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lighting a hallway scene


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I've attach a picture to this post. But, I am trying to achieve a similar lighting setup to this photo. I what them to be mostly backlit with with little to no light leaking towards the front. And also, I have a little cash to play around with when it comes to equipment. So, any help would be great full...

 

I was original thinking about rigging 5-6 single bulb kinos to the ceiling and dimming them with ND. And using "Leko" to bring up the light in the background

 

This scene will mostly be underexpose...and mostly backlit...

post-41549-0-97601700-1345676372.png

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I guess it all kind of depends on your location. I can tell you one way of lighting this scene in the hallway pictured, but without seeing your location it's a bit hard to tell you what you could do. Say your location looks exactly like this, high ceilings and all, I would replace the ceiling fluorescents like you said. I'd also tuck something up in the ceiling towards the end of the hall, something with a wide beam to backlight them all the way down the hallway. If you want to see all the ceiling fixtures then I'd shy away from ND'ing them. Also, I'd supplement a higher wattage fluorescent in the very back of the hallway to make the wall pop a little brighter. This will help create contrast between your subjects as they walk down the hall.

 

A big part of the look in this photo seems to lie in the color grade. I'm sure it was pretty gritty like this on set but it looks super crushed down. They were blessed with a great location as well, that floor soaks up the reflections beautifully. Say your location has more of a matte floor, you could try greasing the floor or mopping it right before the take to help soak up reflections from the overheads.

Edited by Kevin Horn
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Also, the aspect ratio of this photo is also not the aspect ratio of film so you most likely won't be seeing all of that ceiling and all of that floor at the same time. If you can make that work, more power too you, but it'll make it harder to light. If you see that much ceiling in your wide, then skip the Leko for backlight. Stick with the overheads, they will naturally be backlighting your subject already and if you move in for closeups you can massage a backlight in there if needed.

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What does your hallway look like (Are there already lights in the ceiling, Are there Doorways? Are there windows? What about the color of the walls. If there are already lights in the ceiling then you probably don't need kinos, because the lights in the ceiling are not intended to light the people. Light the back of the hallway. If you really need to see the actors, then maybe a paper lantern or a pancake on a pole, with siders might be useful. If you want to put something in the air, Kino's without heavy masking go where ever they want to, so you may want to explore smaller point sources that are easy to hide, especially if you are interested in back light ( It might be easier to go for top light)

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