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Bouncing Lighting off the Ceiling vs. Muslin


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I'm lighting a scene similar to this scene from The Master. The ceiling is drywall and is painted pure white. To get a good top light, can I just bounce a lot of lights off the ceiling or do I need to rent muslin?

 

Here's another visual reference, with warmer top light. I'm still not sure what temp to make the top light.

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Here's the location I'm working with

 

location photo 1 (daylight-flash from still camera)

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location photo 2 (no flash)

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I'll have about 3 hours to pre-light with a crew of mostly inexperienced PA's, so ease of setup is a big factor.

 

 

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Depends how hard/ soft you want the light I guess. If you are bouncing light off the ceiling it will take on the colour of the ceiling a certain amount. If it's a hard shiny paint it will also be a lot harder obviously that diffused muslin.

 

I'm assuming you are going to have an establishing WS?

 

I'd be interested to know as well how everyone would light the ws of a room that large.

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it really depends on what you like better. I have generally found that pounding a light in to the ceiling will give you an overall ambience, which is different from an overhead source, which sounds like what you are going for. As for the color, thats really up to you as well and is dependent on mood, look, art ,etc.

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As for the aproach to the WS, well there is a practical in the photo that I'd probably use to establish the ambience and mood of the room. Depending on how the camera is moving, pound a large source into some unbleached muslin from floor level to help lift the levels of the room but allow the sources to "do " the work. If this is a daytime scene, use the windows as the sources, and throw some large sources through the windows (10k) maybe a little haze for atmosphere.

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Thanks for the quick replies. For my WS I'm actually just going to hide the ceiling and bounce lights off of it from wherever I can hide them. I'm thinking that I'll use a light source in the 4400K-5000K range to simulate overhead flourescents. I'm going to use a pro mist 1/2 filter to flare out the practicals a bit, since they won't allow a haze machine in the room.

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Also, my thought for the longest time was to use the windows as sources too. But then I realized that having open windows might be awkward for the scene (basically, a dead naked woman on a table being prepared for a funeral).

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as for the windows as a source, you don't need to have them open for light to come through them. Unless the characters would close the shutters, light would be coming through the windws, even if there are curtains in place.

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Thanks to everyone for the advice. One more thing.. What strategies do you recommend for keeping the most consistent light possible coming through the one open window ON A LOW BUDGET. I cant afford to rent 10K HMI's. So my thoughts were just to keep metering it and add/take-away ND gel when needed. Although, I'm still worried about color temperature changes, as it's supposed to be a partly cloudy day. Any suggestions? Should I just simply re-arrange my setups according to when the clouds part? Seems like a chore.

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