Christopher M Schmidt

Hi again Ari, Your not looking for daylight balanced but instead "cool white" bulbs which are more like 4100K or so. Generally people shoot with a tungsten white balance and the effect you get is a nice cyanish color. I would recommend using the least amount of bulbs in frame as possible as it will be less to have to balance exposure with with your out of frame bulbs. I think the CRI depending on the wattage and bulb type will range from 60-80 or so (there are at least 2 general widths of household flurouscent tubes in 4ft and 2ft lengths and you need to match the housing you get to the right size bulb) fluorescent lights are different then tungsten bulbs. I don't know too much about the technical stuff here but they are gas filled tubes so unlike a tungsten bulb which has a direct correlation with how much power you give it and how much light comes out it needs a ballast to stablize the electricity which basically is a middle man between the light and your power source....adding a dimmer to that system is added confusion. What I find usually happens with a dimmer and fluorescent tubes is that just by setting the dimmer to like 3/4 power or so you will just start to see the fluorescent freak out and flicker a lot ...I have used a dimmer with kinos before and it pop'd the fuse on the kino ballast after about an hour or so of flickering (a cheap fix, but none the less probably not good for the equipment). It can also be hard to dial in the right amount of flickr as the equipment is not made to do it. fluorescent tubes are never "dimmable" btw atleast to my knowledege....there might be compact fluorescent's that are or maybe some of those ring style lights but dont think the tubes ever are. Your idea for adding light in addition to your practicals in frame is exactly right. I would probably hide bulbs right above the practicals if I could so the light has the same direction as the practical and doesn't look fake. I would then use w/e material works best duvatene...newspaper or with a kino fixture maybe the barndoors will be enough to keep the light off the walls and keep your grungy look. Keep in mind you don't necessarily need a color contrast....maybe just the monochromatic blue is enough....even at 60cri it wont be totally mono chromatic there will be a lot of colors in there so keep in mind what the PD is like and the colors of the set. Regardless if you are looking for color contrast I would just make sure the other color is motivated wether it be a disco ball or flashing lights coming through from the party or some other source in the bathroom. I think just using tungsten sources to light the faces with no motivation might look kinda false and theatrical.....but that is not to say it wont be ok lots of tv shows do this....Law and order for example always has cool white tubes lighting sets and in frame and then will light talent in a pretty typical way with a nice soft frontal tungsten source. It really depends how grungy and how "real" your trying to go with it. I personally would probably do all the practicals and ceiling lighting with household fixtures and cool white bulbs then I would prob put some more coolwhites in kino housings and use those along with lighting controls to light my talent. I'd rely on things like the disco light or other lights in the background like coming through a window or something to give me any color contrast to the blue

just a quick note for you. Light is light the sun look has nothing special about it other then it being a really really big light really really far away that has white balance around 5600k (but obviously changes over the course of the day getting warmer at sunrise/sunset). when trying to mirror this effect think about that and you realize you often don't need to do too much that is fancy. if you want someone by a window being actually hit by sunlight consider how much brighter direct sunlight is usually is then ambient light inside a house....your probably going to need a pretty big light. Also consider that the sun has basically no fall off what this means is that the sun is sooooo big and sooo far away that over the course of the earth the light is always going to retain the same brightness. So basically any part of your frame hit by the sun unless there is something blocking the light (like a curtain) is going to want to be at the same exposure level which again generally means you want a bigger light farther away. with all that said as david explained color temp is relative. for a subtle warm effect 1/4 CTO or CTS is usually enough for a more dramatic sunset look Half or even full CTO on a daylight fixture works.

