hard light wide shot with no shadows

[Andre Lim]

Just last night I lit through a doorway in to a room with elevators with a 1k fresnel, I couldn't keep the shadows of the actors from hitting the wall and keep the shadows of the background objects behind them. I was thinking I could use another 1k on the shadows to knock it out or soften it a bit but the actors blocking and the angles made it so they would cast a shadow from the 2nd light.

 

Obviously my experience isn't great enough to figure it out in a fixed amount of time and i could not rig any lights from the ceiling. Any of you guys have fast ways of knocking off big shadows with limited time and lights? I had 2 1k fresnels and 2 betweenies, single, double, 2 flags, and 2 silks.

 

It would've been a lot faster if I've seen the location before during preproduction and would've gave me more than enough time to review pictures and light setups. The location was notified to me the time I got to shoot. What would be some of your solutions?

 

I ended up going in for a tighter shot, silking half of the 1k so the light hitting the actors wasn't so hard and gives the more of an even light when they move around, and use the other half to hit some of the background to give off some shadows. I was thinking of using a flag but it seemed more logical not to since some spill from the silk would blend in to the background. I figured that was the fastest way without setting up 3+ lights and various c-stands ( no permit for the location ).

[Lars.Erik]

First of all, what's wrong with shadows? One of the easiest ways to get lost in lighting is to become too obsessed with the shadows your lights are casting. In my opinion, and I like shadows, as long as you have a good motivated light (you don't have to see the light itself), shadows will work. You see shadows daily in movies by great cinematographers.

 

Now if you don't want shadows, you have to use soft lights, not a 1k fresnel. Kino Flo etc.

 

Another way you might have done it is by low angle shots. But that might not be the right thing for your story?

 

Maybe you could have backlighted your actors? Used a reflector on the camera side so your lighting ratio wouldn't have been too extreme?

 

Difficult too say, but my advice is; DO NOT BE AFRAID OF SHADOWS... :ph34r:

[Tim J Durham]

Just last night I lit through a doorway in to a room with elevators with a 1k fresnel, I couldn't keep the shadows of the actors from hitting the wall and keep the shadows of the background objects behind them.  I was thinking I could use another 1k on the shadows to knock it out or soften it a bit but the actors blocking and the angles made it so they would cast a shadow from the 2nd light. 

 

Obviously my experience isn't great enough to figure it out in a fixed amount of time and i could not rig any lights from the ceiling.  Any of you guys have fast ways of knocking off big shadows with limited time and lights?  I had 2 1k fresnels and 2 betweenies, single, double, 2 flags, and 2 silks.

 

It would've been a lot faster if I've seen the location before during preproduction and would've gave me more than enough time to review pictures and light setups.  The location was notified to me the time I got to shoot.  What would be some of your solutions?

 

I ended up going in for a tighter shot, silking half of the 1k so the light hitting the actors wasn't so hard and gives the more of an even light when they move around, and use the other half to hit some of the background to give off some shadows.  I was thinking of using a flag but it seemed more logical not to since some spill from the silk would blend in to the background.  I figured that was the fastest way without setting up 3+ lights and various c-stands ( no permit for the location ).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Either light them from a direction that the shadow fall is not in the shot or you could bounce the light off one of the walls not in the shot. Were you married to lighting them from the doorway for a pan-around or something?

 

Dumping more light onto the cast shadows won't eliminate them, it'll only make the background hotter with the shadows still there. I can't think of a scenario where that would not look even worse.

 

I would take an ambient reading from the practicals and then just use minimal light to pop the actors out of the backgrounds (with peppers or small kinos), 'course your post didn't give much to go on, not knowing the time of day, window location, desired effect, movement, etc.