Lighting the dark...

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

In response to the "Shooting in the dark" thread in First Time Filmmakers I wanted to post some examples. I thought it would be better to put them under lighting. This is for the less experienced readers. Feel free to add comments to help them out.

 

As stated in that thread one of the keys to making it look like night is to have many dark areas in the frame. Areas that are lit need not be underexposed, they could be at normal or even over.

 

In the first example the characters are having dialog in a car parked in an alley. The alley location was lit with Mercury Vapor practicals. We went with those lights on the alley exterior do to budget restrictions and we liked the gritty look. This car interior scene was shot at another location where it was quiet and because we could only shoot in the alley for one night. I used a combination of gels to match the look of the Mercury Vapor's on the Key light.

 

I used a back light to rim her hair and another one at high angle and close to the car. This second backlight I refer to as a "dirt light" because it's intended to catch in the dirt on the windows of cars or houses or whatever. In this case it also backlit the smoke from the cigarette as well as edge the fur and hand.

 

 

The lighting plot;

 

 

In the next example two characters are dialoging in a car parked in a driveway. This is a more normal shot with the backlights opposite each other and fill provided by a warmed up tweenie through a silk. This was to mimick some practical china balls that were strung over the driveway and visible in the wide shot.

 

 

The lighting plot;

 

 

With both of these setups the light is used to edge and sculpt the scene not to fill it in. Shot on the DVX-100A 24p with -5 detail and -5 master ped.

Edited February 3, 2005 by J. Lamar King

[Benjamin_Lussier]

Hey... Thanks !!! :D

Thanks for taking the time to do this... really helpful

 

Cheerios

 

Ben

[Mike Williamson]

Thanks for putting this stuff up, J., the images look great! The key is perfectly cut in the first shot and the mercury vapor effect looks stylish, did the color match up well with the footage shot in the alley?

 

With the exception of the fill in driveway scene, which you said was motivated by soft practicals, I see you're using mostly hard light. Is that more for realism or because you prefer harder sources generally?

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

The Mercury Vapor effect cut very well. I think I'll have them put a few points of blue in though. One of the advantages of a small camera like the DVX is that we were able to shoot tests easily during the scout of the alley location. It looked fairly normal as far as Mercury Vapor goes so I just went with a standard gel pack. You just have to add or remove 1/4 green or blue to get a match to the specific location.

 

I went with a hard light style just because I felt the movie needed what I was calling a "rimmed and kicked" realism. Some of our interior locations and wardrobe were done in very pastel tones that would just bounce the soft light back. The overall effect of that was very flat looking. This movie was about teenage prostitution so it needed some depth. I used a lot of backlights and rims usually bounced off foam core for night and day interior and direct on night exterior.

 

This also had the effect of contrasting with some material we shot in 60i where the lead character was taping his thoughts alone in a bedroom. That's really the only time you see a really soft side light without any kind of edge.

[Mike Williamson]

Sounds like a good lighting plan, I assume the journal entries are separating nicely from the rest of the film.

 

Whenever I take the time to study what night in an urban environment looks like, I usually feel like there's a cacophony of different low-level sources coming from all over the place. So if you were to shoot with available light, you'd end up with the worst multiple shadows you could dream up! I'm always trying to figure out how hard the sources should be, I often think that the low-levels make the light feel softer to me than it really is...

 

Are these shots from something that you shot recently? How do you feel the project turned out?

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

They're from a feature I shot at the first of January called "Main Street." That title is probably going to change. Quite frankly I thought the cinematography turned out pretty good for what the budget was.