How did they light this short film?

Bradley Stearn · April 10, 2015

I just watched a short film on Vimeo, and really liked the natural lighting, so natural I almost questioned whether artificial lighting was used at all. I was wondering what your thoughts where on how you think the shots are lit? My thoughts for the bedroom scene are that they gelled the windows with CTO or CTS to cheat the appearance of 'warm' light shining into the room, whilst keeping the interior lighting very cold. Potentially using HMIs or daylight corrected tungsten lights for the interior?

I can't seem to share the screenshots as the image sizes are too big.

The film can however been seen here on vimeo:

Edited April 10, 2015 by Bradley Stearn

Jeff L'Heureux · April 11, 2015

If they're any good with DaVinci Resolve and power windows it's likely they could've done most of that 'warm' light shining in post rather than on the set. I'm inclined to believe it's done in post since in the last screenshot if they actually did gel the window that would've cast the same color on the interior wall. It looks like a color grade to orange when it was likely a bright blue daylight out of camera, at least for that shot.

Oron Cohen · April 11, 2015

Just watched a bit, and from what I could tell it was probably shot on super16 film, they might achieved the colour effect in DI. Film renders natural light and skin tones beautifully while holding highlights.

They probably also added a bit of fill light using small fixtures like kino's or other small lights (probably soft ones).

They might also chose the right time of the day to shoot different shots...

Jean-Marc Plante · April 13, 2015

Weird noise patterns have me thinking it was simply 'Noised' in post and shot in digital.

General lighting seems very soft, very subtle, lots of reverses put actors in complete shadow over air light, and don't even have eye-light.

My guess is it is a very nice work in post that gave the movie it's look.

Jeff L'Heureux · April 13, 2015

It definitely looks like 16mm, but digitally graded. The telltale sign is the way 16mm reacts to a static framed image. If you go frame by frame on 16mm there will be ever so subtle stretches and compressions of different areas of the frame depending on how exactly the negative was oriented when it was in the gate. Whereas digital would just reproduce the static frame like a still over and over. Part of the magic of film that digital's 1 and 0's can't replicate.

They may have added additional digital grain in post, but some of that is real, like the occasional tiny white dots. The motion blur, general depth of field, and the grain all point to this being shot on 16mm.

Miguel Angel · April 14, 2015

The director says the following on the comments:

charlotte glynn PRO

2 days ago

We shot on Kodak 16mm 7219. We under exposed 1/2 stop and then pushed 1/2 stop in developing to get it to have that texture. We used cooke lens. Nothing was done in post!

Plus, it states that it was shot on film at the end of the credits :)

Have a good day.

Gregg MacPherson · April 14, 2015

Hey Miguel,

Can you give an explicit URL to the comments you refer to. I wasted time trying to find it.

Thanks.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Gregg MacPherson

Miguel Angel · April 14, 2015

The comments are the comments below the short - film on the VIMEO page.

Have a good day.

Zach Ginnever · April 17, 2015

It's definitely possible they gelled the window. If you look at the interior the walls are all very blue which probably creates some of the cool fill light. One of the windows in the room is opposite a brick wall which seems to be providing more warmth than the window they end up smoking out of.