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Hard sources through windows (And a dino light question)


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I'm shooting a scene on stage soon, me and the director wants some punchy, warm light sources to break up the ambient and leave gobo shaped (Window frames mostly) on the floor. Budget is pretty limited (Short film) so I think it have to be tungsten.

In my mind I'm thinking between 

Regular 5ks (Or bigger) 
Dino lights - Question for substitution in the bottom.
Mole Richardson

Do you guys have any other lamps that would be nice to test out? As a young cinematographer I don't have a ton of experience with big tungsten sources.

If Dino lights are too expensive, wouldn't you be able to just rig 6-9 par cans and shoot through the same diffusion, and stil create the illusion of "1 big source" ? 

Best regards

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Edited by Sune Bang Ingemann
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If you're diffusing then you won't really ger the hard shadows. This sounds like a job for a Fresnel to me. I would probably look into 10Ks, honestly.

If you are on a stage with proper distro, then they will be pretty cheap to rent. Warm is a function of your white balance, and whether you choose to color them with gel.

Dinos would give you multiple shadows, and by the time you rent the multiple Pars and stand etc for them, you probable have spend more than the cost for a 10k, probably.

I tend to think better to go with the BFL (Biggest F_______ Light) you can get/afford/power as you can always reduce output of a light.

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Yes Dinos, MaxiBrutes, Jumbos create tiny multiple shadows though there aren’t always obvious and becomes less of an issue if the light is really far away. But if the goal is a window pattern shadow then you need a sharper single source and if it’s supposed to be sunlight then it has to be fairly powerful (depends on your ISO and f-stop). You also need some space to back up the light which is also why it can’t be too weak. But also remember that daylight is a mix of warm sunlight and cool skylight so if you’re on stage you need to create both outside the window unless naturalism is not important.

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Thanks David. 

The plan is to create ambience outside with bounced light thorugh diffusion. The plan was to use CTB'ed tungsten, but with the current energy crisis in europe and the cost of a single KwH it might be cheaper to use HMI'S, so the gaffer will sit down in excel and figure it out. 

It'll be shot on the mini LF which i almost always rate at 800 (sometimes i meter for 500, but less and less these days) and shot somewhere between 2.0-2.8, so it's more about getting the right contrast between the ambience and the direct sunglight than exposure, so a very big source might be nessecary. 

Best regards
 

Edited by Sune Bang Ingemann
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