Lighting tips for a Strip Club! Happy New Years Everybody!

[Anthony Liu]

Hey everyone! I have some questions about lighting a strip club and the general feel is that its a little dark. I'm not sure if i want to make it a little underexposed, but the director says he's fine with it. I'm going to shoot with the sony a6300 and I'm not sure what lens would be best but right now I only have a 18-105mm lens f4, would you guys suggest something thats faster since im in a darker environment like f1.8? Theres going to be strippers dancing in the background on the double shot and there will be a single on the mob boss or it might be a triple which includes 2 strippers and they later leave the boss.

 

Attached are links to the video of the opening shot which pretty much is a "Ground Up" shot which starts at the floor of the main pole dancer area and pulls up to reveal high heels walking to which we track lead through 4 other horny guys and reveal the two detectives facing the mob boss at the table. You see what I mean when you watch the two links!

 

Basically my concern is lighting it but im thinking as long as we just put a diffusion on the light or reflect it off the ceiling or wall, I think we should have a nicely exposed shot with a good amount of shadows? Please let me know what your advice is thank you guys! And if I can find a good way to compress my photos, cause i shot in raw, ill post some of them up asap. Happy New Years All!

 

 

[James Compton]

SEPERATION. DIMENSION. Color Contrast. Use cheap RGB LED tape lights along the back of the booth. Get some 1000 watt PAR64 units or LED RGB PAR64 units. Backlight the dancers. Moving lights. Have a crew member rotate a light to emulate night club lighting.

 

Anthony, is the same music video that you were budgeting for 2 months ago?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

SEPERATION. DIMENSION. Color Contrast...that is sage advice!

[Levin Liebig]

If you choose to underexpose your picture, remember to always put one spot of brightness into your frame. This could be a practical in the background or a rim/shoulder light or something else.

[Anthony Liu]

SEPERATION. DIMENSION. Color Contrast. Use cheap RGB LED tape lights along the back of the booth. Get some 1000 watt PAR64 units or LED RGB PAR64 units. Backlight the dancers. Moving lights. Have a crew member rotate a light to emulate night club lighting.

 

Anthony, is the same music video that you were budgeting for 2 months ago?

 

Wow, thank you James! I really appreciate the response! Yes, I've seen the luminance of RGB LED tapes before and I can see that work very effectively as a practical. In terms of 1000 watt PAR 64, im not sure how I would rig that and the issue might be that the director doesn't want us to do too much rigging or setting up in the strip club. How much time does it usually take to rig or set up PAR 64? Since the strip club has a stage for the dancers, is it possible that they already have a par 64's that we can use that are hanging from their beams or fixtures? This is all excellent advice. Thank you so much James! And no, this is a totally different project, the music video client never responded unfortunately. But this project looks much more solid because I did the location scout already and I know the director lol.

 

I was also thinking about some spacelight and some softboxes. Do you think that will be neccessary?

Thank you so much for the response, I was so on a time crunch with my coloring projects that I couldnt respond sooner and that the director was also kind of lagging as well. But it's still moving forward from here!