Shane Aguon

I'd buy some flags if I were you and work with natural light. Solid, silk, nets, bounce, etc. You can get great results finding great locations with lots of window light.

Ray, that turned out awesome man. Love your IG feed. That is a lot of power your brought - I'm hoping we won't need that much. What focal length and aperture were you shooting at? I love your approach too. I would have never thought to use the Joker 800 to create shadows. Question: Since the table was so small, could you have gotten away with using a smaller ultra bounce? Maybe a 8x8? I'd love to see more BTS photos if you have any! Sounds good David! We went a slightly different direction with our lighting package because we're shooting in a historic building with old 15amp circuits. I decided on a Arri 1.2 HMI and using two Kino Flo 2ft 4 banks for the soft fill overhead. My guess is the Kino's won't provide enough output to bounce so I'm going to try throwing the floziers on see what happens. Thanks guys!

Big fan of yours David - thanks for the input! So with this direction, how should I go about the soft light you mentioned coming from near the camera overhead? Should I bounce into something up there?

I could use some help thinking through my approach on a upcoming project I'll be DP'ing. The Shot: Locked down overhead shot shooting straight down on a rectangular dining room table. Action: People will be placing plates of food on the table. The frame will only show their forearms and hands placing the food. So camera rolls, plates are placed, shot is held for 3 seconds, and cut. We'll be doing the same thing with different table settings all day. Room: Completely blacked out space with high ceilings and plenty of room. Look: I like the look of the photo above although we won't be doing the same grade. To me it looks like there is a large source off to the right side. Camera: Red Epic Dragon, Canon 35mm 1.4 ii L, rated at ISO 800. Crew: It's a small production so I'll be playing gaffer and key grip with a couple of guys on standby to help. My lighting idea: Originally my thought was to rig a 10x10 ultra bounce above the table and bounce an open face tungsten Arri 2K directly into it and maybe a red head into some foam core off to the side. I'm having trouble picturing what kind of contrast that would give me. I'll have floppies on hand for negative fill if needed. Another idea would be to try to replicate what I see in the attached photo, so take the 2K Arri and shoot through a 6x6 frame of light grid cloth or Opal 216 off at one end of the table, and use the red head to shoot into a 6x6 ultra bounce directly overhead to bring up the levels? What do you guys think?

I'm sure it's a LUT out there because it seems to be trending (to me at least). I actually really like it. Seems like a desaturated teal/orange look but I can't seem to pull it off manually. Does anybody know where to find it if it is in fact a LUT?

Great points. Yeah the content itself isn't anything special, it's just brilliantly executed which I appreciate. Thanks for the response Satsuki. You mentioned containing spill. For the key, what type of spill would they be trying to contain in the first photo I linked? I'm guessing spill on the background mostly. I'm just wondering if they flag the top and bottom of a big frame for a scene like that and why? I haven't seen eggcrates on frames before, is there a picture you can link?

I stumbled on this ad and now I'm absolutely obsessed with figuring out how the look was accomplished. To me, the lighting done on this ad is so well done and I'm hungry to learn how. This would be considered a high-key/naturalistic look right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pa_7Y9ZUns My apologies if you were expecting a link to a scene from The Revenant hah, it's the small things like this that I'd love to master as a DP. I'd so appreciate your take on how you think it was done. I'll take the first stab at it. I don't have a lot of experience with the big boy HMI's beyond a 1.6K Joker Bug or working on a high-budget production like this, so I'll be doing a lot of guessing here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24644882/Public%20Photos/Screen%20Shot%202016-05-06%20at%2011.15.48%20PM.png In the above shot, I see a large source camera right, possibly a 4K HMI (fresnel? par?) shot through maybe an 8x8 frame of diffusion? I'd guess another 4K hitting the windows or maybe it's natural light because they have the curtains? Taking a closer look at it makes me think this was not an actual home and is a set. On camera left for fill, I'm guessing more soft light.. 1.2K HMI possibly bounced? I also see a subtle backlight. 4 foot 4 bank KinoFlo? Did they throw light on the background? What troubles my mind how it all blends so beautifully. Next shots: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hnndlxj2uy7ymr5/Screenshot%202016-05-06%2023.34.22.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/7pdasxxgwc8zdgn/Screenshot%202016-05-06%2023.39.21.png?dl=0 These shots hurt my head. Beautifully done and I don't understand how. They obviously let the highlights in the windows go which I assume was acceptable because the curtain does mask any detail that may have been blown out (again, leading me to believe this is a built set). Where did they place the key to achieve this look? The entire room is full of light so I'm guessing it's a couple of 4K HMI's bouncing off the ceiling or white card, but where? The key/fill lighting ratio is beautiful. This look is obviously national spot quality so they have an amazing DP on a set, but how hard it is? Am I overthinking it? Have you accomplished something like this that you can share?

