Fire effect

[Paul Chirilă]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here. I will be shooting a short film sooner than I expected and I am currently looking for solutions for a two characters dialogue near a fireplace. What are the basics for this setup? Can you post here some examples with clear explanations on how it is made? My first guess was to use a tungsten batten light and run it through a dimmer box, then I thought I could use a Skypanel 60-C and diffuse it some more. Does the skypanel give a natural fire effect? What I am looking for is a way to have a proper direction of light in the wide shot(to seem for the eye that it comes from below). How can I hide fixtures in the frame if that is the case? Or, to be more specific, how did Rodrigo Prieto light this dialogue? Is it a 4x4 frame just outside frame left or is it a bigger source?

I was also curious how Deakins shot this in True Grit. What lights did he use and where did he place them? Is there any rule concerning flicker intensity? More in the wide shot and less in the close ups?

 

Thank you,

Paul

Edited July 26, 2023 by Paul Chirilă
I had to insert a screenshot.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

In the past, you would have attached a few pieces of cloth to a fan and then put that in front of one of your lightsources to have a more unsteady, random flickering light. Today, you can certainly switch LEDs to "randomly flickering".

[David Mullen ASC]

I used to put two or three small tungsten fresnels with orange gel on Magic Gadget flicker boxes set to different rates in order to make things look more random, or maybe one flickering and the other on a dimmer just being randomly raised and lowered. Then all the lights would go through a light diffusion frame to blend them.

I've also used three or four Astera Helios LED tubes on different flicker rates, like in a 2' 4-bank Kino housing, again with diffusion over the doors. Or a Skypanel on a firelight gag.

[Stephen Baldassarre]

This was from a 16mm shoot, many many years ago.  I think the stock was 7205, 24fps, T2, no filters or artificial lighting.

 

The first movie I directed had a fireplace scene, indoors.  I shot it on 200 ISO at F2 as well, though it was a smaller fire and the subject was closer to it.  I'm afraid I don't have a screen shot at the moment.  You can put silver reflectors nearby to add some fill.