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Train effect lighting-film noir effect


Guest JonathanSmith

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Guest JonathanSmith

Just wondering if anyone can help me. Im trying to produce a lighting effect which is caused by a passing train. Were shooting inside a studio but we have designed it like an abandoned warehouse by the railway track but we wanted to create a lighting effect thats similar to film noir, of a passing train. Does anyone have any ideas. Cheers

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how bout if you create somethign similar to the early moving image projectors, get a long strip of cardboard and cut gaps in it and the glue it to a circle, then put a light in the middle and rotate it ?

 

Something like that would be the simplest, and probably best, solution. Trains, if you've ever watched them, don't have much in the way of light except on the engine. You could really take quite a bit of liberty in making it how you want. You could even add gels to the spaces cut in the cardboard.

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I don?t know how they used to do it and I?d love to hear someone reveal the secret ? calling David Mullen ? My first attempt would be to take 1?x1? glass mirror tiles and attach them to a round surface like bucket. You might get five around the edge. Then rig the bucket so it spins smoothly. Place the bucket where you want the light to come from, shine a bright light like a par into it, flag off unwanted spill, and voila.

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There are always two approaches -- panning a light and moving a light. I'd put a spinning mirror gag in the "panning" section. If I could, I'd actually just put a light on a rolling stand and move it past the window. If it had to go faster, maybe put the light on a skateboard dolly. Faster than that, and I'd go with panning the light or bouncing it into a spinning mirror.

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There are always two approaches -- panning a light and moving a light.  I'd put a spinning mirror gag in the "panning" section.  If I could, I'd actually just put a light on a rolling stand and move it past the window.  If it had to go faster, maybe put the light on a skateboard dolly.  Faster than that, and I'd go with panning the light or bouncing it into a spinning mirror.

 

 

 

Oh, oh, I may have misunderstood. Is the effect needed one with the camera inside a train, where the outside environment needs to move? Or, is it that you have someone outside of a moving train and you want it to look like lights from the train are falling on your actor?

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Guest JonathanSmith

Nice one fellas. Also, whilst we are on the subject, do you have any ideas on how to create a flickering light bulb. Ive got the light bulb connection all sorted-just a bulb connection with a plug on the end. But i wanted to acheieve a flickering effect. Any solutions?

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Nice one fellas. Also, whilst we are on the subject, do you have any ideas on how to create a flickering light bulb. Ive got the light bulb connection all sorted-just a bulb connection with a plug on the end. But i wanted to acheieve a flickering effect. Any solutions?

 

I'm not exactly sure what you're going for (i.e. is the bulb the only source illuminating the scene, what's the scene portraying, etc...)

 

But let's say you have a shot of a guy in a room with the lightbulb above him. I'd run the cord that plugs into the bulb into a dimmer along with some other light that is actually providing your key (a 1K? I like 1Ks -- okay, it's a 1K!)

 

Now ride the dimmer. Your key will move up and down with the light bulb flicker. You could also bring in some kind of backlight. Maybe something through the window, motivated by a streetlight that shines through and adds some separation.

 

Is that what you're going for? If so, hope it helps. If you don't have a dimmer, you can buy one at a hardware store, but those usually only go up to 600 watts, but if you go to an electrical supply company then they'll have the materials with which you can pretty easily make your own.

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Mission Impossible used Lightning Strikes with a chaser. Guess it would work almost as well with PARs. This way you would get a more realistic 'moving' source/s without having to run a light past on a shopping trolley.

 

A fluoro starter inline will try to 'start' an incandescent bulb causing it to flicker.

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There are always two approaches -- panning a light and moving a light.  I'd put a spinning mirror gag in the "panning" section.  If I could, I'd actually just put a light on a rolling stand and move it past the window.  If it had to go faster, maybe put the light on a skateboard dolly.  Faster than that, and I'd go with panning the light or bouncing it into a spinning mirror.

 

I think what David is getting at is that panning a light is a cheat that does not give the dynamic excitement of a moving light. A moving light is always changing its direction and angle and sculpting as it moves. It is often much more exciting.

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I think what David is getting at is that panning a light is a cheat that does not give the dynamic excitement of a moving light.  A moving light is always changing its direction and angle and sculpting as it moves. It is often much more exciting.

 

If the light is moving fast enough I'd go with multiple panning lights (at least two). It looks dynamic when coming from two different angles and if it's going fast enough you can't tell the light positions are stationary. Combined with a train sound effect it can be very convincing.

 

There's a good example of the "bucket" technique on the DVD featurette in Blade. Once again, I'll advocate my favorite ready-made solution for this, an effect light called a "whirlygig." It's a 1K par bulb with a spinning mirror, speed controlled with a rheostat (as long as a 1K is bright enough for your purposes).

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Guest fstop

THE best example of a black and white train passing gag is the motif used by Robert Krasker BSC on David Lean's BRIEF ENCOUNTER. You MUST, MUST MUST check this out because it is simply history's greatest example of what you are after. This effect was actually achieved with a spinning gobo (like a zoetrope) over an old flash strobe. I am going to state this as a fact but the technique has NEVER EVER looked better than in this film.

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Hi,

 

At the other end of the scale, there's a shot in Underworld near the start of the film where Beckinsale is battling the bad guys in a subway tunnel, and ducks out the way as a train passes. There's a very ill-defined impressin of windows flashing by and a general flickering glow effect. It's simple enough if you know how it's done, but it works well enough for the moment it's visible.

 

Depends what you're after, I think this was all post.

 

Phil

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Just wondering if anyone can help me. Im trying to produce a lighting effect which is caused by a passing train. Were shooting inside a studio but we have designed it like an abandoned warehouse by the railway track but we wanted to create a lighting effect thats similar to film noir, of a passing train. Does anyone have any ideas. Cheers

 

Is the light supposedly coming from the headlights, or the cars of the train?

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Is the light supposedly coming from the headlights, or the cars of the train?

 

I think the effect he's going for is when the Sun is hitting a window

And a Train passes by and intermittenly blocks the sunlight

Creating a sort of flickering light effect.

 

I have a friend who lives near an elevated train

So around Sundown I get to see this effect every 5 minutes or so...

It's pretty cool...next time I'm there I'll film it...

 

You live in NYC David hang out around areas with elevated trains...you'll see it

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  • 1 month later...
Just wondering if anyone can help me. Im trying to produce a lighting effect which is caused by a passing train. Were shooting inside a studio but we have designed it like an abandoned warehouse by the railway track but we wanted to create a lighting effect thats similar to film noir, of a passing train. Does anyone have any ideas. Cheers

 

if you have large enough a studio you could lay tracks where the train is supposed to be running, make a train of about eight platforms connected by rope with about six feet distance in between and mounted with whatever light is soft yet strong enough for your need (rope is so that you could decompress and compress your train at either end of your tracks within having to punch holes in the studio walls). worked for me.

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