simple lighting set-ups

[Felipe Perez-Burchard]

I can't say enough how valuable these recent threads with imagery have been.

 

thanks to all.

 

-felipe.

[David Mullen ASC]

Here's a master shot that I particularly liked in "Northfork". I was using F-125T for the interiors of this house (because of all the flashing, smoke and diffusion) but I ran out and used F-400T for this shot (and reduced the flashing and diffusion slightly to compensate.) There is a 6K HMI PAR shining in the back window, I think the foreground was lit with a 2.5K HMI PAR off camera right with a narrow lens pointed at the book on the table. I believe it was top-flagged with a small diffusion frame to keep the light mostly spotted on the book. There was some slight fill from a 4-bank Kino. Besides the backlight on the far person in the corner of the room, I had a 575 watt HMI PAR or something similar coming from frame left, spotted on him to fill in the shadow side.

 

There was another window just off camera on the left with another HMI shining through it, creating the slight edge light on the guy on the left, but it was mostly just to light up the smoke.

 

 

For the close-ups, I placed a piece of white showcard over the book, tilted to get a little more bounce-back off of the hard backlight.

 

 

I cheated his backlight over to edge-light her (in the master, it was off of her.)

 

 

I replaced the 575 watt HMI hard fill spot with a Kinoflo for softer side-fill.

 

[F Bulgarelli]

Hi David,

 

Great work!

How much flashing did you use? Was it to lower the overall contrast? Also, what kind of diffussion did you use?

 

Thanks a lot,

 

Francisco

[David Mullen ASC]

Normally in those house scenes with the gypsy-ghosts-angels (whatever), I used smoke combined with F-125T and a #1/2 ProMist for wide shots and a #1 ProMist for close-ups. I would use something like a 10% flash (because of the smoke; outdoors I was using a 15% to 20% flash).

 

In this case, I used F-400T, which is a low-con stock, so I reduced the flash to about 5-7% and didn't go heavier than the 1/2 ProMist.

 

The idea was to counteract the increase in contrast from using a skip-bleach process in the prints. So the final look, even though flashed, smoked, and diffused, was more normal in contrast.

[Chris Keth]

Normally in those house scenes with the gypsy-ghosts-angels (whatever), I used smoke combined with F-125T and a #1/2 ProMist for wide shots and a #1 ProMist for close-ups.  I would use something like a 10% flash (because of the smoke; outdoors I was using a 15% to 20% flash).

 

In this case, I used F-400T, which is a low-con stock, so I reduced the flash to about 5-7% and didn't go heavier than the 1/2 ProMist.

 

The idea was to counteract the increase in contrast from using a skip-bleach process in the prints.  So the final look, even though flashed, smoked, and diffused, was more normal in contrast.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Man, you DID do about everything to desaturate the colors. :blink:

 

Today I DP'd my first shoot. It's for a class that's our first experience shooting sync-sound film. We had 6 hours total to shoot and we finished in 5, where the other shoots for that class (everyone directs their own, as well as crews on everyone else's shoots in different positions) have all gone overtime. We shot Kodak 7222 200 speed B&W processed normally. I cinsistantly underexposed by about a third of a stop to darken things up a bit. Being DP for the first time on a crew (small, but a crew) was a really cool experience. I enjoyed it a lot and I really want to persue it further.

 

The script is a short scene with 2 cops interrogating a blind man suspected of being a peeping tom. We really only had two major lighting setups. First was the table that I hung a 60 watt frosted vanity bulb (the kind with a 6-ish inch diameter) bare. Then I rigged 2 1k PAR's on c-stands about 7 feet high so each one would roughly spot the person across the table from the light. We wanted to let the backgrouns, which is a fairly ugly studio, fall into darkness so I left the lighting at that. I was all prepared to soften those lights a little bit but the director and I decided a hard tough look was appropriate.

 

The second setup was supposed to take place in the observation room beside the interrogation room. Since we don't have time to build sets for this class, we implied the window and hung venetian blinds and put one of the 1k PARs through it to make a very strong blind shadows motif on their faces, then I put a 600 watt openface with a double and a single overall scrim to make just a slight backlight.

 

I'll post pics when I get them. I'll probably get the production stills tomorrow.

[James Visiano]

J. Lamar King, How did you create those diagrams, does a piece of software exist that allows you to create those diagrams?

[Kevin Zanit]

You can create something like that in Photoshop. Some would use a CAD program such as auto cad, etc.

 

For example here is a diagram I made in Photoshop that is far less refined than J. Lamar King's:

 

http://www.kevinzanit.com/jc/open_w_lighting.jpg

 

It?s ugly, but it?s only for me and my Gaffer. It is a good way to communicate what I want on a setup this big. The perspectives are all off, the distances have no scale but the general idea gets across.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

J. Lamar King, How did you create those diagrams, does a piece of software exist that allows you to create those diagrams?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I just used Microsoft Publisher and saved it as a jpeg. Then I imported into Photoshop to resize it.

