Lighting interior

[Francesco Migliorati]

Hi everyone! I need some help… I have to light a living room for an historical drama set in 1920. In the room there is only one window and I have available one m18 (or maybe two m18), and a couple jokers 800, do you think it’s enough? The trouble is that outside the window will be placed a 4x4 green screen that I’ll light up with two kino flow. How can I handle the right exposition between inside and outside? I have to be able to look outside. Do you have any suggestions.
 

 

[Phil Rhodes]

All this depends heavily on the size of the room, the layout, the furniture, what action you need to stage, what time of day you're shooting, and what look you're going for.

My first thoughts include:

Do you need to block external light somehow, for consistency as the daylight changes?

4x4 is not a very big green screen for a window. How big is the window? You may need to have the green very close to it.

Two M18 and two Joker 800s is a fairly decent amount of light, although not enough to overwhelm large amounts of direct sunlight. What do you want it to look like? What time of day are you shooting?

[Nathan Whitaker]

Yeah, agreed there are a lot of questions there. But, I also agree that's a good amount of light for what I assume is a pretty small interior, especially for a 1920's living room. 

My suggestion from the limited information is yes, block direct sunlight from outside. Put the screen fairly close to the window- assuming it covers the window- with enough space for the kino flos- you want enough distance between the kinos and the 4x4 that the screen is evenly lit. You're looking for 50-70 IRE. The exposure of the interior is up to you.

The M18's can be behind and above the screen going through some moderately light diffusion, focused to the same spot on it to simulate a single source. You can fire a joker into the ceiling for general level, and perhaps something like a book light for a key with the others- depending how wide your shots are and how large the living room space is.

I don't know if any of this would actually work but first thing that popped into my head without seeing the space.