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Hey everyone! Long time reader, first-time poster. Recently, in a number of films I've been watching, I've seen a vast amount of ways to light through windows. I brought this subject up to a lighting professor of mine and we've been having discussions on it since. I know that to create realistic and natural window lighting, you need to use a mixture of hard and soft light to represent the sunlight and the soft skylight. Of course, the mixture and positioning of these depend on the time of day you're going for. I haven't had the time to do any tests of my own, but I will attempt some soon. I have a few questions when it comes to this topic: 1. Have any of you done this in the past and how have you accomplished it? 2. What type of fixtures and diffusion have you used? 3. Do any of you have any experience using tracing paper on the window itself? And if so, is there a fixture that would still be able to push hard enough light through it to represent the sunlight? I'm completely okay with windows blowing out, especially when working on low-budget projects where you don't have the resources to light whats outside the window. Thanks!

Hi all, I'm writing to you from Florence, Italy. I'm going to shoot a feature film in few months. The movie speaks about a small family during WWII. The story is set in the Tuscan mountains, Alpi, and most of the story take place at night. The budget is small but we absolutely want to get the best out of our images. I'm trying to figure out which lights are the best to be "fast and good" in lighting scenes in the forest at night. My crew won't be big, I think only 2 grips and 2 electricians. I was thinking to something like this: http://lightingballoons.com/products/53/umbrella-ball/ or http://skylightballoon.com/index.php/products/skyball in the place of butterflies with big source behind or bounced off of them. Some Kino Flo Wall-o-lite, and some 2.5k hmi and 1.2k hmi with white diffusion frames are small enough to be fast and to keep a good quality of light for close ups and medium shots. I'm not sure which camera I'll use, I think a Blackmagic Camera, so nothing too much sensitive. I'll try to keep the frame not too wide so I'm not forced to illuminate areas that are too large. There will be some scene with a small crowd of people moving along the forest and those seems to be the most demanding shots in terms of lighting. That's it. I'm interested in knowing what are your thoughts and which way you would take being in my shoes. Thank you very much. Matteo

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum, after a year of insane work, I finally finished my 20 minute Action/Thriller short film PREY. This is the biggest project I've done so far and it really means a lot to me. So please take some time to watch it and let me know your honest opinion. Every review means the world to us. Thanks again!