Best lights for spot light

[Jorge Regula]

Hello,

 

I will be shooting a small scene with one actor sitting at a table and plan to light the scene with one single spotlight from above at a three quater back position.

 

The room I will be shooting in has white walls and I want the room to be pitch black with the exception of the spot light.

 

Is this effect possible if there are white walls? Also any light suggestion for the spot light?

 

Thank you in advance!

 

- Jorge

[Satsuki Murashige]

How big is the room? If the walls are all more than 20' away from the table then you might get away with it. I would still cover the walls and floor with big sheets of duvytene or paint them matte black though. There will inevitably be spill and ambient bounce fill from the hot toplight, so the walls really need to be far enough away not be affected by that. Even so, with the dynamic range of modern cameras you'll see into the shadows quite a bit and will most likely pick up detail if there's anything white in the background. So the real answer is if you want infinite black, then don't shoot in a white room!

[Leonardo Brocato]

Use a source 4 with a spot lens 19° or similar better with the iris, then cut all around the walls, maybe if you can't afford the rent can use a 650 fresnel with a metal cone that cut the beam with some little flags for the wall. Or put a par 64 vnsp with a sheet of black foil and hole in the centre....

different solutions for different pockets.

But it's a matter of distance of the walls and exposition.

 

Leonardo Brocato
Gaffer Rome Italy

+393490624665

[Mark Kenfield]

I really like the Dedolight DHL650 650w fixture for theatrical spotlight effects. The optics are much nicer than conventional theatrical spots do you don't get any of the weird colour fringing artifacts on the edge of the beam.