Thanks for the reply Satsuki - really got my mind going on the possibilities in this situation but I just didn't have the time or resources to try some of those things. The shoot was today and I decided to take a totally different approach. I decided not to fight the ambient light and I learned a lot in the process. The light spilling in from the big window and skylights weren't the enemy. I decided to embrace the openness of the room and enhance what was already happening naturally. I made this call because our sets looked pretty good with our lights OFF. The light spilling in was warmer than our Arri 1.2K HMI's, so I threw 1/8 CTO on both of them and it worked wonders in blending. I put the large Chimera on our key light and moved it in as close as I could to the set. The rental house didn't have the second large Chimera I requested so I decided to shoot the 2nd HMI into some bead board for fill. I used one KinoFlo Diva on the back wall for a little punch. The big 12x12 silk in the background was the photographers who was working on a different set. The setup: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mdxr4aby2hgq5x3/image1.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/xax0fp2x7djby6z/image2.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/863dnungypw4oyu/image3.JPG?dl=0 The result: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cyz0o6rjc6hawa4/Set%203.tiff?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/amy24hyv1dugwvz/Set%201.tiff?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmvubqkycy6kknd/Set%202.tiff?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/y9329bjwyykhxa4/Set%205.tiff?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/vxr53rslsffhzo3/Set%204.tiff?dl=0 Overall, I'm happy with results but I can't help but wonder what I could have achieved by trying some of the ideas mentioned (shooting at night, bleached muslin ceiling, etc.). I'm sure I could have achieved more consistent contrast but I feel like the direction I took was the right call. Would love your feedback!

Not at this point unfortunately.

Really glad to officially be a part of the community here! I've been lurking in the shadows since 2011 and have gained so much knowledge from many of the regulars here so thank you all in advance. I'm struggling on how light an upcoming shoot and I know for an absolute fact that I'm overcomplicating it. The Details I'm shooting a series of product videos for a local flooring company in which we'll be filming all day in their gigantic warehouse. The product is all types of high end wood flooring. There will be 5 different 15x15 foot mini-sets built to feature the different types of flooring so what they'll do is swap out floors for each 30 second video. No talent - just VO, music, and various shots of the floors. Here is a screenshot from our test shoot (heavily graded): Test setup in the space: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gi4mjy03xiamuod/IMG_5959-2.JPG?dl=0 You'll notice we're using the concrete walls and a false wall to create a corner that's on wheels. Video of the space: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vzxhdtxuwz86jka/Video%20Mar%2024%2C%201%2004%2040%20PM.mov?dl=0 We'll be filming on our Red Epic Dragon. The shoot starts at 9am and we wrap at 4pm, so light will shift and shift dramatically throughout the shoot. I'll be bringing two 1.2K Arri HMI's (added on two large Chimeras for the actual shoot on Monday), two KinoFlo Diva 4 banks, and I'll bring a small tungsten kit with gels as a backup. The Problem The test shoot did not come out the way I would have liked it to. The idea was to create as natural feeling of an image with the what we have to work with. Our budget is already maxed with the addition of the HMI's so I can't add anything to it at this point. We're dealing with a ton of natural light spilling in from the skylights in the warehouse, so my idea as the DP was to bring in HMI's and control our area as much as possible since light will be changing so dramatically throughout the day. The HMI's are plenty strong, but I was still fighting the skylights when the sun would peak out from behind the clouds. In trying to control the light, I feel like the image has no soul. The use of a nice tungsten practical would be nice but we can't run power to it without it being distracting in the frame. The fact that we can't add a ceiling to the set means we lost all that natural ambient light bouncing. The shadows on the wall from the chair was really tough to deal with too. I'd love to hear what you'd do with the limitations I'm working with. Is there a way to marry the light spilling in with the HMI's and get a good look? Should I bring the HMI's in as close as possible and try to overpower the natural light spilling in? If so, where do I position my lights with all of the light from above? Shane