Search the Community

Hello everyone, I have a shoot coming up that involves a family interacting in a kitchen. We are building a kitchen set on a stage and the idea is to shoot the family throughout different times of the day-morning, midday and evening. I have to figure out a way to construct these 3 lighting setups without a lot of down time in between each setup (since we are on such a tight schedule). I have a pre-light day so ideally I can work out all the setups ahead of time and hopefully be at a point where I can just switch lights on and off or bring in fills and whatnot when needed. I have a good amount of gear-3ton tungsten(no hmi's), 2k's, 1k's a 5k, some source 4's.... Camera is Sony F55 Most of the action takes place in front of a kitchen sink with a window directly above it which is where I can work in the motivated light for the scene. My biggest conundrum is figuring out a good seperation of morning vs. midday. The director doesn't want to go moody so essentially it will have to be a more filled in scene which can make it harder to differentiate between the times. My initial thought is to have a large bounce through the window as a soft skylight and adding in warmer, harder shafts of light (source 4's) for sunlight. I would position the source 4's at a lower angle for the morning, and then raise them up and take the warmth out for midday. I will also have a ceiling brought in to help with natural spill for daylight (stretched muslin likely) For evening I was going to work in practicals (under cabinet LED strips) and china lanterns that would simulate overhead light fixture. Maybe a soft hint of blue moonlight from the window (although I have a hard time doing that without it looking artificial) Would love to hear any other ideas from the community as to how I can do this most efficiently while still getting a natural feel to the environment. Thanks for taking the time. This is a a wonderful resource for all of us in this field.

Hey Everybody, I'm new to the forum, but I was hoping to get some advice from you guys here. I was asked to light a night for day scene for the web series that I have been gaffing on. This isn't the biggest of problems since it is an interior scene. I've lit this place before, and I've only had to deal with making small windows appear to have sunlight coming in. But in this shoot the main character has a conversation in front of 2 glass doors. It is in a garden level business with the glass doors opening onto a patio area in the front. To top it off, the scene is supposed to take place at dawn. I can think of a couple ways of lighting this, one being more ideal on a visual standpoint but I am not sure if I have the lighting power to pull it off. I'll start with that one. Idea 1. Have 1-2 lights aimed through the windows to give the character his rim light while aiming all other lights on the patio. This would hopefully allow the background to not be totally blown out and it would create a more interesting shot. My biggest concern here is that we will also be able to see the dark buildings across the street. This all depends on the camera angle, but obviously the DP is not going to want to shoot down on the subject to avoid this. Idea 2. Use diffusion on the doors and blast light through them to give them a blown out look. Obviously this will make for a less interesting shot and I don't want this episode to look like a pile of trash as it is Ep. 1 and everything else we've shot has been looking stellar. Idea 3. tell the producers to go **(obscenity removed)** themselves because shooting in the actual morning would look dope as hell and they need to stop being cheap **(obscenity removed)** bastards. Personally I like the third Idea, but the DP and I have essentially already tried this. Any thoughts? I have all tungsten lights. 2 1k's Lowel DP kit with 3x500 w 200w tweenie 2 500w broad lights and a few more random lights the rest of the crew might bring. Hopefully i can get my hands on a couple 1.2 HMI's before this shoot, but it's up in the air. I'd also take Ideas for gelling the lights to make it look more morning like. I believe a more orange look here is pretty common, but i'm open to experimental ideas. Also not sure if it matters for sake of dynamic range, but we will be shooting on the FS 700.