Green / Cyan Light

Miguel Bunster · March 8, 2005

Hi,

I am shooting this weekend a short video project. I don?t have many resources and I want to get in some areas of the room specific colors through light. I want to get cyan light in some parts and green light in other parts. My plan is to construct in the ceiling some type of fixtures with fluorescent lights. With them I want to get the colors mentioned. Now my question is (if I cant buy cyan filters) how to get the color. What color-balanced tubes should I get? And what gels to put on them? I will test this tomorrow I have some ideas but any recommendations will be great.

Thanks

Miguel

Ps: Another option is to buy mercury vapor lights.... Any idea on which lights are best for this?

Ps2: I will be shooting with the camera set at 3200 K.

David Mullen ASC · March 8, 2005

Cool White fluorescents are cyan (green plus blue) when shooting in tungsten balance. You may want to underexpose the shot to hold that color because at full exposure, the color washes out.

Miguel Bunster · March 8, 2005

Thanks!

I will test them tomorrow many thanks!

Miguel

Michael Nash · March 8, 2005

I shot a short film once about a patient in a mental hospital where the patient's "fantasy" view of the world was represented in rich colors, and the cold reality of the hospital was represented in desaturated blues and greens similar to what you describe.

I shot the blue/green segments on tungsten stock under a mix of daylight and cool-white fluorescents, to get a blue-green mix. In my case I shot Vision 320 7277 rated normally and pulled one stop, and fine-tuned the color in telecine (although the raw neg got us pretty close). It wouldn't be hard to get the same colors on video.

At the practical locations I used ambient daylight and installed 4' fluorescent shop lights as practicals to light the scene, globed up with the cheapest cool-white tubes I could find. On a set we built I did the same but sourced the windows with HMI's.

If you want to skew this mix more toward cyan and green (not blue and cyan), you could try white balancing the camera under tungsten light but with some minus-green gel over the lens. Try different densities (1/4 -full) to get the saturation you want.

Miguel Bunster · March 8, 2005

Thanks for the info...

I just tested the cool white tubes under tungsten in the vidoe camera and the color was just white.....and if I tried to gel them the stop went off......

Is it better to go with a tungesten light and gel it?

Miguel

David Mullen ASC · March 9, 2005

Thanks for the info...
I just tested the cool white tubes under tungsten in the vidoe camera and the color was just white.....and if I tried to gel them the stop went off......

Is it better to go with a tungesten light and gel it?

Miguel

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You didn't underexpose enough or your camera was on auto color balance. Fully exposed, something lit by Cool Whites will just look pale and washed-out, not cyanish.

You could exaggerate the color of the Cool Whites by white balancing using a tungsten light gelled magenta (Minus Green).

Michael Nash · March 10, 2005

Video also doesn't "see" the green in fluorescents as much as film does (at least in general). So sometimes with video you have to help it along a little, by gelling the lights or white balancing the camera.