Mike Bao

Could anyone guesstimate what lens it was shot with please?

Agreed with the above. Black skin in general tends to be quite reflective and you can def add some "moisture" make up. She is keyed with a pretty hard source in a lot of shots,with soft fill? Overhead fill? not sure. But it is a straightforward front light. You can see in some set ups she has a tad soft kicker on the side of her face. On the other the white bg bleeds/bounces and creates a nice shine. So you can play with softness angles of sources to put various reflections where you like.

Will any lights/practicals be on in the apartment? Or is sodium the only light? From realism perspective if any lamps are on inside the room,you barely if at all can see sodium from the outside simply because practicals overpower it. Sodium lights are a hard source so you can use a leko to produce a sharp patch/pattern in the room,not necessarily lighting their faces with it and perhaps create a pattern with either foliage or venetian blinds,you can also use several lights to put different accents on set. And you can light faces by soft underexposed bounce either from window side or from below. It depends a lot on what exactly do you and DP want to achieve and what kind of story it is.

I love the break in scene in Casino,where Joe Pesci comes to Vegas and starts robbing everything, I can't find a proper clip or still so here is the link to the crappy youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrrkPHPwVfo&feature=player_detailpage#t=37

You need a large room with a window and ideally ground floor so you can easily put the light outside and shoot through the window. Fresnel would be a good start and you can pick how hard you want it,what color you want,shoot it though blinds or leaves or any pattern you want. Having a room with dark walls as opposed to white helps immensly. Underexpose the key to taste. perhaps add an underexposed fill as well.

Don't blow 400$ in one go. Go on ebay and get one used tungsten light (don't buy fake chinese ones). A lot of people atleast in UK sell 2K openface for around 300$ and 800w or 650w or even 300w fresnels go for cheaper. This way you will have a pro light which is easy/comfortable to use and control. Start learning about diffusion,bouncing,flagging etc. Once you play around with it,you will realise what you need. Get china balls,make some wagon lights,get dimmers,get practical lights. Get black material for negative fill,blacking out windows,making skirts for your china balls. Get some diffusion gels,reflector,foam board w.e. They all are cheap,but go step by step learn one at a time,don't get a 400$ worth of stuff which you don't know how to use.

Please provide a proper picture of the room lol. What's your budget? Buy some black material and cover the white walls or get a black backgorund on stands. Get a smoke machine. Put gels on lights and you are almost there.

Pull the bed away from the wall. This way if you put it high and at an angle you can flag it off the wall,while his key remains intact.

Remember,that Super-8 is a very small format so the DOF is pretty large, what is the reason to light for F4.5 specifically? Here is a still of 500T shot wide open at night/late magic hour,it is def a wonderful stock

This is probabaly the most famous one :

For this price range tungsten is the way to go, 2K blonde is an awesome light and I would def recommend getting that first as 1K fresnel is just not enough in most situations. Yes you will be lacking smaller units,but you can always substitute them with diy stuff/practicals and you can always cut output of the large unit. Chimera is a waste of money for low budgets,you can get a 8x4 poly or muslin or shower curtain and bounce or shoot through.

Thanks Josh! We actually ended up using another room and even though I was able to maintain constant exposure the supplementary lighting we had was not enough for the punch I wished for.

Big overhead source perhaps neutrally balanced color?

Hello folks! I will be gaffering on a 48hr challenge this weekend and I would love to ask for some advice and critique for my lighting plan. Thanks a lot! Here is the location which is on the 1st floor. Equipment we have: 2x1K floor par cans,1K VNSP,3x800 redheads,650w fresnel and 3x300 fresnels all tungsten. Unfortunately we have 0 grip stuff,but I have some black rags and some muslin and scraps of gels. I was planning to build a tent outside the window as good as I can without cstands or flags,than use the curtains which kill about 3-4 stops of lights to naturally flag the light of the white walls. First question,given that I most likely won't be able to block daylight completely is it going to be an issue mixing the color temperature? Would it be a good idea to tape muslin to the window to make a uniform source or will the curtains do the work for me? I was also considering bouncing 1K par from outside into the ceiling to mimick the natural daylight but I am not sure if it is a good idea? Any tips would be much appreciated! ;p

You could also light from the ground augmenting the street lamp post,which can give intresting shadows on the ceiling ( through branches or smth).