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Lighting a commercial.


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This is a commercial I shot last week for a large church in Dallas. They are having a church service on Easter Sunday in the same arena where the Dallas Mavericks basketball team plays. With such a high profile event they felt the need to produce a higher end commercial on film. The commercial will begin playing on March 14th on all three major network affiliates and cable in North Texas.

 

The feeling they wanted to convey was inviting and warmth. The commercial plays out in three vignettes showing families that are getting ready and/or going to the event. I chose to shoot the day interior on 7205 Vision2 250D to keep grain to a minimum yet maintain some speed. I rated the 7205 at ISO 160. I shot the exteriors on 7212 Vision2 100T rated at ISO 50 with an 85 plus 1/3rd overexposure.

 

Sorry these frame grabs are pretty low res and the letterbox is not placed right. These are right off the telecine.

 

These first ones show the interior setups shot with the 7205.

 

covenant_church_016.jpg

 

covenant_church_014.jpg

 

covenant_church_013.jpg

 

covenant_church_011.jpg

 

The lighting plot;

 

cchouseint.jpg

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After each vignette we cut to a shot of a person that appeared but now they are in front of the event venue. The day we shot these it was cloudy and raining and they were shot along a public walking path that we could only block half of. I simply used a 1.2K HMI PAR as a bit of an edge and a 4x solid flop on the opposite side for negative fill. These were shot from a dolly with a bit of sideways drift.

 

All shot on 7212 with 85 rated at ISO 50.

 

 

covenant_church_017.jpg

 

covenant_church_01.jpg

 

covenant_church_022.jpg

 

covenant_church_021.jpg

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Very nice!

 

Thank you for taking the time to post these, I wonder if this forum had a section just for illustrated shot/lighting dissection, if more shooters would post this kind of thing. It's so informative to see how others approach lighting issues and problems!

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Nice use of color, values, and space to draw the eye to your subject. The only thing I found distracting was the hard shadow on the right hand stairwell wall from the 2K. A 4x4 of opal or 1/4 diff would have toned that down a little bit.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Michael

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Well... Funny you say that, I just love that effect as it is. It looks so much like real life. A bit distractive... I don't know. I actually wonder if the fact that the reading of this image has to pas by this element is not even adding sense to the whole image. That bit is "warm" in a way, inviting...

 

The feeling they wanted to convey was inviting and warmth. The commercial plays out in three vignettes showing families that are getting ready and/or going to the event

 

It goes exactly with that concept.

 

You see, why showing the hallway ? It's gotta mean something. I guess the meaning is in that "inviting" concept. You could be a friend, coming in this house to join and go with etc... The firts look you'd have on this familiy is this hallway point of view.

 

Then something's gotta be in that hallway, so that it doesn't look poor and we dont' think "Why that wide frame, with the hallway in it?"

 

Also, it's exactly the kind of shade you get in real life by a sunny day if light comes straight on such a place and object. It looks so real. I love that, just because it's not common. Everybody would have soften this shadow in a commercial (I mean your remark is basically right, Michael) . It gives strenght to this image. I love that.

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I like the harder shadows when it's motivated by sunlight. The Tweenie is casting the shadows of the flowers and lamp shade. That was done on purpose to spread the "sun" into the hall. The shot begins with the girl in the pink dress who is covering the lens with her hat. She runs away from the lens to the other characters with ribbons flowing from her hat. The hard "sun" helps to catch those ribbons. The shot is overcranked at 32fps. At some point there will be a downloadable version available. I'll let you know when.

Edited by J. Lamar King
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I like the hallway shot the best; the image of the passage leading to a sunny room. A classic composition with depth, both in light values and space.

 

I like the hard slash on the flowers & lamp table in the hallway -- I probably would have made the slash hotter (probably a small HMI PAR with a spot lens), since hard sun would not be so controlled but a little over the top, put a topper flag on it to make a real slash hitting the lower half of the hallway wall only, and then used less fill or a softer fill... because you're getting a shadow from the lamp shade and an extra shadow under the table from the fill. Of course, considering your lighting package, all of these suggestions may have not been possible.

 

Nice work. I'm sure the client was happy.

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Great STUFF!! Question for ya..

 

You said:

I chose to shoot the day interior on 7205 Vision2 250D to keep grain to a minimum yet maintain some speed. I rated the 7205 at ISO 160. I shot the exteriors on 7212 Vision2 100T rated at ISO 50 with an 85 plus 1/3rd overexposure.

 

Newbie here.. how and why to you take a 250 stock and rate it at 160? same with the 100T to a 50?

 

Sorry for the stupid question..

 

- - Justin

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Great STUFF!! Question for ya..

 

You said:

I chose to shoot the day interior on 7205 Vision2 250D to keep grain to a minimum yet maintain some speed.  I rated the 7205 at ISO 160.  I shot the exteriors on 7212 Vision2 100T rated at ISO 50 with an 85 plus 1/3rd overexposure.

