David Walden

There are some interior sequences where he does say they used a couple hard lights to give a "noir" look. But much of the interior stuff was shot by placing actors close to windows, or by using practical light fixtures in the rooms. For the most part, the film has a very natural/documentary look to it from the available light, similar to a French New Wave look. Shooting in black in white obviously removes any need for correcting any shifts in lighting temperature, and shooting in an overcast city helps overall to get a natural look without harsh highlights or shadows. It's a remarkable achievement imo. -d

There are some interior sequences where he does say they used a couple hard lights to give a "noir" look. But much of the interior stuff was shot by placing actors close to windows, or by using practical light fixtures in the rooms. For the most part, the film has a very natural/documentary look to it from the available light, similar to a French New Wave look. Shooting in black in white obviously removes any need for correcting any shifts in lighting temperature, and shooting in an overcast city helps overall to get a natural look without harsh highlights or shadows. It's a remarkable achievement imo. -d

I posted this in the Lighting forum earlier, but figured I'd repost here as it offers insight for people starting out. Since a lot of people are interested in shooting indie movies with little or no budget, I would definitely recommend checking out the DVD of Chris Nolan's first movie "Following". First off, the film itself is absolutely amazing. Second, there's a fantastic commentary track on the DVD where Nolan explains exactly how he shot the thing, with absolutely zero budget. He wrote and directed it, did all the camera work himself, and used ONLY natural lighting with no bounce or assistance (it helps that he shot it in London which is mainly overcast). The actors were his friends, and he shot it only on weekends over the course of a year. It's a remarkable movie, and the commentary track is definite MUST! cheers- david www.davidwalden.com

If it wasn't a net, it was diffusing the light just as a white silk would. But, it was also cutting the light down probably by several stops as well, creating a less harsh source and therefore more ambient light at a lower f-stop. So in general, the darker the silk, the more ambient lighting you'll get (talking specifically about using the silk to diffuse direct sunlight). Fyi, the texture or consistency of the silk is what *diffuses* the light, not the silk color. The color of the silk will either shift the temperature, or if using gray/black silks will cut down on the light intensity. -d www.davidwalden.com

Since a lot of people are interested in shooting indie movies with little or no budget, I would definitely recommend checking out the DVD of Chris Nolan's first movie "Following". First off, the film itself is absolutely amazing. Second, there's a fantastic commentary track on the DVD where Nolan explains exactly how he shot the thing, with absolutely zero budget. He wrote and directed it, did all the camera work himself, and used ONLY natural lighting with no bounce or assistance (it helps that he shot it in London which is mainly overcast). The actors were his friends, and he shot it only on weekends over the course of a year. It's a remarkable movie, and the commentary track is definite MUST! cheers- david www.davidwalden.com

Speaking of the masters, anyone get a chance to check out Tim's Vermeer? Basically, it poses the theory that masters like Vermeer used a camera obscura to replicate natural lighting and perspective in their work. They would use a kind of of dark room (or box), in combination with a lens and/or mirror pointing at the subject, to project the image onto a surface, and then trace and paint over the projection. The theory is extremely convincing imho, and explains things like exaggerated perspective, photographic highlights, and focal shifts that are seen in the work of the masters. David Hockney already did a documentary called Secret Knowledge on the exact same topic a few years ago. You can check it out on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBNrgCaoyW8 It starts out a bit slow, but as you watch parts 2-8 it shows very clearly how the masters achieved their photorealism. Fascinating stuff. -d www.davidwalden.com

Everyone keeps bringing up Barry Lyndon, so I just thought I'd share this link to the definitive interview with John Alcott on how he shot this masterpiece: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/2001a/bl/page1.htm He discusses everything from natural light, practical lights, candle light (3 wicks each), lens filters (Tiffen low-contrast No.3), lenses (f/0.7 for the candle sequences), gels, diffusion, etc. Definitely a must read - now you know everything! :) cheers- David www.davidwalden.com

You can get great results shooting near windows, and using white bounce cards to fill in shadows. Also diffusing the outside light with some kind of silk is a good approach. cheers- d www.davidwalden.com

Yes and no. First off, any light source - no matter how small - can be made 'softer' by adding layers of diffusion. So you can have a soft small light just as you can have a soft large light. The size of the catchlight in the eye is going to be relative to a few things: the size of the light source relative to the subject, the distance from the subject to the light source, and also (in part) the intensity of the light source relative to the exposure. So the catchlights aren't going to tell you everything, but they're a good start, and if you combine that with how diffused the shadows look, and observe things like the specularity of the skin, you can make some pretty good conclusions. I don't know the book you're referring to, but what does he mean by a "huge" soft light? What size are we talking about? In the examples you gave, to me it looks like Picture 2 has the largest and softest light, coming from the left, with smaller and harder fill lights coming from the front. I assume you mean a *large* soft light here, as in a large softbox or diffusion screen? Again, even a small light can be made soft(er). The light sources in Picture 1 don't look very large to me - medium sized softboxes with diffusion. You can still make out a somewhat distinct shadow just below the nose. Picture 3 looks like a hard key light with diffusion - the hard shadow of the nose is the giveaway. Looks like there's a front fill to the right of the key, again with diffusion - note the extra shadow just below the chin, somewhat diffused. Picture 4 looks like some kind of medium-large softbox or diffusion (maybe 3-4 ft across?). To me it also looks closer to the subject. There seems to be more "roundness" to this light (also catchlights look round, not square-?), that's why I'm thinking it's a softbox rather than just a diffusion screen, but obviously I'm just guessing. Picture 5 looks like a harder light source key (nose shdw and main chin shdw, with a more diffused light fill (fill light shadow under chin *seems* to be more diffused than key - not entirely sure though). Picture 6 is obviously very hard, with the key light intensity being very high as well as closer to the subject (more specularity on skin indicates closer light source). So from these examples I certainly wouldn't conclude that Nykvist used only a huge soft light as his key - he had different arrows in his quiver, not to mention the natural light techniques he used outdoors (check out Tarkovsky's 'The Sacrifice' sometime). Also note that some of his choices surely changed over the years as lighting technology evolved. In the 50's and 60's, they pretty much used only hard lights (because diffusion was too flammable-?) - only in the 70's did lighting start to become softer and more diffused. Understanding the techniques of the period will offer insight into the choices they made. Surely the lighting tools he used on Cries and Whispers were different from the ones he used on The Virgin Spring. btw, I'm a still photographer and use mainly strobes - I'm not an expert in continuous lighting, but the same principles apply. I use lots of different light shaping tools and techniques to get my results. Definitely enjoy investigating these things with you :) cheers- David www.davidwalden.com