Help with dissecting the lighting in these film stills

[Neica Dela Cruz]

Just saw this Japanese film Confessions (2010) and the cinematography is amazing. The lights are generally in low key and is soft. I was just wandering if anyone can help me in dissecting what kind of lighting used in this film.

 

 

 

[Christopher M Schmidt]

The softness you are seeing is just the fill side lights which is either ambient light created from the other sources or like small bounces/ small very soft sources. everything else is pretty visible and you can tell where its coming from. I think often people mistake detail in the marginal black for soft light but really that is just an overall low contrast look

 

 

The first still you have that blown out window top of frame left and playing on that in frame there is either a light coming from through the window which is edging the refrigerator and creating that streak on the floor or just a light off to the side frame left doing those things

 

frame right there is a light coming through that hall which puts the kinda blown out spot on the wall behind the person in frame which is separating the person from the background.

 

there is another source which is uplighting the backround softly (you can see the shadow from the microwave....depending on this DP works this is either a light source on the floor pointed up toward the cabinets/fridge or is just bounce back from light coming through that blown out window

 

there seems to be another source of light coming from frame right which hits the cabinets in the forground and also gives that specular highlight reflection on the metal thing top frame left

 

the actual light on the talent is most likley just ambiance in the room or a very soft small amount of light hidden out of frame. and just hitting her frontside.

 

A lot of the naturalness of the lighting comes from precise control over each source....having light fall of from dark to light in the right places in the right way. Often times you will find lighting from outside windows where things can naturally fall in front of lights and create areas of varying contrast will help do this ....or the other way is to use all of your lighting control tools very precisely (flags, nets, diffusion). a good example of how well crafted that first shot is the poof of light behind the subject. It looks very natural maybe as if there was a window in that hallway in which light was hitting a wall and then softly bouncing back...but yet it is positioned perfectly to separate the subject from the background w/o feeling forced....this balance of naturalism with precise placement is very important.

[Stephen Selby]

At 0:21 You can just make out the catchlights in her eyes. The Key looks like it is at about 4 o'clock in the shot with fill from about 8 o'clock. They both look like large diffussion frames to me. Either use a large 8'x8' diffussion frame or if you are on a tighter budget use a large white muslin and used bounced light. You could also use a bunch of white chinese lanterns as a bank of these would effectively work as one large soft light. She also has a bit of rim lighting which is most likely coming from the out of focus practicals in the background. The shot lens looks like a 75mm to me - though this lens guessing business is difficult. If however, they did use a tele then the compression of space will make them look as though they are standing closer.

 

Also look out for glasses 0:17, they can give clues to lighting. Clearly this is one large softbox and the glass is picking up the fill from 9 o'clock here.