Nick Keller

Got a 16mm short coming up. One of the shots is a over the shoulder of a character looking at himself in the mirror. Since I'm in a small bathroom I was just thinking of shooting a light into the mirror, which would light that and reflect light back into the actors face. Or do I need to light both separate with different units?

Just recently finished up on a 16mm project this weekend on 7218. I had a scene where the actor walked into a room lit only by one practical. The idea was just this one practical was giving off the light to the room. So when he came into the light to do the scene I had him exposed at key. But my fill or really my ambience level was 2 1/2 stops under (trying to mimic as if the light fell off further away from the lamp). So when he walks through he's 2 1/2 stops under for a bit and then comes to his key. Just wondering if 2 1/2 is too much (I thought 3 under was to much and 2 wasn't enough so I split the difference). I'm not so worried because I want it to be dark in those moments and then he is properly lit by the practical.

How do you deal with them on wide shots that need multiple sources of light? I shot this weekend on the HVX with 35 adaptor, and we had a bar scene. Since I had to light multiple people and accent certain objects etc. I ran into a problem of multiple shadows. I tried my best to soften or compose them out and most of the time it worked. But, for instance we had a dolly wide of a bartender walking to our two main characters to serve them a drink. I had two keys, one on each of the actors and set up sources to light the bartenders path. The problem was I had two shadows created by those two keys. No one else noticed until I pointed them out but I just want to know some tips on how to avoid such problems. Naturally there are multiple shadows all the time if your in a club/restaurant/bar atmosphere so I guess its not killer.

Thanks for all the help. Basically I'm in a pickle, I can get away with flagging most off. However there is a scene where the main character walks down a narrow hallway, of course those walls are white and I have no way of flagging. The best would be to find a new location but we can't do that. Originally the lighting idea was there are two doors as he walks and the light will be coming from those rooms making pools of light and slowly falling off. Now lets say I do it that way is it ok if my stop for the walls is 1 1/2 over my initial incident reading? I can try to light from above but top light isn't what we want to create the mood.

Single Perf 7218 500t. (Sorry about that)

Just wondering how much is to much when creating controlled highlights? If your trying to mimic hot spots from the sun etc. with either tug or hmi units what's a good ratio to have? I know 4 stops is too hot reaching the shoulder, I would think something like 2 stops over would do the trick. Another question about overexposure. Shooting soon in a small location with off-white walls. Nice thing is its a two light simple cross lit set up. At what exposure will the walls start becoming distracting? White should be about a stop or more over middle grey (zone system) so I assume if my walls are about a 1-1 1/2 over I should be ok. Shot something recently with white and my spot reflected read about 1 1/2 over my initial incident and the footage came back fine. But I just want to double check.

When an actor is standing in front of a window or the source of light is a single window in the background do most underexpose the front of the subject to make the face seem a little dark. Almost similiar to underexposing a face on the shadow side of the sun. I was watching Sexy Beast and Fat City (Conrad Hall) and noticed scenes, that were daylight but the subject was in front of a window and was underexposed a bit.