Multiple shafts of light

[David Desio]

Hey everyone,

 

I have a shoot that I'm planning that calls for some tricky situations. The biggest one is a scene where the actor is writing all over his jail cell, walls, floor etc. What I want to do is have the letters, which will be made using white chalk, start to glow and cast light during one of his hallucinations. I was thinking about jusing a jigsaw to cut the words and letters out of the wall and hazing the room, letting most of the scene fall into darkness. I'm wondering if I need to light each word individually or use a few larger sources and hit them all. I'm planning on having about 30 or so words for the hallucination shot.

 

Thanks for the help in advance,

Dave

[Kevin W Wilson]

Instead of chalk you could use phosphorescent paint for all the words and hit it with a UV light source. A Kino four bank with some UV bulbs in it would probably do the trick depending on the space.

 

The idea of cutting all the words out would also work. One giant source behind the wall with some haze would give a very defined spread of light. Or you could use multiple smaller sources and have various "bursts" of light coming through the wall. Depends on the look you want.

 

Kevin

[David Desio]

Instead of chalk you could use phosphorescent paint for all the words and hit it with a UV light source. A Kino four bank with some UV bulbs in it would probably do the trick depending on the space.

 

The idea of cutting all the words out would also work. One giant source behind the wall with some haze would give a very defined spread of light. Or you could use multiple smaller sources and have various "bursts" of light coming through the wall. Depends on the look you want.

 

Kevin

 

 

I did think about the UV reactant paint as well, I want the light to actually hit the character and bloom in the frame. One large source seems liek the way to go, although it would be neat to have the angles go in multiple directions. As for the source(s), I was thinking of usin a few 2k fresnels, would I maybe need something with a bit more punch?

[John Sprung]

An idea: Make the wall out of translucent plex and paint it so it looks like concrete or whatever. He writes on it with chalk, lit normally. Finish all the scenes you have with the wall in its normal condition. Then scrape or sand the chalk and paint away, and light the plex from behind to make the letters glow. You'd want to schedule carefully, so the scrape-away work happens at the end of the day, or while the cast and crew are on a lunch break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Albert Smith]

Sources 4's for clearly defined shapes through the jigsaw.

 

the above idea is interesting though with the plexi. sounds like a good situation to collab with the production designer.