Hi Ari, I think your approach is rational, but in practice involves a bit too much light. for starters lets talk about the grungy bathroom look. typically the best way to achieve this is to actually not use proper kino flo bulbs but rather normal household flourscent "cool white" bulbs with a lower CRI (color rendition index). What this does is gives you a more monochromatic blue look which will help with the grungy look. If these bulbs are in frame you will probably want some additional light to combat the brightness that looks like it is coming from those in frame sources but is actually out of frame so the bulbs arn't super blown out...however if there arn't any bulbs in frame for a large bathroom space even in a huge wide you probably wouldn't need much more then 6-8 bulbs to achieve a 4/5.6 at around 400 ASA If there are standard overhead fluro fixtures in the ceiling a very popular thing to do is to take newspaper and hang it down around the fixtures to keep the light from hitting the walls. This way you have a nice grungy soft top light but your walls stay dark. "grungy" I think is generally a mood achieved by low key lighting which means that you will want most of your frame a bit underexposed....maybe even your talent a bit underexposed too or just a portion of them lit to exposure. Your next thing to think about is how powerful you want that disco light effect to be. If you want it to be pronounced your in a situation where you probably want the bathroom to be really underexposed else how is that disco light going to show up? you will be in danger of over lighting. However if you want a more subtle effect I think you could get away with having your bathroom a little more near proper exposure....if you want that disco light to show up strong I would think you won't want much more then 2-4 tubes lighting the whole space. as for the flicker....you can try to put the fluorescent's on dimmers but I'm not exactly sure how it will react sometimes that works.....it is also bad for the ballasts so maybe use some household fluorescent casings which you can get a home depot or other store like that. For the disco light assuming you want a real disco ball look with the spinning reflections I would recommend using a real disco ball. A disco ball is just a spinning set of little mirrors on a ball with a light blasted at it. so I would do just that but you can use your own film lights to put on it. Im sure others will have more experience with this...I have never had to do a disco ball effect. But maybe even have a couple tungsten heads on dimmers with different colors on them and fluctuate them if you want changing colors....I would probably just pick a single color myself. I think if you want to have a more beauty/stylized approach you could light your talent on top of all of this. possibly motivating rim lights or something from the grungy bathroom fluorescent or disco ball. But honestly you have enough light already. I would suggest maybe just having a couple more cool white bulbs in a kino or two (or your own diy) housings with some Diffusion on them that you could move around on stands that you could use to supplement what you have already put up. Generally disco balls are white light. So if you use a non gelled tungsten light for the disco ball (an white balance at 3200 for that) and then light the bathroom with cool blue tubes you will certainly achieve your grungy blue look. Best of luck

This was shot with HMI lighting outside of the train windows. Its a fully controlled set with large generators. most likely the sources where put through some diffusion as well.

or just search string lights....youll find lots of stuff, its very trendy right now I think so its out there.

you can just get a string of standard eddison bulb sockets ...or probably one of the smaller socket sizes too... and just pick your bulbs there is a range of size and shapes of 10-40W bulbs and I'm sure you'd find exactly what you want that way.

The softness you are seeing is just the fill side lights which is either ambient light created from the other sources or like small bounces/ small very soft sources. everything else is pretty visible and you can tell where its coming from. I think often people mistake detail in the marginal black for soft light but really that is just an overall low contrast look The first still you have that blown out window top of frame left and playing on that in frame there is either a light coming from through the window which is edging the refrigerator and creating that streak on the floor or just a light off to the side frame left doing those things frame right there is a light coming through that hall which puts the kinda blown out spot on the wall behind the person in frame which is separating the person from the background. there is another source which is uplighting the backround softly (you can see the shadow from the microwave....depending on this DP works this is either a light source on the floor pointed up toward the cabinets/fridge or is just bounce back from light coming through that blown out window there seems to be another source of light coming from frame right which hits the cabinets in the forground and also gives that specular highlight reflection on the metal thing top frame left the actual light on the talent is most likley just ambiance in the room or a very soft small amount of light hidden out of frame. and just hitting her frontside. A lot of the naturalness of the lighting comes from precise control over each source....having light fall of from dark to light in the right places in the right way. Often times you will find lighting from outside windows where things can naturally fall in front of lights and create areas of varying contrast will help do this ....or the other way is to use all of your lighting control tools very precisely (flags, nets, diffusion). a good example of how well crafted that first shot is the poof of light behind the subject. It looks very natural maybe as if there was a window in that hallway in which light was hitting a wall and then softly bouncing back...but yet it is positioned perfectly to separate the subject from the background w/o feeling forced....this balance of naturalism with precise placement is very important.

