How would you light this hallway?

Kris Carrillo · August 5, 2005

In two weeks I'll be shooting a music video on a DVX100A in a hotel. The director wants to shoot the performance as a tracking shot in the second floor hallway. We're planning on laying about 40' of straight track and using a doorway dolly to lead the artist down the hallway as he performs to the song.

Here's a shot from the location scout of the hallway where we'll be shooting the performance:

For reference, this shot is from a Canon 10D with a 28mm lens. 1/30 at 400ASA.

I took a reading under the overhead 2' 2-bank fluorescent fixtures and got a 2-2.8 split at 640ASA. (I rate the DVX at 640ASA and shoot 24p with a 1/48 shutter.)

The artist will enter the shot from the metal door at the end of the hallway. I'm planning on shooting from a low angle to avoid seeing the track as much as possible. I'm also planning on hitting the artist with a soft source from just above the lens.

My question is how would you approach lighting this hallway for a music video peformance? I'm limited by the space, in that if I shoot from a low angle, I would see any fixtures close to the ceiling. If I shot from a higher angle, I'm worried about seeing the dolly track as we move down the hallway.

We'll be using house power, but we've got a decent budget for rentals. The artist has dark skin, and I'd really like to pull him out from the background using kickers, I just don't know where I can put them without eventually seeing them in the shot.

I'll probably place his key light on the dolly near the lens, but I'm trying to come up with a plan for lighting other parts of the hallway and background.

About halfway down the hallway is a skylight that provides some nice space to rig from. There's also a really ugly industrial wall sconce about 2/3 of the way down the hallway that I'm going to have the art department dress. It's actually puts out a decent stop, but the fact that there's only 1 makes it weird and we decided it'd be best to lose it completely.

Creatively, I know this is nothing new as far as hip-hop videos go. We do have other set-ups that are more conceptual and will be a lot of fun to shoot, but this main performance in the hallway has to look good and I was a little stumped at the location scout.

I'd love to hear any ideas anyone has. The rest of the video will have a more verite style and will be lit more naturally--it takes place in the hotel rooms. For this performance set-up I want to do something a little more stylized. One idea I had was to shoot at a shutter speed that would cause the overhead flo's to flicker. I thought it might be a nice cheap free effect, but it also might not even read since the levels are pretty low already.

I look forward to hearing anyone's ideas,

Kris

August 5, 2005

hey kris

i dont know whether u have the budget for this...but u can just give this idea a thought. i saw the photograph u had taken. u can just choose to shoot just the opposite direction of the hallway in such a way that the door knobs of the room doors are not facing the camera when u are dollying backwards ....am assuming u are gonna follow the artist frontally as he is walking towards the camera. so u can keep the doors of the rooms (maybe one side of the hallway) open and shoot light through the partially opened doors. as u move back and artist has just crossed the light u can make arrangements to get the doors closed from inside. so when u are are in a similar lens as 28mm the immidiate doorr next to the artist wont be visible but the dark hallway behind is gonna be visbile. the moment he crosses the door with light....close the door....and keep doing it till the end of the hallway...it will have a surreal feel of walking with light...but actually he is walking thro a dark corridor.....u can avoid the other soursce of light...for beter mood. u can light from alternate sides tooo..left room and then right room....u can use 4 bank kino flows vertically thro the partially opened door ...or anyother photoflood bulb sources if u want to go cheeper....kinoflos are great becos u can grid them and make direct it and yet not spill it on walls and ceilings......i dont know whether i am making any sense....dont know...let me know if....it will or wont work.

or replace the practicals with flicker free bulbs

or since u are not planning to show the floor for reasons that ur dooly track might be visible just light the corridor from the floor..that can have an interesting gradation on the walls or the room doors...up to the ceiling....and u can follow the the artist with low angle lighting (light below the camera) which can have a dramatic mood to it....

or just try somehting else....good luck

cheers

raj

Tim J Durham · August 5, 2005

In two weeks I'll be shooting a music video on a DVX100A in a hotel. The director wants to shoot the performance as a tracking shot in the second floor hallway. We're planning on laying about 40' of straight track and using a doorway dolly to lead the artist down the hallway as he performs to the song.

