Oisin Hugh Edwin O'Connell

Thanks very much! We probably won't be able to test sadly, but I'll push for extra prep time so that we can muck around a bit.

Hey all! I'm gaffing a music video shoot where we will be shooting underwater. I've never done this before, so I wanted to ask some questions about some assumptions I have! I also have attached some stills that we are using as a style guide. My current plan is to source 4-6 Aputure 600s with fresnels spotted, surrounding the subject underwater. Then use either SidusLink or Blackout to stage random flashing. I imagine that a hard light source will emphasise the wavy diffraction patterns of water on an underwater subject, while a soft source will lessen them. Have you found this to be true? We intend to shoot upwards into the surface of the water. I see a lot of setups where people either hang a white/black surface over the pool, or cover it with dry ice fog (like in our inspo) to block to view of the environment above the surface. We will be shooting in an outdoor pool, I imagine at night. will the black sky do this job do you think? We will be blacking out the walls of the pool, but probably only the ones in the background of the shot. Should I be concerned with some light sources bouncing off the uncovered pool walls/floor and reducing contrast? Or am I over-worrying? Will the lights stated above be strong enough? I know it can get way darker than you expect underwater, so if anyone knows that it's way too dark then let me know! Can I expect the water to affect the colour of the light much? ofc water has a slight blue/green tint to it but I imagine that it wouldn't show up until there's much more watern than in a normal swimming pool? And furthermore, if anyone has any general advice for lighting/shooting underwater, unexpected problems or tips and tricks they would also be hugely appreciated! Thanks and have a great day!

This next one is pretty much the same setup, but with a FrenL, gelled with CTO and magenta to the right outside the door. Ambient bounce was pretty prevalent, I didn't use a blue bounce this time though as I felt it got a bit too obvious against the less powerful FrenL, but I'm probably imagining that. Do also wish I'd gotten some better angles of this setup, namely a higher-key one, but time was sadly short. But it's looking promising! I'm thinking that on the day, weather will be either daylight or overcast when I'm putting that HMI in though the window, so I'll have colder ambient light but I might still need to have something extra on set rather than grade it and have to desaturate shadows and have it feel a bit plastic. I think.

Okay, done a few tests. This first one is a blonde (not a HMI, sadly) pointed inside the studio door. A bounceboard is rigged up to the left of shot, getting some light to the left of the face, with an Aladdin LED panel balanced to 6000K bounced into the ceiling behind the camera. The image has been graded a little, but the blue tones were visible before I started that process. Mostly curves really.

Oh my god, thanks guys!

Hello. Film student here, looking for some advice. I've got a scene coming up that I want to set at sunset, but not wanting to confine my shoot to an hour a day I'm hoping to replicate that time of day instead. There are two locations to be lit like this, both interiors with windows and white walls. The way I'm thinking of pulling this is by shooting a HMI (at least 1.8 K, but could go higher) and relying on bounce from the walls to give more interior light, then cheating in a silk or bounce for fill lights in tighter shots while using the "sunlight" as key light. also flagging and neg-fill where needed. Either gelling the HMI or grading for the sunset color. Will that bounce be enough to fill the space and brighten up all the non-wide shots? Does it sound like it'll be a convincing replacement? Is grading the color in at all wise, or should I go to lengths to color the light on-set? Any help and advice is much appreciated!