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lighting for different times of the day on a set


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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.


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I guess the first question is whether you want the sun to beam in the morning or the late afternoon because if this whole story takes place in the kitchen, it would be an obvious cheat for the sun to rise and set out the same window. If the room has a corner with windows at a right angle to the main windows, then you could imagine a southern arc to the sun where it comes in from one angle and later from the opposite angle.

 

So without the sun separating morning from midday, or midday from late afternoon, it's a bit hard to make it that clear of a difference though in real life, there might not be a clear difference. You could suggest a hazy morning with more of an overcast feeling and a few room lights on, and then clear weather for the rest of the day with the sun beaming in more and more near sunset.

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Thanks for the response David!

 

That's a good idea about the corner of the room. We won't see that far along the perpendicular wall so we could imagine windows from that side and bring in the source 4's from that angle. That might give it some differentiation along with altering the warmth.

 

I got the source 4 idea from an AbleCine expo you did a while back (thanks for that!). I think you mentioned how to get the best streaking sun light effect from those lights and getting rid of potential chromatic aberrations on the edges. Would you care to elaborate how you did that? I can't find the video for some reason.

 

Thanks

Michael

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You can take a small flag and put it in front of the Leko and lower it just until the color fringe pattern falls along the edge of the flag. In a wide shot, I wouldn't worry so much about the fringe, and depending on how you focus the lens, it can be a blue fringe or a red fringe. You can also put a small piece of Hampshire Frost on the front of the lens to blur it, that will hide the color fringe but you'll also lose some of the projected quality of the hard light.

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  • 1 month later...

I guess the first question is whether you want the sun to beam in the morning or the late afternoon because if this whole story takes place in the kitchen, it would be an obvious cheat for the sun to rise and set out the same window. If the room has a corner with windows at a right angle to the main windows, then you could imagine a southern arc to the sun where it comes in from one angle and later from the opposite angle.

 

So without the sun separating morning from midday, or midday from late afternoon, it's a bit hard to make it that clear of a difference though in real life, there might not be a clear difference. You could suggest a hazy morning with more of an overcast feeling and a few room lights on, and then clear weather for the rest of the day with the sun beaming in more and more near sunset.

 

David,

 

> If the room has a corner with windows at a right angle to the main windows, then you could imagine a southern arc to the sun where it comes in from one angle and later from the opposite angle.

 

Could you explain 'southern arc' and 'sun where it comes in from one angle and later from the opposite angle'?

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In the winter on the Northern Hemisphere, the sun takes a lower arc in the sky and is more to the south, so it is conceivable that you could have it hitting the southern side of the house for more of the day than in the summer. Anyway it's still a cheat to some degree, it still rises in the east and sets in the west.

 

For example, here in Los Angeles we think of the streets running on a north-south, east-west grid with the Santa Monica-Venice beaches running north-south... but generally the city sort of sits at an angle tilted south-west. So in the summer, the sun doesn't set over the Pacific Ocean, it sets over the Malibu mountains to your right if you are at the beach in Santa Monica looking out over the ocean. But in the winter, with the sun more in the south, it does set over the water.

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In the winter on the Northern Hemisphere, the sun takes a lower arc in the sky and is more to the south, so it is conceivable that you could have it hitting the southern side of the house for more of the day than in the summer. Anyway it's still a cheat to some degree, it still rises in the east and sets in the west.

 

For example, here in Los Angeles we think of the streets running on a north-south, east-west grid with the Santa Monica-Venice beaches running north-south... but generally the city sort of sits at an angle tilted south-west. So in the summer, the sun doesn't set over the Pacific Ocean, it sets over the Malibu mountains to your right if you are at the beach in Santa Monica looking out over the ocean. But in the winter, with the sun more in the south, it does set over the water.

 

Thank you David.

 

So for both season(summer and winter) it is easy to perform a cheat by imagining a southern arc to the sun.

 

'Imagining a southern arc to the sun', Does this mean the kitchen is located in North-South direction with no windows towards east/ west but windows towards south-west direction?

Edited by Mathew Collins
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The windows would be facing due south but it would help to have corner windows on the east and west side too if you are trying to get sunlight to fall into the room both in the mornings and afternoons. We are all talking imaginary sunlight anyway, I was just suggesting a way of lighting the same room and justifying hard sunlight in both a morning scene and afternoon scene. You don't have to get too logical or literal about it, I'm just saying that you might get away with it if the sun came in at the opposite raking angles at the two times of day.

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The windows would be facing due south but it would help to have corner windows on the east and west side too if you are trying to get sunlight to fall into the room both in the mornings and afternoons. We are all talking imaginary sunlight anyway, I was just suggesting a way of lighting the same room and justifying hard sunlight in both a morning scene and afternoon scene. You don't have to get too logical or literal about it, I'm just saying that you might get away with it if the sun came in at the opposite raking angles at the two times of day.

 

Thank you David.

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