Here's a shot from the location scout of the hallway where we'll be shooting the performance:

Kris

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Instead of laying track, why don't you use a self-contained dolly with big, pneumatic tires? It'll be plenty smooth enough in a carpeted hallway and then you don't have to worry about getting track in your shot. You could pulse a kino on/off as he passes under the overheads.

Or you could rent a body-mount instead of using a dolly. That is very distinct and cool looking:

http://www.doggicam.com/bodymount.php

And not done to death yet. AND you could rig a ringlight to the cam on the body-mount. These are very lightweight:

http://litepanels.com/RL.html

I remember a Deion Ferris video from quite a few years back where she was walking down a hallway and the camera had a ringlight around it. It was sweet looking. And have the doors slightly ajar with lights inside the rooms on stands so they hit him as edgelights when he walks past and also give the hallway some depth.

Anyway, That's what I'd do with a hallway.

Kevin Zanit · August 5, 2005

For an edge you could just shoot a ton of light through the windowed door (I think that is what it is) in the background.

I did a music video recently with a similar situation.

The shot was of a character "floating" down a hallway, performing. We had the actor on one dolly, being towed by the camera dolly.

(sorry for the poor quality grabs, taken off of a small QuickTime rough cut)

This was the hallway:

Through the small window was a 12k fresnel in full spot

It looked about as crazy as it sounds. It was an amazing backlight that just reached all the way down to the other side of the building. This is a good example of how much latitude 5218 has, because there was still detail that I could bring back eventhough the light was about 12 stops over.

I had a 2x2 Diva mounted to the dolly, and then put small units in some of the windows of the rooms

It was a fun setup. Maybe this will give you some ideas.

Kevin Zanit

zrszach · August 5, 2005

Looks very nice Mr. Zanit

Edited August 5, 2005 by zrszach

Kris Carrillo · August 5, 2005

All great ideas, thanks very much.

The problem with placing a light at the end of the hallway is that there's not a lot of space outside that door to work with. The artist will be making his entrance through that door, which will be tented, because we'll be shooting day for night. It's not a bad idea, and if I convince the director that the artist doesn't have to enter through that door, then I can probably make a 1.2 HMI Par work.

Kevin, I was actually thinking about the same thing--connecting two dollies together and having the talent stand on one performing into the camera, but I decided it wasn't right for this video. Your grabs looks really nice.

Tim, I love the idea of a body-mount. I think it'd work perfect for this artist, and I remember reading somewhere how to construct one out of gobo arms and a weight belt. I'll probably add a Kino Kamio to the rental list.

I also was trying to decide if track would be necessary. The hallway is smooth and level enough that we could just go on the pneumatic tires as you suggest, but with track, the dolly grip only has to worry about the speed of the move and not focus so much on steering the whole rig. I'm still up in the air on this one.

rajavel, I like your suggestion about pushing some light into the hallway from inside the rooms. I'll probably open a couple of the rooms and light from inside the room out into hallway to give the artist a little side/edge as he walks by. I'll try to motivate it as television flickers or something.

Thanks again, everyone. This is exactly what I needed, and I'm feeling a lot better about lighting this performance set-up.

Kris

jon w · August 5, 2005

"The problem with placing a light at the end of the hallway is that there's not a lot of space outside that door to work with. The artist will be making his entrance through that door, which will be tented, because we'll be shooting day for night. It's not a bad idea, and if I convince the director that the artist doesn't have to enter through that door, then I can probably make a 1.2 HMI Par work."

does it all have to be in one shot? could you shoot the entrance through the door into the hallway in one shot, then the rest walking down the hallway as a seperate setup?

John Reling · August 6, 2013

We are looking to save energy and lower electricity costs in our co-op. We recently had an influx of young families and our electricity costs have skyrocketed. I was thinking that maybe we should replace our hallway lights, which are on 24 hrs a day, with some type of motion detection lights which are dim until someone walks by.

Freya Black · August 6, 2013

We are looking to save energy and lower electricity costs in our co-op. We recently had an influx of young families and our electricity costs have skyrocketed. I was thinking that maybe we should replace our hallway lights, which are on 24 hrs a day, with some type of motion detection lights which are dim until someone walks by.

Usually motion detectors turn the light off until they detect motion.

You could replace the bulbs with low power LED lighting?

Freya