Albion Hockney

A big HMI far away with some large foggers/hazers will do the trick. The talent in the still you sent is silhouetted so the light isn''t hitting them it's just on the background. If your frame size is about that size it might be possible to use a couple 1.8k hmi's for this on tall stands hitting different ares of the BG. if you have more resources something 4K or bigger on a condor would do you even better. You may want multiple sources hitting different area's of trees, or one big source backed far away could also work. I think the color is just a camera balanced for warmer light 4000Kish, so the hmi's appear cool. You can dial in more green in post our put something like 1/4 green gel on the lights.

Oh sorry noticing the 2nd high window I thought you were suggesting the decorative framed windows. what entices you about coming through the higher window? just the naturalism of an angle more typical of real sunlight?

Really interesting to ready about your suggestion here David. so you'd have separate sources for the bottom and top windows basically and the top windows would slightly harder? A couple questions: is the shoot multicam? how many on your g/e team?

are you talking about for wide exteriors of the car? In that case I agree with Satsuki, that stuff has to be done natural light, shooting in overhead sun is going to suck. If you're talking about narrative moments inside the car stopped then yea bouncing light back into the car makes a lot of sense. I would probably work with reflectors and small diffusion frames though, but 12x could work.

Thats a really good analysis. Though naturalistic lighting trends are for sure also a product of growing realism and camera tech that allows you to make "polished" looking images with less need for artificial lighting

do you have examples of this you could point to?

There are always trends and fads but underexposure has been used in ways people found extreme through out much of cinema (from the Godfather to Harris savides work on "Birth" and now with the likes of Bradford Young and others) There is no true "correct" exposure and sometimes the expressionism of a dark image is most effective...or sometimes a DP is just being trendy, looking for something to make the work stand out, and it doesn't really fit. you win some you lose some.

There are infinite amount of possibilities. A good place to start might be some reference's you like and if you can share pictures of your location and describe the actors positions that will help a lot too!

Your welcome! It also wasn't the only point. There was a whole paragraph of text before that ya know 😀

excellent point. Which is also why soft light is effective ...you can keep the light directional and have contrast on the face while having soft shadow. That is if you're concerned with skin texture.

Haha, I'm guessing this was directed toward my comment! I don't think the goal is always realism, but it is immersion in a realized world. Hard frontal lighting brings attention to the fact you are watching a movie....sometimes that can be good or intentional of course. Again I think the Safdies are a good example, because things are often far from realistic, but they aren't going after conventional beauty standards either. Also you must agree that you can often make a more interesting picture from a purely aesthetic POV if you don't need to light a face flat and can add more shape/contrast.

The practice of lighting Men and Women different in the same scene seems like a disservice to creating a full and realized world on screen, atleast in most cases. Of course there are commercial concerns and fashion/beauty work—But in a film, I think, the idea is to create as immersive a world on screen as you can. The Hollywood glam style prioritizes making actors look beautiful above creating more realistic lighting (and don't forget this style is largely influenced by commercial means...IE actors are a commodity and the studios always wanted to make sure they looked their very best). I think the contemporary style is moving away from that for good reason. Take a look at a Safdie's brothers movie for an example of this - Look at Robert Paterson in "Good Time" or for for an example from De Palmas period try a Cassavette's film. De Palma's quote seems a bit like a cranky old man...I wonder how he feels about Gordon Willis or Harris Savides who often put actors in what would be deemed less beautiful lighting. Hard frontal light is super flat....I mean it can look great at times, David Mullen's love witch work proves that. But theoretically it is lacking in contrast and depth since it creates a uniform tone over a majority of a face and it also less than realistic as very rarely in the world would lighting like that ever occur. This all said I think hard light is coming back in style already and its not just for reasons of beauty, it can look great.

All I'm saying is Quasar Bulbs for example have a high TLCI, but they always look a little magenta. Skypanels in tungsten match damn near perfect to tungsten lights on camera. I know you hate skypanels and I agree they are overpriced, they are too heavy, and the numbers don't look that great - but like all arri products they work.

I think all of these numbers can only be so helpful. Every camera is different - Everyone talks about how bad skypanels are, but they look really great on the alexa.

Hopefully you can build an open an honest relationship with your director and talk honestly about the script - this is how you will make the best work. The flipside is if you're being paid well or a job is good for your career it can be good to tread lightly.