Smoke...again

[Miguel Bunster]

Hi,

 

Before hand, I searched the forum but didn?t find what I was looking for.

Now...

I am shooting a brothel scene and I want to smoke a little the room. My main issue is that I want to have all the time the characters lit in he following way. The side that is to camera being dark and have the light come in 45 degrees against the camera so I get a back, rim light thing. My problem is that I don?t want to see the beams of light...I know is hard to avoid the beams in this situation so any recommendations will be great.

The other issue is that I want to keep chroma high.... And crash the black in camera, which in theory will saturate the colors a little.

Many thanks for any opinions.

Miguel

 

PS: At the same time I will use some Low Con or diffusion filter. My plan is to bring the contrast back in camera or post...better in camera.

[Michael Nash]

I'm a little confused. You're saying several things that sound contradictory.

 

I understand not wanting to "reveal" the source of an edgelight, but then why do you want to use smoke? To reduce the contrast of the background? Or is it because the room should appear smokey for the story? if that's the case, then the way you get smoke to appear on camera is to backlight it...

 

You generally only see "beams" of light of there is a shadow or edge of the light beam visble in frame. If the source is broad enough, it won't appear as a beam, but you may see an increase in brightness of the smoke closer to the light source.

 

Crushing the blacks doesn't saturate the chroma -- it just crushes the blacks. From your description of doing things "in camera" it sounds like you're shooting video. If that's the case, then just turn up the chroma to saturate the chroma.

 

And crushing the blacks will un-do the effect you get from smoke (a lowering of contrast, and desaturation of chroma -- which is the exact opposite of what you say you want). If you want the appearance of smoke but without visible light rays, then the only way you can really tell there's smoke there is by the reduction in contrast and color saturation in depth -- which again is the opposite of what you say you want -- so again I'm confused what you're really after.

 

Low con and diffusion filters will again lower the contrast and chroma saturation, and would completely counteract your attempts to saturate chroma by crushing the blacks in camera.

 

I could recommend processes to help you get the look you're after, but you've described something that sounds completely contradictory. Maybe I just misunderstand your post...

 

So let's back up: What do you want the contrast to look like (High/normal/low)? What do you want the color saturation to look like? (high/normal/low)? And why do you want to use smoke?

[Miguel Bunster]

Thanks for your time.

 

I want the scene to have rich colors, deep colors. At the same time I want to create a dense atmosphere using smoke. I know this will lower the saturation. What I want to avoid (I know its kind of contradictory) is see the sources of the lights..Not all just some...in the end is there any recommendation in how the light should be placed in relation to the camera to avoid seeing the beam?

Thanks

Miguel

[Michael Nash]

I would start by putting rich, dark colors into the production design, then maybe boosting the chroma in camera additionally. But watch out for how much that may over-saturate skin tones. You could use the skin detail function of some cameras to lower just the skin saturation, but that becomes a delicate balancing act that often creates visible color artifacts.

 

I would use as little smoke as possible to get the desired "atmosphere" you want, because too much will reduce your colors and wash out the dark ambience of the room. If you want you could crush the blacks a little in camera to keep a more "rich" look to the set, but keep in mind that the way you see smoke is by the reduction of contrast in depth. So in other words, if you crush the blacks too much you're really just "removing" the smoke from the image!

 

And I defintiely would not use low-con filters if you want rich colors and dark blacks. You can use lens diffusion if you want for creating a glow to highlights and to soften the image, but again if you goo too far you're just washing out the colors and blacks (for example, try a Black ProMist instead of White).

 

As far as hiding the source of backlighting in smoke, again try to keep the smoke as thin as possible. Smaller point sources like small fresnels will give away their source through smoke the most, so try larger, softer sources when possible. For example, for a person's edge light you might try a 4 bank Kino instead of a 1K fresnel.

 

You can also try to disguise the light rays by placing the units as close to a practical source as possible, so that any visible beams appear motivated by that practical. But the best solution is to save your most stylized edge lighting for the closeups on a long lens, so that the background is less distinct. If you need a sharp edgelight on your subjects in the wider shots, you may have to use a bigger unit farther away, so that there's less visible light falloff in the smoke around the subject.

[Miguel Bunster]

Thanks for your help!

Miguel

[Justin Hayward]

Instead of edge lighting, you can try separating the dark side of your subject with shafts of light in the background or just brighter areas on the walls.

 

Edge, rim, or back lighting can be tricky with smoke?if you don?t want to see the light in the smoke.