Shooting under fluorescent lights

[Marc De Acetis]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm shooting a film in a month and a bit all on S16 with 250D film stock. We are shooting a scene in a department store that has all fluorescent lighting (photo below). We don't have the budget to replace all the tubes in the store and I was thinking of shooting it mostly with the natural fluorescent light for the wides but adding more fill and shape in the closeups. A possible question that would raise when I'm doing this is the flicker. Will there be flicker? Would checking flicker from a DSLR in video mode be a suitable way of testing for flicker or would I need to play with the shutter in this instance and run some actual tests from the lab.

 

Looking forward to your responses.

 

Thanks,

Marc

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Generally they won't flicker-- generally, as long as you're not off speed. The DSLR trick is a good idea.

I would highly recommmend taking a color meter and figuring out the +green you need to add to your own lights so they are all the same color, roughly, to be balanced out in post.

Normally, I'd be on T film and then use a FLB filter to remove most of the green cast you typically get from cool white tubes but in your case on daylight film i'd try to source a FLD filter. Not as big a deal these days with digital post as it used to be, though; but do make sure you match your heads with +green gels as needed.

[Marc De Acetis]

Generally they won't flicker-- generally, as long as you're not off speed. The DSLR trick is a good idea.

I would highly recommmend taking a color meter and figuring out the +green you need to add to your own lights so they are all the same color, roughly, to be balanced out in post.

Normally, I'd be on T film and then use a FLB filter to remove most of the green cast you typically get from cool white tubes but in your case on daylight film i'd try to source a FLD filter. Not as big a deal these days with digital post as it used to be, though; but do make sure you match your heads with +green gels as needed.

Thank you Adrian for the insight and the advice! Going to run a test to get some results.