Alexandre de Tolan

That was exactly my point but they didn't seem to care more...! Anyway, I'm really curious to see what images the Editor is going to use on the finished commercial just to see how those blown highlights render (if he's going to choose some).

Alexa does deliver much more detail in shadow areas than it does on highlights. We were shooting 12Bit 4444 ProRes. We used Arri Look Creator to make an on set LUT for the Client EXT monitor but my waveform monitor showed up a very good image latitude. Nonetheless, the camera couldn't cope with such a great difference between indoors and outdoors. You are saying "clip the bright levels afterwards". That means recording bright levels under 100 IRE and clip all unwanted information on post. That was my initial idea and the one I've talked with the Director and Editor. Both told me that that was unnecessary and asked me to clip highlights anyway. Well… I guess everyone has his own way of working.

What about Glass? As any really good tripod I would suggest you focus on glass as well since it will stick by your side for many years if well cared after. I second Freya's comment on BMPCC. It's an amazing little camera and you can add a specific Pocket Matabones adapter and end with a relatively similar S35 sensor size. Buy a set of 3.5/18; 2/25; 2/35; 2/50 and 1.4/85 Zeiss ZF.2 lenses (they will put you around 7000USD or so and they are by large the best glass that kind of money can buy - they are the same glass as CP.2s). Add the pocket (1000USD), and you have 2000USD more. Put 1500USD aside for a decent tripod and the other 500USD for a V-Mount pincher, a couple of V-Mount batteries and a dual V-Mount charger (Pocket internal battery only lasts for 30 minutes).

This week I've DP a commercial for a major candy factory hare in Spain. Myself and the gaffer did all the light equipment listing based on location scouting photos and we both worked with a Director from a well known production company so I was very sceptical when he asked me to… Clip highlights!!! Well. That's nothing new to me when I was used to shoot film but we were shooting with an Alexa XT, so I went to tell him that clipped highlights are horrible, no matter what digital camera is used (exception made to factory practicals of course). Most clipped highlights were shots where we could see windows and the outdoors. I've told him that we could light the set to balance INT and EXT exposure but he insisted that we had no time for that (We shot about 30 shots and did about 80 takes a day from 7AM to 10PM). He also told me that he didn't want to see the what's outside. Well, in reality we didn't had the time to discuss all that on set and the editor (who was there), add on top of that saying that blown highlights were no problem if they are out of focus. So I went and did what the Director asked me but with a major pinch of salt and not believing so much in what I was doing. Can I hear what do your guys think of all this?

If you have little resources you can arrange a workaround. Assuming that your window is something like you've posted on your video (horizontally shaped), and that you don't need it's full surface in the shot you can do the following: 1. Wait for the TOD that the light enters your room directly (if it isn't facing north). 2. Take a light measurement of what you can see outside. Pay extra attention to your brightest highlight. 3. Take a measurement inside where you're going to be. 4. Note how many Stops both measurements differ from each other (Lets be radical and assume a 8 Stop difference - on the verge of what your camera can probably capture - if it captures that difference at all). 5. Gel your window partially with an ND filter (the portion that appears on your shot). If you cut it to perfectly fit your window and apply it on the outside of it I doubt that you or your camera will notice it. Start with a 0.9 which drops your outside reading by 3 stops. 6. Place the right amount of mirrors inside to redirect the light that enters your window from the side that's not ND gelled. Redirect it to light yourself. 7. Diffuse that mirrored harsh light with a frame of light silk diffusion (you will loose 1, 2 or more stops depending on which and how many diffusion layer you apply. I'll say that a light diffusion will be enough and you only loose about 1 to 2 stops. That way you will only need to slightly overexpose the outside compared to your own exposure (if your caucasian usually at Zone 6), and you're done.

If that's a night scene I would say that your best start would be looking for practicals on set and augment them with the fixtures you have. You definitely put light through windows out of question because you are at a second floor but you can always bounce from the floor to a mirror on a second (or third), floor from the building in front of you. This can add to an extra mood if you light as moonlight for instance, and mix its blue cast with the green shift from usual fluorescent bathroom lights.