12V bulbs like really interesting might try that!

Thanks....yea that makes sense forgot about amperage issue. I have used lots of LED panels with batteries and the run time can be pretty good. Looking for tungsten sources though....we can plug it in just would be easier not to.

dont know how much there is .....ND the windows in frame and leave the ones off frame without ND for natrual fill ....process trailer deal with soft frontal light and let the sun hit still for highlights if you can are the two ways I know of and seem to cover a bulk of your examples

Just curious if it is possible to convert power off a anton bauer brick to an edision plug to run small tungsten bulbs (like 60-100W).

You can for sure always hide lighting....I think often people think once they are lighting they need to capital L LIGHT but sometimes it can be pretty small stuff. ....maybe just hanging a few china balls around above frame with 100 -250W bulbs. WIth the red one (assuming MX sensor) I wouldn't go too much past 1000 maybe 1250 ISO....and keep in mind at those higher ISO's you really want to kinda get your exposure right as there will be less that can be done after the fact in the color room. but 1000 ISO at even an F2 is pretty bright! you won't need a ton of light and of course with a long take like that it is nice when the frame goes under exposed at times. This isn't the best example but might give you something to think about. The film lost in translation was shot with mostly available light on 35mm with lots of night work and it is beautiful.

No lights at night with a dslr is actually kinda tough...usually isn't enough light. Your thoughts on your work show you have lost perspective to a certain degree haha because it looks pretty good for a first time student short actually. the quality of the picture is not bad and remember "quality" is subjective it does not mean Glossy and expensive looking. Many beginning filmmakers spend a lot of time trying to make "high quality" images when what they need to be doing is making creative images and finding there own voice. There are plenty of great hyper grainy films again every aspect is subjective grain is not necessarily bad nor is under exposure or anything else ....there is no right way. you also did everything on this film direct/write/produce/shoot/edit? its hard to have any perspective on your work when your that close to every aspect. A great thing about collaborating is that it gives you distance and helps to see the work more objectively this is a great quote by Ira Glass I think is very applicable “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” ― Ira Glass Best of luck

I have used the lesser power one which they compare to a 1.2k HMI. Its is green the CRI is probably a little sketchy (I would guess 80-90ish) and as you dim it gets worse and worse The pattern of the light is also sketchy ....its not at all a single point source inside the fixture is an array of LEDS about 1ft x 1ft and if you try to use doors to control the light you can see the pattern of the LED's. That said if you are in place where power draw is a problem and you are diffusing the source I think its great. I used one on a doc style thing and aside from problems with a little green spike it was fine and the small green issues colored out no problem at all.....I think if you know the problems going in it can be a great tool....and the rental was cheap too.

A consideration might be grain though which Im suprised hasn't been brought up. resolving a 4k scan of 16mm will yield much more visible grain. Its not to say that with noise reduction and a good telecine it won't be an issue but I would consider it. I would also consider your final output too if you can't screen in 4K the added resolution isn't much of a benefit.

So here is the shot.... I want to shoot toward the back of the cab in a pick up truck from the back of the pick ups bed. So the frame is basically seeing the driver and one passenger obscured through the back window and then seeing a bit around the Cab of the truck as well. so for further clarity the idea is to place the camera about 3ft off the bed of the truck near the rear of the bed centered shooting forward back toward the rear window of the trucks Cab. My hope is to be able to rig this so it is safe for the truck to drive at HWY speed. We intend to have a static shot and obviously because of HWY speed the plan is to have the camera unmanned this is a small documentary style shoot and we are traveling to location with gear. so my question is first how should this be done properly and secondly Is it possible to bring down the size of the rigging gear to be able to travel (on plane) wit the necessary tools to accomplish this. The camera is a stripped down Red Scarlet (weight approx 7-8lbs with battery and lens) The secondary question if it is deemed improbable to do this safely with a lighter load of gear we may just try to cheat the shot at slower speed with a heavy set of sticks and tie downs. anyone ever done anything like that ...recommendations?