[Timothy Brown]

I drew a lot of inspiration and insight from this thread and thought I'd revive it and add my .02 cents in hopes that others would do the same.

 

Project shot on DV, miniscule lighting package and uncorrected grabs.

 

 

Plot

 

 

 

Plot

 

 

A couple of simple setups. Please excuse my less than adequate jpeg compression.

[John Allen]

 

 

So I was watching Northfork today and was curious as to how you created the over-exposed window look, while maintaining the darkness within the angel's room. Did you cover the window's exterior with some kind of white cloth and then shoot HMI's through to get the shafts of light? I'm sorry if my question is unclear. Great work by the way.

[Alex Wuijts]

I love simple lighting setups! Last weekend I shot a short film using only practicals and a soft overhead light I build with my gaffer, consisting of two woodboard with 10 40W bulbs each.

The practicals were mostly 200 and 100W bulbs.

 

For people in need of cheap and simple lighting solutions, the overhead light is a great idea. I put 1/2 White Diffusion to get rid of the hard shadows and soften it a little, and then I put a small skirt around it to flag it from the walls (also a good idea to reduce the risk of boom shadows by the way). The boards were placed on two pole cats which were secured to the ceiling. The room was 3,5m wide, but the pole cats held up nicely because it's not a heavy rig at all.

 

Here's a picture:

 

 

Story is about a mother whose son returns from the war in Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress syndrom. At the family reunion he suddenly attacks and hurts his little brother. We wanted the camera to roam freely around the room, so I didn't want any light stands in the way. I used the Easyrig to to a little weight away from the SRII and to give it a slight floating feeling.

 

It was shot on Eterna 500T, stop was f/2.8 and I overexposed it a little. I always tried to have hotspots in the background when I had underexposed faces.

I'll post some stills if I get them.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Alex Wuijts

[John Allen]

I love simple lighting setups!

 

Yeah, I've come to realize that we're a lot like mathematicians in that we try to find the easiest, yet most effective ways to solve our problems.

[David Mullen ASC]

So I was watching Northfork today and was curious as to how you created the over-exposed window look, while maintaining the darkness within the angel's room. Did you cover the window's exterior with some kind of white cloth and then shoot HMI's through to get the shafts of light? I'm sorry if my question is unclear. Great work by the way.

 

I may have whited-out the background when I lost the light and had to shoot night-for-day, but I think in this case what you are seeing is just overexposed windows -- it was semi-snowing a lot of the time when we were in that room, so even though I mostly used F-125T and HMI lighting to hold detail outside, sometimes it was just too white out there (because of the snow blowing around) anyway. And those frames are from one of the only scenes in that room where I had to switch to F-400T... mainly because I was out of F-125T.

 

The other main interior location was the orphanage, and there I did white-out the windows by using frames of Griflon outside the windows -- just because I had a busy city street out there to hide. I figured with the snowy landscapes of the movie, I could justify whited-out background windows inside.

[John Allen]

Ah ok, I think I understand now. Cool. Thanks for explaining David. :)

Edited April 28, 2009 by John Allen

[Ram Shani]

master roger deakins asc is the master of simple lighting

 

here is a grab from revolutionary road

 

he light the party scene with just this light

[Ram Shani]

here is one more:

[Marc Roessler]

here is one more:

 

Ram, do you happen to know more about this shot?

I'm asking because it seems like an awfully complex way to generate soft, warm toplight with those (I suppose) custom built edison style bulb rigs.. or was this originally a part of the set?

 

Greetings,

Marc

[John Allen]

he light the party scene with just this light

 

Are you sure it was the party scene? I may have misunderstood you, but he used it for the "living room scene," where they were unpacking stuff. Now maybe that's what you meant to say, but I don't recall any "party" that took place in the living room. Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter a whole lot, other than a reference for others to know where to look when they watch the film.

 

But yes, I agree. Roger Deakins is a master at simple lighting. Which, in my opinion, simple is always better.

[Alex Wuijts]

Here are some stills from the short film I mentioned a few posts back. The one below is lit with just a 200w (or 100W, not sure) bulb above the table. The table itself created a nice bounce. I didn't want to fill in the background to keep it a little dramatic.

 

[Alex Wuijts]

The dining room. Lamps above the table had 250W bulbs dimmed down a bit, and the lamp in the background had a 100W bulb. I only did some minor color correction on these stills. Hope you like them!

 

Material was Eterna 500T. Stop was F2.8-

 

[John Allen]

Very nice Alex. The images look great! :)