You're going to need at least one more fixture to light you (talent) since your two soft boxes will be needed to light that greenscreen evenly so I wouldn't bother with eggcrates. Just flag them off the walls as needed because if they aren't white they will change the color of the light reflected by them and will cause you WB issues if you're trying to balance to your bulbs. Besides that, check the CRI specs on your light bulbs. If they are on the low side you're going to have some difficulties with skin tones. If you want some color on your skin bounce the light that's hitting you on some fabric like unbleached muslin. You can add a 1/8 CTS onto your fixture if you find the need.

Have you consider 12" LanternLocks? I know they are probably larger than a single fixture but 12" isn't that large and you end with the Chinese lantern you're looking for. You then can use a high output daylight balanced CFL which will provide enough power to light a tight space to a decent f/stop and can be powered by a battery belt if you have an assistant with a boom pole to operate it or with a V-Mount with the right adapter plate.

Can I ask what kind of educational videos are you planning to do? I ask this because the videos you're trying to make can work with plain backgrounds, sure. But one common technique is exactly to avoid plain backgrounds. You usually want textures, patterns and gradations of light intensity to obtain a tridimensional representation on a 2D plane (screen). Do you have to shoot on your room? First think about what you pretend to say with your video. Next try to make some relations between your message and an idealised set. Make a list defining what would be the best shooting set for a certain type of educational video that you want to shoot. Then try to scout for a location that fills the most important items on your list and one where you can shoot. Best bets tend to be locations with some depth and ones where you can already see, or add textures and various layers of information that would contribute to a tridimensional feeling without disturbing the main character (you). One of the most effective ways to achieve that is a controlled depth of field. For that you will need to put the camera slightly away from you and use a higher focal distance on your zoom lens since the size of your camera's sensor (1/3"), won't help you achieve a shallow depth of field with ease. Either way, grab a picture when done and post the results.

You're going to have serious issues lighting that greenscreen and yourself successfully based on your post. You have to generate some sort of separation to avoid spill from the screen on you. The easiest way is to put your screen further away from you. Not hard with a 4mt wide room but then again you have to consider what type of shot you want from yourself (wide/close?). That puts you with another problem. If you decide to go wide on yourself you have to get closer to the screen and further from the camera. If you can get with a closer shot (further from the screen and nearer the camera), you will probably need a bigger screen behind you and you will struggle to get an even lighting on it from your fixtures. Another way to provide separation from talent and screen is to use some minus green gels on the talent backlight. Anyway… Why greenscreen? IIRC your camera shoots on 4:2:0 color space so greenscreen will never be perfect considering this alone and your confined space and insufficient lighting gear will just add on top of that. Did you already considered scouting for a better location? One that you can use without the greenscreen?

And get some light off of the wall.

Hi Daniel, Yes. The initial idea was always to motivate the practicals with Chinese lanterns and use the top light not only as ambiance but always to give some separation from the background. I'm planning to use different color temperatures. Top light a bit more white to simulate bounced light from the table lamps of the white celling. Haze is another matter and I'm not so keen to use it in this particular scenes. As you stated it would need constant supervision to make it consistent so I always planned to control lighting ratios with simple bounce cards/flags. Zip cord is an idea that I have to consider. It needs less space but it isn't grounded. At this time I'm searching for the best bulb alternative. I will most probably have to switch them on to regular wall sockets on the room and because of that I've asked the hotel to tell me which circuit breakers they have on the rooms but had no feedback until now. Anyway, I guess they will be on the low side of things so I'm thinking low wattage CFLs on the ceilings but I really need the Amp figures to find how many bulbs I can switch on.

I didn't knew that film was from 74. I must admit that I'm not a horror genre fan :)

