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night for day test


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Instead of filling the closed blinds with soft light, you could crack them open, place a large white board like foamcore right outside at an angle that looks flat-on to the camera, filling the window with white, and lighting the white card up. This would get you a bright white background but ALSO allow you to shine a second light (off camera right) through the windows and backlight the person. Make the backlight hot and then knock down the brightness of that frontal-side light so that the interior feels darker but the light on the back of his neck is hot.

 

If the backlight is big enough, you could even eliminate the side light in the room and just use a white bounce card in front of the person (even slightly upstage) to catch the backlight and fill-in the room and person slightly (but still keep it dim compared to the window light).

 

This would liven up the shot and not make it so flat.

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Guest fstop

I am going to go against the grain here (hopefully without giving Ckulakov a headache ;) ) and say that I think the actual window is most believable on the first test shot. It has to look hot and less controlled, IMO, and this isn't a begginers thing, I'm sure everyone here can reel off countless big budget Hollywood movies where the studio cycloramas have been so poorly and unimaginatively exposed at neutral that it all looks phoney. You are essentially faking something uncontrollable, so it has to have an uncontrollable element, it has to look like you've compromised your control in order to get an exposure from that "real" light outside. I agree with J Lamar that having a lamp-sized hotspot at head height outside the window draws attention to itself, but I think your original exposure was bang on- you just needed the source higher, more diffused and as Dominic says with a smidge of CTB to sell God's sky reflected in the room.

 

Keep up the good work!

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For midday effect, I preferred the hotter shade too -- it was the big shadow from the plant I objected to. I've seen more attractive leafy patterns than that one.

 

But what I'm really missing is the feeling that the light in the room is pouring in from the direction of the obvious source in the frame, i.e. the window! That's why I think he should crack open the blind slats, shine his brightest light through it from the outside, hit the subject with it, and then any black night that is visible through the slats could be hidden by a big white card outside the window, lit with a separate light.

 

Then see if he can get away with no light in the room itself, just a bounce card, or just a very underexposed soft light in the room, and play the person in semi-silhouette.

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Dear Filmmakers,

 

I really like your ideas ( and they really would make the composition more powerfull and interesting) and I would use them but the mood and atmosphere that it creates does not match the scene.

 

It needs to look very normal with most of the light falling on the front of the subject because facial features really need to be seen the best, and there has to be the sunlight coming from the right when the subject eneters.

 

Thanks and I will leave everything the same and just have more light to come from the window visible in the shot.

 

Thanks

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I agree with J Lamar that having a lamp-sized hotspot at head height outside the window draws attention to itself, but I think your original exposure was bang on- you just needed the source higher, more diffused Keep up the good work!

 

Yes, Tim you're right. I mostly objected to the hotspot and leaf shadow. Also that he seemed to have two keys in that first shot. I thought it should be smoother, which he did, but it could be hotter than he has it now for sure. I would definitely also hit him with something either through the blinds or from above the window.

 

This excersize is interesting because I find it hard to explain exactly what I would do in that scenario. It's just so internalized that things come out like I want them without having to think about it. I must make a ton of subconcious tweaks. I've even had a few directors remark to me about how I go into "the zone" or something when I'm lighting.

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Trouble with the final version is that it is so "corrected" as to now be a little boring. At least the hot spot originally added an exciting accent, if a somewhat clumsy one. One shouldn't be afraid to do something bold with a light.

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Something that I recently told my DP that may relate to your setup, is to try not to confuse bright daylight with high key. He immediately understood what I was saying.

 

In your first setup, there is a lot of contrast in the room, and agreeing with David, the leaf pattern is distracting and unrealistic, but I would try to incorporate more contrast in the light coming in through the window and the subject. Although you are trying to conjur the fact that there is a window to his left, letting the bright light coming through the window motivate the fact that it's daylight outside, and cutting out some of the light inside of the room may be exactly what you're trying to accomplish.

 

Good luck!

Edited by Jeremy Russell
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