Non-movie lighting

[Jon Bel]

Hi, 2 more questions as my shoot day approaches;

 

 

1. What would happen if I shot a kitchen scene with ONLY fluorescent tube bulbs on ceiling, with 8 year old Kodak tungsten 500t film?

 

What would it look like on film?

 

 

Question 2. How do I get rid of those waves that show up on a t.v or computer screen when I photograph it?

[Toby Orzano]

Hi, 2 more questions as my shoot day approaches;

 

 

1. What would happen if I shot a kitchen scene with ONLY fluorescent tube bulbs on ceiling, with 8 year old Kodak tungsten 500t film?

 

What would it look like on film?

 

The easiest answer is that it would not look "like a movie." That's not necessarily a bad thing. If the rest of your film is lit to look like a movie, then it might be an issue, but if you're relying on available light throughout the film as a consistent stylistic choice, then it could be quite effective. Audiences are more and more willing to accept films that don't "look like movies" what with the ascent of YouTube and the like. Natural light can even strike a subconscious cue that since the scene is not lit like a movie, it is more realistic, akin to run-and-gun documentary and home video footage. If the story is not immersive enough, movie lighting can be a noticeable contrivance. Are you familiar with the Dogme95 movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95)? It was a wave of filmmaking started in Denmark, the aim of which was to find true in cinema. The most notably stylistic aspects (actually they were requirements) of these films were that they must be handheld and must use natural light. If you've seen any of these films then you know that it can be quite effective when the performance and location and staging ring true.

 

Question 2. How do I get rid of those waves that show up on a t.v or computer screen when I photograph it?

That has to do with your shutter angle and the refresh rate of the screen. Someone else who deals more with cameras will have to elaborate...

[Paul Bruening]

I shoot short ends. They aren't exactly "fresh stock". But, eight years is pretty old. You may need as many as 3 stops open to compensate. Do you know how it was stored? Age will make its color reproduction difficult to guess. You'll get a lot of green light from the flos. Like Tony said, that has become fashionable. One thing is for certain, it will deliver unique results, a characteristic that some find desirable from an artistic standpoint.

[David Mullen ASC]

There are all sorts of fluorescent tubes, some are quite close to tungsten balance, some aren't but most are correctable in printing as long as you aren't mixing lights of other colors in the same frame.

 

Cool Whites are bluer than tungsten, plus green, so render as a cyan color on tungsten stock.

 

Warm Whites are close to tungsten but with a bit of green.

 

Not all Cool Whites are the same either, the cheaper ones tend to have more green in them.

 

--

 

I have no idea how much your film has aged, but if it's aged a lot, you probably have more grain and milky blacks with some green or blue cast. Overexposing and printing down will help a little.

 

--

 

If you are shooting at 24 fps with a 180 degree shutter at an NTSC TV CRT monitor running at the standard 59.94i / 29.97 fps, you will get a rolling bar about an inch wide.

 

If you change the shutter angle to 144 degrees, the think rolling band becomes a thin rolling line.

 

If you change the camera speed to 23.976 fps, 144 degree shutter, the thin line stops rolling but it's still on the screen. You can phase the camera to set that line in the middle of the screen... or have two lines, one in the top third and one in the bottom third.

 

Or you can shoot at 29.97 fps (any shutter angle) and phase the roll bar out of the screen completely.

 

Or you get a special 23.976 fps TV set, convert and playback the footage at 23.976 fps, and set your camera to 23.976 fps, any shutter angle.

 

Or you can get ahold of an LCD flatscreen TV, which doesn't have roll bar issues.

[Tom Jensen]

Copy and paste David Mullen's response and store it in your catalog. That's pretty much shooting a monitor in its simplest, most accurate form.

[Jon Bel]

Thank you all for your help.

 

 

I appreciate your input, thanks David for your informative post on tv monitors.

[Jon Bel]

Thanks so much!

 

 

 

There are all sorts of fluorescent tubes, some are quite close to tungsten balance, some aren't but most are correctable in printing as long as you aren't mixing lights of other colors in the same frame.

 

Cool Whites are bluer than tungsten, plus green, so render as a cyan color on tungsten stock.

 

Warm Whites are close to tungsten but with a bit of green.

 

Not all Cool Whites are the same either, the cheaper ones tend to have more green in them.

 

--

 

I have no idea how much your film has aged, but if it's aged a lot, you probably have more grain and milky blacks with some green or blue cast. Overexposing and printing down will help a little.

 

--

 

If you are shooting at 24 fps with a 180 degree shutter at an NTSC TV CRT monitor running at the standard 59.94i / 29.97 fps, you will get a rolling bar about an inch wide.

 

If you change the shutter angle to 144 degrees, the think rolling band becomes a thin rolling line.

 

If you change the camera speed to 23.976 fps, 144 degree shutter, the thin line stops rolling but it's still on the screen. You can phase the camera to set that line in the middle of the screen... or have two lines, one in the top third and one in the bottom third.

 

Or you can shoot at 29.97 fps (any shutter angle) and phase the roll bar out of the screen completely.

 

Or you get a special 23.976 fps TV set, convert and playback the footage at 23.976 fps, and set your camera to 23.976 fps, any shutter angle.

 

Or you can get ahold of an LCD flatscreen TV, which doesn't have roll bar issues.