Lighting the Noir on DV

[Guest Eric Szyszka]

I'm a first time poster here and I have a couple of questions. I am planning on directing and shooting a short film this summer on miniDV probably with a Canon GL-2. I want to establish a Film Noir look to this film because it involves a classic femme fatale, among other reasons, and I want to turn it B&W anyway.

 

I've been a huge fan of Film Noir for a long time and there's a moment I've got written into the film of self-reflexive voice over. For this I want to illuminate just the eye region of the character leaving everything else relatively dark. There is a shot like this in Detour (1945).

 

How should I go about doing this and other kinds of lighting for my film? Most locations will be interior and there'll be a shoe-string budget so I don't think I can run out and buy anything extremely extravagant.

 

Thanks so much for reading.

- Eric

[David Mullen ASC]

You need a light that creates a hard, sharp shadow.

 

You can create that strip of light by cutting out a rectangle in a piece of illustration board or foamcore board and then shining a light through it, at enough of a distance from the board to project a sharp pattern of light on the face.

[Guest Eric Szyszka]

Thanks, David. I had originally suspected the rectangle might be a way to do it but I wasn't sure and decided I should ask people with more professional knowledge than myself. I am mostly a writer.

[Michael Nash]

You need a light that creates a hard, sharp shadow.

 

You can create that strip of light by cutting out a rectangle in a piece of illustration board or foamcore board and then shining a light through it, at enough of a distance from the board to project a sharp pattern of light on the face.

You can also use a small mirror the same way. Take a piece of 12" mirror tile and mask it with black paper tape to the shape/size slit you want. Just as with the foamcore technique you need enough distance between the light and the "stencil" to make the shadow edges sharp. Mount it firmly in a C-stand with a gator grip.

 

It's basically the same idea, it just allows you to get a little more distance in a confined space, and sometimes it's easier to precisely angle just the mirror.

 

Of course Dedo lights are prefect for this also, but the mirror/stencil technique is easy on a low budget or if you don't happen to have Dedo's in your lighting package.