I definitely see where your coming from David and that is really interesting to hear....especially the bit about lower light levels making talent feel uneasy or an actress not shooting because of the light. I do agree it is possible to light both "naturally" and always have an actress lit softly and frontally. Although I think the word "naturally" is a tricky one as it seems to just be the new standard and generally just means scenes looking less lit while often still using classic lighting technique to create a safe image.... I think the need to keep a face dark or contrasty etc is not necessarily due to an onus to the reality of the situation but is simply a creative option to have. and certainly a face can be dark/contrasty....even barley visible and yet still beautiful! maybe producers and actress's do not understand this though I suppose. they should look at bill hensons photos! ....maybe that would not help though haha. I certainly do work in a different world on a much lower tier currently! However when doing commercial work I often run into this and will light nice and friendly to faces. Fortunately though working with the few directors I do in narrative and at the beginning stage of my career we can take risks and have little commercial interests at hand. I think it must be very tough when much more money and commercial interest is at stake. I have to say I feel an actress who is really an actress should have trust in the director and the film and be there to tell the story like everyone else! I'm sure it gets much much more complicated though and it makes me think those actress's who are willing to take bigger risks in their carers while being "famous" deserve much credit michel williams in Wendy and lucy certainly comes to mind sorry to have taken the thread in a tangent but I feel this is a pretty interesting conversation would be curious what others have to say

...on the more technical note Mr Sierkowski said it well I think...I personally stay away from filters but if its supposed to call attention to itself then fitlers are great! other then that I would just find ways to motivate light if you want it to be natural and have reason....a hanging light bulb in a dark room or w/e there is always a way and then just control the light on her to keep it of your background as to keep the dark environment

Yea exactly... the fact that "smoke tends to make every off-camera light source more obvious" is very important to know.

The question is why does the women have to look beautiful....is it what script/director is calling for and for what reason. I personally feel beauty lighting for the sake if it being a pretty women star is an antiquated idea (note david's reference). If she is to look beautiful for a dramatic reason then go for it! I would be creative about the effect and try to do something interesting with it. maybe under-light your background as natural and dark as you can and give her some unmotivated beauty light blending the dark natural world with the antiquated beauty lighting notion. If she needs to be lit beautiful just because she is a the leading lady I would question the directors intention and I would make sure the work is serving the story first. Not that it shouldn't be a consideration how a face looks on camera...you certainly don't want to just make her look bad or create some sort of odd shadow casting that distorts her face...but you don't want to do that with a man either. I think in end my point is just that if you are lighting a women differently not because of the story but because she is a women you need to consider why you are doing it and remember its 2013 and the way society is treating women's images could use some work. #feminism

I think its likely you are over lighting the space or just having trouble dialing in the subtly of the haze effect. I have done atmospheric smoke with cheap "party store" style foggers for interiors with fine results nothing special about the liquid or anything. but it does take some finesse in running around with a flag and trying to get an even spread. I would just note that if the light isn't looking right without the haze its not going to look too much better with it unless you are doing a strong effect like stylized heavy backlit thing. Haze spreads light so it is going to flatten the scene overall always...David mentions the backlight but even frontally lit its still going to spread the light.

Thanks much, Can't say I was as fond of the interior work... but the exterior work is so gorgeous

A few b/w images really stood out to me from the 2013 ALEXA Reel. I Couldn't track down the source though the long credits list ....anyone know? At timecodes 00:53, 1:00, 1:09, 1:22 you can see the shots I am referring too

what was your solution?

You could test for shadow quality (ie if they have a big nose or something that casts strong shadows...but obviously there is other subtly) and yea the main thing being skin tone checking exposure if you are lighting for example someone with super dark skin and someone with super light skin in the same shot....or just to see how the skin reacts to light in general. I think the idea of lighting talent specifically based on there appearance or skin tone etc is a bit antiquated there are some technical considerations there for sure but lighting to purely make people look nice is certainty an old school approach