John Hale

A fresnel is a bad choice to use with a soft box as it's more geared towards hard light applications such as shafts and what not. An open face light is best for sox boxes as it fills up the entire box evenly where as a fresnel will create a spot in the center. I use a larger chimera soft box with a 1K TOTA light and it looks amazing as a key for interviews or whatever. I'd check out some 300W or 150W fresnels as these tiny lights can fit in tight places and end up being a lot more versatile than a 650W.

Thanks Adrian I might take you up on that :). I agree on the grip cloth now just jave to see if we can rig this easily...

Thanks Adrian for the response! Love all your ideas especially the checkard bounce board as that was one of my concerns as well with too much bounce. There's a bunch of scenes that take place in a long hallway in a basement that leads to an opening where the kids climb up a latter to get in and out of the basement. The idea is that the basement is hell or a demonic place with the outside being a warm heavenly place (if that makes sense...) so I was hoping to rig some tungsten lights to act as the warm sunlight shining into the hole to the basement as the kids climb down the ladder. I don't think it has to be a direct beam of light, more like soft ambient daylight. My big concern is output. To make the light feel like natural daylight it will have to be coming from a big source (maybe a big bounce or chimera) I'll be using f2.8 lenses on a c300 and know I can push the ISO as I don't mind a bit of noise for this style. What type of tungsten units and or rigs do you think will do the job of creating a bright warm sunlight effect thats close to blowing out. My first thoughts were to rent a bunch of par cans (cause they are cheap) and just blast a 6 or 8 by unltra bounce hung abover the opening as high as possible so there's not too much fall off as the actors move up and down the ladder. budget is super tight so cheap tricks is the name of the game for this shoot :) any thoughts?

Hello everyone, I'm shooting a horror feature soon and a lot of the scenes take place in an abandoned asylum that we will be creating with fake walls in a warehouse. In the script the asylum is underground in the basement of a building so technically the space should be pitch dark. In a couple scenes the actors drop or damage their flashlight leaving them in the dark. We want to see in the darkness around them as they move through the space... So.. my basic approach was to rig some soft top lights through out the set (will be easy with our fake walls, we have 10 ft or more of space above the set in the warehouse we are shooting). daylight Kenos probably with some green and heavy diffusion at low output (maybe just a bulb or two) to give a basic cyan tinted non directional fill. Then I wanted to try using some tungsten lekos rigged up high replicated small hot shafts of sunlight when needed, balance the camera to 3600K or so, throw in a bit of smoke and let the flashlights do the rest. - Is this a good starting point? - How underexposed should I lets the cool fill go? I'll be shooting on a C300 and using C-LOG for most DR. - what are some good flashlights to get? maybe a lantern as well? would like to have different types as there will be 4 kids all holding flashlights they grabbed from home. I'd also like them to be cooler, which makes me think... The scene takes place in the late nineties, where most flashlights that you would see around the house and garage in that time tungsten/halogen style? Thanks for the read any advice/comments would be appreciated

Stephen thanks for the reply! I agree that driving scenes that aren't done in the real world always seem to look fake (at least to us peoplel that pay attention to this stuff) but if done right can give some interesting results and make it easier for everyone on set. I did a couple shoots recently in a driving car, just a low/no budget thing so it was pretty much just me in the car working with ambient light. I love your idea of using white paper to build up the ambient level. Seems you could put it anywher out of shot, was thinking of doing something like this but didn't really have the time. I guess the ND really depends on what your seeing outside. Seems the best way to do this with no ND is to find a nice street where everytning is in shade or the BG is dark enough to hold. Ya after looking at it more and seeing it in HD on TV seems like green screen too. Can you shoot through windows on green screen (like a head on 2 shot)? does the glass reflect green making it hard to key? I'm gonna try your idea on adding white to the ceiling and dashboard on a shoot coming up. Would any type of daylight ring light or onboard LED help add fill in the car? I tried my micro LED and it didn't to crap but add an eyelight, any light out there with more punch thats small enough to mount on camera and help fill in the car?

I'm pretty sure Roger Deakins has talked about how He light this scene in his forum but for the sake of discussion I'll take a crack at it. Looks as though theres a large hard source outside the window creating that bright shaft of sunlight coming into the room. It's hard to tell by just looking at this one shot but the shafts do look like Roger may have had two sources for each window, each creating their own shaft of light that feels as though they came from one source. The shafts come from a higher angle as the shades act as a toper, preventing a hot backlight from hitting Jeff Bridges. As far as fill goes there are two things happening. Looks as though a bounce card (pro unbleached muslim) is placed camera right, in order to bounce the shafts of light from the window back at Jeff Daniels giving him a nice soft key then add some smoke to bring out the shafts and act as room fill and there you have it.

