video -- to show to potential distributors, but a few months later, it was used for the VHS release, then the laserdisc release, and a decade later, the DVD release!

 

It was my second feature -- a borderline erotic thriller, straight to video in the end -- but my first with a budget (about $800,000) and a nice cast that included Terry O'Quinn, Sandal Bergman, and Corey Feldman, plus an attractive lead named Ele Keats, and her boss played by Brian Wimmer. I had a hard time convincing the line producer to let me shoot the movie -- I only had one other feature credit and a bunch of student shorts. She thought it was a disaster to pair me with a first-time director, but she didn't know how organized and well-prepared I was. So I ended up taking a half-cut in my salary just to do the movie.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I'm sure I recognise chick-looking-through-doorway in the first shot above...

 

Phil

[Kevin Zanit]

David,

 

I love that trick . . . real slick, I am going to use that setup soon.

 

 

Thanks,

Kevin Zanit

[Greg Gross]

David,

Thanks for your return on lens used and size and type of lights.

Its been a great lesson for me. Thank you!

 

Greg

[DavidSloan]

Thanks a lot, David...that sunset look is fantastic! I completely buy it as sunset. Takes notes *HMI+1/2 CTO+Coral filter* :D

[Laurent Andrieux]

Thanks a lot, David...that sunset look is fantastic!  I completely buy it as sunset.  Takes notes *HMI+1/2 CTO+Coral filter* :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... with daylight stock... (just for the ones who would take it straight without considering that point...)

 

About the doorway : what I do in such situations is a bit in the half of both technics (dimming/bounce) : I usually have a gaffer or my self under or above the camera with a poly board and bounce the backlight as the caracter opens the door) I can control it much better than with a dimmable source.

Edited December 31, 2004 by laurent.a

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks a lot, David...that sunset look is fantastic!  I completely buy it as sunset.  Takes notes *HMI+1/2 CTO+Coral filter* :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's sort of an orangey Italian Storaro-esque sunset more than a realistic one -- I should have used cooler fill light and made the light coming through the smaller window blue-ish to get that two-tone effect of sunset. But I was trying to make a statement because later the movie gets very blue-ish.