Cold winter look indoor - how

[Ale Capo]

Hi everybody,

 

I'm working on a short-film in which there's a scene that takes place in poor and slovenly house. There is a broken window from which the daylight comes in and we want to achieve the feeling of cold winter inside the house.

 

The scene will be shot in day so i will use natural light hitting the window and, depending on the day, I will add soft-light coming in the house from the same window and WB set for daylight.

 

To create the cold winter look indoor I thought of using kino daylights +CTB from the same wall of the window but then it will be noticeable that there are 2 sources with different WB.

 

How could I achieve this cold winter look as if it's coming in from the broken window?

 

Thanks.

 

[Stuart Brereton]

Don't use the CTB on the Kinos, so that they match the daylight from the window. Set your white balance to 4300K for a colder look. Underexposing will help with the cold, gloomy feel.

[Ale Capo]

Thank you Stuart for your advice that's really helpful.

 

I have one more concern to bring up. In the house I had a request to have some candles on. Wouldn't they look way too orange with a 4300K WB?

 

Thank you.

[Aapo Lettinen]

you can ask the art dept to put some loose fake snow to the window frame and frost the glass a bit on the broken area. that helps to sell the illusion even if the white balance is a bit off (snow coming inside from the broken window...) :)

 

I tend to light this type of stuff with silk frame + hmi from outside if camera does not see outside the window, and white bounce + indirect kino or hmi fill from inside but that's just me and you can use whatever suits the look best. A "cloudy day look" with fake snow may be enough. you may want the window light to spread at wider angle than natural light does, that's why I like soft hmi light in these situations, but that works best for ground level 1st floor shooting of course

[Stuart Brereton]

Thank you Stuart for your advice that's really helpful.

 

I have one more concern to bring up. In the house I had a request to have some candles on. Wouldn't they look way too orange with a 4300K WB?

 

Thank you.

Actually, candlelight looks better when it's more orange. With a white balance of 3200k, candles often look very pale and anemic. Using 4300k will give them a warm golden glow, which will contrast well with the cold winter light from the window.

[Robin R Probyn]

The candle "light" will barely have any effect against your natural day light .. especially if your going to bang in a big soft source too .. its going to have to be pretty dark to get any effect of candle light on faces .. so dont think you have to worry about the CB so much.. also as Stuart says.. its sort of cinema grammar.. cold is blue and tungsten and flames are orange .. for good or for bad..

 

Its ok to have different color balances in a shot.. and actually alot of times an advantage .. you wouldn't want to make a sun set CB ed out to"white".. only numbers.. if it looks good then its ok..

[Igor Trajkovski]

Somebody have put Kodak Cinematography Masterclass with
John Seale, ASC, ACS - Lighting Dead Poets Society video on YouTube.

There is a setup of the room for cold winter day. Might give you some ideas.

Whole video - LINK

Set-up 3 - Winter Day @ 12m50s - LINK

[Phil Rhodes]

The other thing is, if you have some orange candles, it'll make the cool light look cooler by comparison, without actually making everything blue.

 

This is probably cheating, and there's probably some sort of super-clever technique that I don't know about for making things look cold without making the actors look blue, but per basic colour theory the way to make blue look bluer is to compare it to orange.

 

Hence all these blue and orange movies.

P

[David Mullen ASC]

I would match your lights to the actual daylight if it's all supposed to be window light. The orange candles burning don't have to expose anything, unless you are going for more of a dusk look -- they can just provide a warm accent to the scene.

 

As for how blue to make your daylight, that's a matter of taste -- 4300K is a good starting point, you can raise or lower from there (if your camera allows that) to adjust the blue cast.

[Jon O'Brien]

If you're depicting a room scene with natural light and snow outside, light bounces upwards off snow more than off non-snow ground. The light angles into the room differently. I've never lit a production as a pro so bear that in mind. I'm interested in lighting though.