That's why there are so many options as DOPs out there. I dind't watched the movie and this downsampled Youtube version don't really helps but I find it terrible! I know that horror movies aren't the most truthful scenarios out there and many of them are brought to life with less than credible solutions concerning photography but when I look at this it seems that a spot light comes from nowhere and follows the characters who knows how and why?!... I don't see any motivation at all for the pin pointed light that follows the girl and the killer for that matter. Why is that light there? If the light chooses to follow the characters to whatever they might go who's guiding that light? Or is it a devil's work? For me it would be a better option to fly a 10K HMI from a condor and scrim it's sides to create a punchier path of light (gelled CTB as moonlight), motivating the girl to follow it as we all humans usually do regarding light in obscurity. Regarding the OP question, lighting as to do with credibility at one side and deliberately lying on the other. That said, 90% of good film lighting comes when we deliberately lie to make things credible within a certain narrative (story), content in mind. So to help you light that scene there are some very important questions that need answer: 1st - What's the emotional content of that scene and what mood are you after? 2nd - How this scene will gonna fit with the overall mood of the project? 3rd - How many people (actors) participate in this scene? 4th - What tools can you get your hands on to make it work? (I've already asked you this in an earlier post) 5th - What's your schedule and how many assistants will you have to make this work? Picking my earlier choice can make sense within a context but on the other hand it can make no sense at all in another one! The case in point being the most obvious part of it… Tools! If I cannot gather the means to rent a condor, a 10K HMI, pay a Gaffer and his assistants to rig it my initial idea serves nothing and no one.

That's a good point.

Yes. And you can also change that bulb for an incandescent one and mix color temps. One option would be a small LED panel gelled with 1/4 CTB motivating his laptop, accentuating not only the backlight you already get with that table lamp but also creating backlight where the table lamp won't easily reach (your character's right side). Other can be one of your Readheads trough a window pattern or a venetian blind pattern hitting just the right/nearest wall and your character's back with some sort of leaf pattern moving randomly. Or both for that matter.

And what type of lighting gear can you get your hands on? Are you planning to shoot such wide shots as the photo you've posted?

Autopoles yes. I've mentioned them in a previous post on this thread already and I've talked about them to the director. The thing is that I've a bunch of suction cups from my car mount and those are ready to use. If we go the autopoles route I have none. The Director has to buy them and I suspect he won't do it. I've talked with him to rent some but even if that doesn't work out I want to have a plan B ready to go.

Yes, I'm struggling with the idea of hanging something on suction cups over people's heads also. Nonetheless, I've made an experiment of hanging an old (and somewhat heavy), 1K Fresnel to a suction cup today. It was 2pm when I attached it and it remains very solid to this hour. Anyway, we are going to shoot for 10 days so it's certainly a bit different from just a few hours on a wall. I suppose the only way to grab a unibar to a celling is to drill the celling right? I can't do that. This is an hotel room and we have to leave it just as we encountered it. You certainly have a point regarding parallax. I have to figure out how much in a distance would have the nearest building to be and see if that's credible for what the Director wants. Thanks.

In the quest for the best and cheapest solution to hang an overhead strip of some 6 to 8 bulbs in a covered wagon fashion to a celling I've narrowed my options and one of them is securing it with a couple of Avenger Suction Cups. Do you guys think that it's safe to hang such a DIY kit with Suction Cups to a painted ceiling?

Glad it worked and you liked the result :mellow:

Holt, that's a very thought of reply and I agree with you 100% but if you have read the 1st post you would see that the OP intended to light that set with his quartz lights (2x650 + 1K). It doesn't seem to me that your suggestions, albeit correct, fit the OP budget at all but I might be wrong and if I am William will step in and confirm that one way or the other. One thing's for sure. His quartz have no punch to augment the natural light I see coming in onto that space hence my suggestion to use the natural available light. You've mentioned a pertinent aspect though. That's the interview length and the obvious constraints it can impose and your throughly reply was based on that aspect. Also remember that if that huge opening is facing north it will be more easy to shoot a lengthy interview, not to mention doing it on an overcast day. For all that reasons I'm still convinced that I stand correct advising William to try shooting his interview with the natural daylight that comes into the pub.

Second Brian's comment...

Don't forget that overcomplicating things is a common habit for us humans :) Look at the great work Emmanuel "El Chivo" Lubezki has being doing with Terrence Malick since "The New World" and you'll see what I'm talking about ;)

When you first said Pub I was thinking Low-Key lightning. That photo puts a very different perspective on things :) I would say that you have plenty of natural light as is from what I can see. If you plan to shoot at 11am that's almost noon and natural light will come in from what it seems to be a big window (or windows), on the right side of that shot. I would be more concerned about controlling that natural light that comes in than putting quartz all over. Your subject can be beautiful lit with all that natural daylight if you just control it well. Just place him/her in the right spot and fill in the shadow side to taste with a reflector if you're using a 5D.