Thanks David for your response! I have roamed this forum for over a year now and have learned a lot from you. Thanks for being a big source of information for me! Seems like a green screen out side the window keyed out with a plate plus another plate over the whole image would give a similar effect.

I was watching the new show Almost Human on FOX the other day and liked the look of the interior car scenes. What caught my eye at first was the way the windows reflected the outside atmosphere speeding by. It looks as though they are shooting through the car windows on a sound stage with some sort of rear projection (possible big digital projectors) simulating the fast moving background. Guessing they used a polarizer to fine tune the reflections. Any thoughts on how they achieved this look? How did they get the reflections on the car windows? Big massive digital projectors on each side? Or did they not even shoot through the windows and just added the reflections in post? Anywho, would like to hear some thoughts on it, thanks! here's one clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dv6JmczZCI

I like the look of the music video having that creepy bummed out middle of nowhere vibe. Seems the video was shot pretty much with just the practicles, as there are a lot of them. the fluorescent cyan look works pretty well since it is contrasting some of the warmer wall practicles hitting the warm wood walls (does your eye see cool cyan unless there's a contrasting color in frame?) Ceilings seem pretty high as you could shoot without seeing them possibly? If you dont have enough light maybe a 1K or something matching the flourescents bounced off camera? take a light reading before shoot. Also dont forget about FLICKER!!! at that frame frame with house hold flourescents you might have a problem, or 120 frames in a multiple of 60 so you're fine? def test before hand, I'm no expert... Seems the toughest task will be trying to gives separation between the dancers and the background walls. some sort of warm practicles in frame to creat a hot spot like the music video?

on the vimeo page the DP explains the lighst He used. He mentioned filling from the same side as the key, something I've been trying to play with in order to have a nice wraping light.

HelloThere, I'm trying to decide how to light a night time exterior scene in which two actors are walking down a suburban street. They are a young couple walking to a local house party. There's about 3 full pages of dialog as the couple walks. Do not have a location yet but I'm picturing an upscale neighborhood similar to the look of Blue Velvet I'd say. So I'd like to shoot the whole scene in one long steadicam shot facing the actors. I will be using a Canon 7D with a 24mm or 35mm I'm thinking. I want the background to be a little soft so the characters pop slightly but we can still see the neighborhood. I'm trying to figure out how to light this. At first I thought I could find a nice spot where we can shoot with overhead street lights and just try and control it a little. Maybe use a china ball attached to a poll to follow with the actors as a soft key. Maybe a 4x4 bounce card under the camera to help fill the street light, or maybe bounce a little household bulb into it. I'd like to through up some bigger sources as backlights and rims on the actors but I'm pretty sure I probably can only get a 800w Joker and some 1K Fresnels. I will probably have access to one house for power. I guess my questions are: What's a nice realistic way to carry light with two walking people at night given the circumstances? Would it be best to try and break up the scene into a dark area with no street lights and fake the moon then come into the lights? or would that be unnatural? What would be the best way to utilize my bigger lights? or to not? Any impute on this would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I did a ratings test in a cinematography class and found the ISO to be 500 in CINE 3 (which is what I use for indoor and most setups) CINE 1 was rated at 250 (which I use for outdoors an other high contrast environments). Didn't check with picture profile off cause I always shoot with either CINE3 or CINE1. Sometimes I'll go to CINE4 if it' super low light, guessing it's a 640 or so. all at 0db of course I've had my EX3 for almost a year now and love it, great all around camera

Thanks for the replies!!!!! That halogen light looks great. A light within a light! They seem to have better light quality and last longer! I was wondering about the CFL daylight thing. It doesn't make sense if they can make kinos and other FLs tungsten why not a CFL? I did however see some on a couple sites but was not convinced. Has anyone used the GE REVEAL FS bulbs? I see them everywhere, even in the grocery store! Seems a like a easy quick fix??

Hello, I am lighting a scene that takes place at a small circular table. I want to use a china ball placed over the table to act as a practical overhead light. I used a couple CFL full spectrum 5500K 32watt bulbs I picked up at Home Depot to light a comedy sketch in a house during the day. I was happy with the result and like the fact that CFLs don't get too hot, which can be nice when you have a bunch of thin paper next to a heat source. I wanted to get some 3200K bulbs for the table scene but couldn't seem to find full spectrum CFLs with that color balance. It seems most household FS CFLs are only daylight? I want the scene to be light very clean. I want the light to be very white and soft. I think a 100watt equivalent incandescent build will be enough output for the scene. I also plan to use some arri 300watt fresnels for fill and background. What bulbs would be best for matching the 300watts? The shoot is this weekend so I'm hoping maybe I can order some but if anyone has a suggestions on quick solutions I could find somewhere (Home Depot, Expendables store etc..) in the LA area that would be great. Thanks! oy yea this is my first post. Hello everyone!