 

Newbie here.. how and why to you take a 250 stock and rate it at 160? same with the 100T to a 50?

 

Sorry for the stupid question..

 

- - Justin

 

 

Not a stupid question at all. Basically the principle is to rate the stock at a slower speed so you will have to open the iris more to get a good exposure. Since the stock is faster than what you rated it at you get a denser negative. You then print or transfer the negative "down" to look proper. Generally you obtain denser blacks, better tonal seperation and tighter grain that way, as well as it gives you more room to maneuver printing wise.

 

You should do some exposure tests to find out how this affects the negative and wether or not you like the way it looks. See this thread by David for some more information on this technique. Sometimes you base the overexposure amount on a test you do to try to find out what the "real" speed of a negative is with your particular meter, lens and lab configuration. I won't attempt to explain that process because I will wind up confusing you.

 

That's the why, here's the how. After you've figured how much overexposure to build into your negative you simply change the ASA speed on your light meter. I wanted 2/3rds overexposure on the 250D so it became 160. I wanted 1/3rd overexposure on the 100T so it became 80. Plus I was shooting in daylight so I was using an 85 filter which needs 2/3rds of a stop correction. So 80 became 50.

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You just set your light meter to a lower ASA value than the manufacturer's rating and thus have a built-in overexposure for everything. You process the film normally.

 

It's a good idea to shoot a gray scale at the head of the roll also at your new ASA value so that the gray scale is also overexposed; then the colorist will correct it to look normal in brightness as well as the footage that follows.

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Nice stuff, I think you definitely got that feeling of warmth.

 

The one thing my eye went right to though was the tweenie on the wall in the 1st pic. I would have set an angled topper so that the spill on the wall doesn't angle up above the doorway (relative to the low camera angle). That bright spot leads your eye up and away from the people in the center. I would have found a way to make sure the light doesn't go above the height of the doorway, respective to frame.

 

Instead of filling the table from the camera side, I would have let it play in semi-silhouette for depth. Then to preserve the high-key look and balance the frame I would have found a way to add a little light to the wall on the left, probably a soft bounce from down low, motivated by sunlight bouncing off the floor. I would have let it naturally fall off into darkness toward the ceiling.

 

VERY roughly like this:

post-366-1109912662.jpg

 

I think your approach to the overcast exteriors was right on the money. I can't think of anything I would have done differently -- foreground edge, negative fill, slightly overexposed BG, and grads (power windows). Maybe pump up the BG color saturation if you want additional "pop," but it's fine the way it is.

 

Thanks for the pics and the diagram. It's so helpful to actually SEE images when discussing cinematography...

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I should point out that the hallway shot does have a power window silhouette on it. But it didn't when this frame grab was made. That window plus the fact that the final letterbox is close to 2.35:1 really minimizes the area below that table. That vent and foreground wall was blocked by a nice tall container full of shiny wooden walking sticks which I loved but the director removed it. We spent about 30 minutes in the telecine trying to apply a shadow like you did in photoshop. LOL. You really just don't notice any of that in the moving shot because your eye follows the little girl running away from camera to the far room.

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Sure you could do the vignetting in camera. Just use some black paper tape on the matte box where you want it.

 

That said, I would do it in Telecine. More controle, and reversable.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

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Yes there is, if you just pu a round matte in front of the camera, you can get the same effect. The interest ofdoing it in post is that you can control it much better, esp concerning its sharpness. It would change as the DOF changes, so it's not easy to have different shots matching the same effect...

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Hey LaurentA.,

 

Where would I be able to get that round matte? Do you know of any places where I could get a "real" mattebox that would fit a Beaulieu R-16? I've checked sites that sell R-16's but can't seem to find any...

 

Thanks,

 

Jon

 

I think there is a Petroff matte box that fits the baulieu...

 

You see this round matte that you can fit in front of the lens canbe, just as said Kevin, "home made", don't search for anything too special...

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Sure you could do the vignetting in camera.  Just use some black paper tape on the matte box where you want it.

 

 

Just keep in mind that this can start to act as a "waterhouse stop," essentially an additional iris in front of the lens, reducing the exposure.

 

You could also use multiple grad filters, or a custom made grad of some sort (grad filters let a little more light through and won't act as an iris the same way solid tape will).

 

But of course, in telecine you have the most control.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Now that the commercial has officially played on-air, I can give you a link to watch it. You should be able to stream it here;

 

Easter Commercial

 

You better have broadband, it barely plays on dial-up. Looks like they've got it playing in the wrong aspect ratio but you get the idea anyway. 4x3 letterbox people! :rolleyes:

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Beautiful Work J. I love the invitation of the symmetical hallway frame in frame to "join the family". The tweeny sets up a second "window" to depict a rising sun. How appropriate for Easter Morning. Thanks for sharing your techniques with us as well. Good stuff.

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