Eek - pastel green walls on location

[Stephen Selby]

I've got to light a location where a couple of the walls are pastel green - yuck. Effectively you get a green fill light on everything where the direct light is tungsten. Of course if you adjust the white balance to take out the green fill you end up with a horrible magenta look on the direct light and on the cream coloured walls. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

[Stephen Selby]

PS. Repainting the walls isn't an option, as we are on location

[John Holland]

Keep the light off the walls ,flags etc.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Whenever possible cover the walls up-- have some large solids built up to just throw over them whenever not in frame.

[Stephen Selby]

What makes it even more difficult is it's a small household hallway.

 

1st scene of someone arriving home at night. If it were daytime I guess I'd motivate my key from the door window and use soft frontal fill - contrajour style. However being nighttime my key really needs to be motivated by the main overhead light.

 

My initial idea is to rig a chicken coop to the ceiling or hang some 1/2 white diffusion under existing light fixtures.

 

No real way to flag light off wall without flags being in shot. I guess I could put chicken coop so it is tilted away from green wall and towards neutral wall. Anyhow by flagging that wall aren't I likely to leave it rather underexposed.

 

What if I lit with plus green on key and went for an all out green effect and then pulled back to neutral in post?

 

I have never been a big fan of any light that has green quality and hallways have always proved a nightmare.

 

And yes great idea to cover green walls when not in shot.

[Stephen Selby]

Best example is here. Surprised there isn't much green fill. And both walls are Green

 

http://betweennapsontheporch.net/wp-content/uploads/blogger/_x908CSKJhI4/TPAwQ8hhthI/AAAAAAAAUnQ/CdVHgd8Zl-0/s800/11.PNG

[John Holland]

So the green wall you dont like is underexposed ! so what are you lighting for the action or the walls ?

[Stephen Selby]

That's a tricky one - if you take it too extremities and lit the character with a very narrow shaft of light - i.e. with a dedo and left all the room underexposed - the action would be lit. But you'd end up with a very dramatic effect. I don't particularly want to have the character walk into the hallway to be lit in such a way were it looks artificial. But then if you go to the other extremity, and try and avoid any underexposure alltogether then it can detract from the action, and can be unnecessary. Getting the balance right for the particular feel in the script is the key.