Lighting for the hottest night ever.

[Marquette Trishaun]

Hey gang,

 

I have a scene in an upcoming film where one night the air-conditioner breaks in an apartment.

 

Overall the look of the film is in a deep brown color tone by using chocolate gels and tabacco filters etc.

 

What I would like is to introduce this heat without changing the overall color tone to the normal hell look.

 

What would you guys suggest to reference the temperature, should I just make the praticals in the scene come off around 2800k. Has anyone every used intentional props like melting ice to add to this effect etc.

 

Last, how natural would it look to add a few sheets of CTO or some other gel to the lights, and which ones more particulary.

 

I know it's a loaded question, so thanks in advance.

 

-Marquette :ph34r:

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

IMO, teperature always works better being "sold" by the actors and wardrobe rather than the lighting. If they are in a hot room, they should be sweating and fanning themselves, wearing fewer clothes. A shot of a fan goes a long way. Depending on the scene I might place a rim-light that's fairly hot so it bounces off of the "sweat" on the actors and maybe keep the general tone of the scene a little overexposed looking (only in the highlights for a night scene).

 

Personally, I find some attempts to convey heat by using lots of saturated warm colors in the wardrobe, set design, location and film timming to have the opposite effect. To me "heat" looks white, desaturated and overexposed.

[Chris Keth]

IMO, teperature always works better being "sold" by the actors and wardrobe rather than the lighting.  If they are in a hot room, they should be sweating and fanning themselves, wearing fewer clothes.  A shot of a fan goes a long way.  Depending on the scene I might place a rim-light that's fairly hot so it bounces off of the "sweat" on the actors and maybe keep the general tone of the scene a little overexposed looking (only in the highlights for a night scene).

 

Personally, I find some attempts to convey heat by using lots of saturated warm colors in the wardrobe, set design, location and film timming to have the opposite effect.  To me "heat" looks white, desaturated and overexposed.

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If it'd fit you could timelapse some ice melting.

[Josh Bass]

Sorry, I can't resist:

 

I think you should make EVERYTHING sweat. Tables, walls, ceilings. Just think, it's so hot, even the TV is sweating. Oh, and attach little arms to everything so that each object in the room can fan itself and go "Lordy, this heat."

 

That is all. Thank you.

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

Sorry, I can't resist:

 

I think you should make EVERYTHING sweat.  Tables, walls, ceilings.  Just think, it's so hot, even the TV is sweating.  Oh, and attach little arms to everything so that each object in the room can fan itself and go "Lordy, this heat."

 

That is all.  Thank you.

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So do you disagree with the actors selling the heat?

[Michael Nash]

To me "heat" looks white, desaturated and overexposed.

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I tend to agree that heat "feels" white, but I think you can still combine it with warm colors to maintain the look of the film. I'd stick with the basic color design, but for the "heat" scenes I'd "lighten up" the color to be more yellow-amber instead of murky brown. Then I'd add more white references in the form of overexposed practicals and white edgelights. So instead of adding more color, you're actually taking color away.

 

I agree with making the actors look sweaty and shiny. If appropriate to the scene, you can add a little smoke or haze to the set to make it appear steamy and humid. You don't have to do much, a little can go a long way.

 

If you can find a way to subtly increase the contrast so that the whites burn out a little quicker that can help, too. Kind of like what you get when skip-bleach a negative, but you don't have to go that extreme. Sometimes just having edge lights be a little hotter and some mild lens diffusion can do the trick. Try to keep a bright reference in every frame. It doesn't have to be a practical, it can be just a bright edge light if that's what works for that camera angle.

 

The movie Body Heat is a good reference for this kind of thing; they do lots of little tricks to try to reinforce the notion of a hot location. One night scene has a simple dolly shot past a popcorn machine with its heat lamp glowing away; another scene opens with a tight shot on an air conditioner. Unfortunately the night exterior where William Hurt first meets Kathleen Turner was apparently shot on a breezy night, and the wind effect totally destroyed the feeling of a sultry Florida evening for me.

[Guest fstop]

I agree with the less is more approach. The smoke is a really good idea.

 

I'd also have the actors sweated up, but also go close up and try and get that sweat out by subtley bouncing into foamcore or white card to reflect in their sweat.

 

Also, filling from below might work subliminally too (this is a big thriller cliche to emphasise the heat of tension- look how many Hithcock films use it, Brian DePalma's and even DeBont's Speed).

 

All of this will allow your colour pallette to stay the same.

[Sam Wells]

Specular off the sweat couldcertainly work for you.

 

(also, rent "Barton Fink" !)

 

-Sam (and send any excess heat east, please)

[Wendell_Greene]

"Body Heat" was a great call. I'd also recommend you watch the DVD of "Do The Right Thing" as well to see great examples of actor's helping sell the action, including a unique use of ice cubes in a one scene. I always thought Rod Steiger did an awesome job of using his hankerchief to make you feel how hot it was in the aptly named film, "In The Heat of The Night".

[Michael Nash]

(also, rent "Barton Fink" !)

 

 

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Yeah, that scene where the wallpaper starts to peel off because the glue was melting was great!

 

Another good "heat" gag is the old coleman-lantern-under-the-lens thing for heat ripples. Usually works best with long lenses, and wouldn't be at all realistic for an apartment interior. But if you're going surrealistic...