lighting a hallway in a boring house

[Phil Thompson]

Hi all,

 

I'm about to shoot a scene where a prostitute emerges from a room fully naked and walks down the corridor to the bathroom. Im shooting on 16mm. Any tips on how i can light this in an interesting way? i don't have places to hang any lights. The only hidden places is to the left of the stairs, the room in front and behind where this shot is taken from. Any hints will be much appreciated. I attatch the image.

 

Phil

[Hal Smith]

Downspots on wall spreaders should work. Her walking through pools of light down the hallway with the bathroom in the distance will look good, the downlighting will sculpture her body nicely. The floor looks dark, that's good, it'll keep bounce light off the walls. I'd think about using a wide angle lens to accentuate depth if I could keep the lights out of the shot.

[Phil Thompson]

Downspots on wall spreaders should work. Her walking through pools of light down the hallway with the bathroom in the distance will look good, the downlighting will sculpture her body nicely. The floor looks dark, that's good, it'll keep bounce light off the walls. I'd think about using a wide angle lens to accentuate depth if I could keep the lights out of the shot.

 

 

Thanks for this Hal. i'm a bit of a novice so I'm not sure what a 'wall spreader' is. Are they available to hire in London, can't find much about them on google

 

P

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I might be tempted to keep her almost fully in backlight, and let the audience "fill in the rest," to their liking.

 

What's the scene supposed to convey though? That'll help.

[Brian Drysdale]

I assume Hal is referring to an Autopole.

 

http://www.prokit.co.uk/index.php?view=product&product=arri-autopoles

 

You can hire these from lighting companies like Panalux.

 

http://www.panalux.biz/PDF/EQUIPMENT.pdf

 

Or just ring the nearest film & TV lighting rental company telling them what you want to do and ask what they've got.

 

 

Yes, let the story and the character decide how you light her.

Edited December 5, 2010 by Brian Drysdale

[Hal Smith]

I assume Hal is referring to an Autopole.

 

Yes, those will work, see JD's post following what I was thinking of. Don't forget to protect the walls themselves with a block of wood with a piece of carpet or foam between the wall itself and the block.

Edited December 5, 2010 by Hal Smith

[JD Hartman]

A wall spreader, which uses either speedrail, a 2x4 or a 2x6, looks like this: http://www.msegrip.com/mse.php?show=product&cat=297&products_ID=24191 Regardless of type, it's a good idea to try and get the wall spreader positioned over a wall stud. If you can't do that, use a piece of cribbing to bridge between two studs.

Edited December 5, 2010 by JD Hartman

[Austin Serr]

If you don't have the money for wall-spreaders, you could have a light coming from the room she's coming out of, a light in the bathroom (dim and maybe gelled orange to make it a focal point), and possibly a light (Chinaball?) right next to the front doorway (or whatever that door is that's down the small flight of stairs on the left side of that picture) or even a light outside that door, coming in. I'm not sure what film stock you're using, but if you can get a decent exposure off of this set-up (or something like it) you can probably get some good silhouette action going (or even just underexposed to keep the specifics of her body a mystery).

 

Again, we don't know what the scene's supposed to convey, but I imagine that a scene where a naked prostitute walks out of a room to walk to the bathroom down the hall isn't going to be the most cheerful scene.

[Brian Drysdale]

Yes, those will work, see JD's post following what I was thinking of. Don't forget to protect the walls themselves with a block of wood with a piece of carpet or foam between the wall itself and the block.

 

Yes, the heavy duty version.

[JD Hartman]

If you don't have the money for wall-spreaders, ....

 

I don't think anyone was suggesting he buy the grip hardware. Rental houses will have wall spreaders and Autopoles or Mathpoles, about $10. Another possibility is using two sparrow plates tucked behind the molding and linked grip arms to span the width of the hallway.