Lighting setup for this film

[Tiago Pimentel]

Hello again guys. So today I went to the location with my camera to do some tests. It's important to say that these tests were done with practical lighting only and the lights were the ones available in the lamps. I'm going to take a few bulbs with dimmers and I'm still deciding as to which lights I'll take with me. I really like Kinos but the inability to dim fluorescent lights might be a problem... Tungsten fresnels with chimeras and grids seem like the obvious choice but the space they take and the temperature they reach is something that always makes me think twice...

 

So I was interested in what kind of fixtures you might take to light this, knowing that I need control over intensity and I absolutely need soft light. I'm thinking I might get away with just lighting the actors and one or two details to create contrast in the room, but it actually seems like an uncomplicated lighting scenario. What do you guys think?

 

Here are the stills I got (on the last one, my art director told me it was important to have a practical in that table and it will definitely be there in the shoot). This was shot at f2.8. When shooting day comes, I am still deciding if I'll take the Cooke S4 (which means I can shoot at T2) or if I'll take the Master Primes and benefit the extra speed.

 

 

 

 

Thanks

[David Mullen ASC]

If you want soft tungsten light to augment the practical lamps, then bouncing into muslin sheets with lights like multiple tweenies or a Source-4 Leko with a 50 degree lens, all on dimmers, will work. LEDs like Litemats are dimmable too.

[Tiago Pimentel]

If you want soft tungsten light to augment the practical lamps, then bouncing into muslin sheets with lights like multiple tweenies or a Source-4 Leko with a 50 degree lens, all on dimmers, will work. LEDs like Litemats are dimmable too.

 

Thanks David. Just a few questions:

 

1 - When you're saying augment the practicals, you're referring to their effect on the actors, right? I love the effect of bounced muslin. So, maybe two or three 500W tungsten fresnels flooding into unbleached muslin would be great? My main concern here is with light spill and killing the mood. This is supposed to be a night scene being apparently lit by practicals. On shots that are away from the walls, it should be ok as soft light falls off fast, but when the actors are near a wall or when they're laying in bed, might be hard to control it without pulling out the c stands and the flags. What do you think? Would you use chimeras and grids for shots where the actors are closer to walls? Or maybe other technique?

 

2 - One of the shots that's bugging me the most is the first shot of the movie that is basically very close to the first picture I posted on my latest post (the bed and the two lamps in the back). I'll have the actors sitting side by side, in the bed, facing the camera (not laying in bed, but sitting with their feet on the ground and facing the camera). Light motivated by practical dictates I could get away by lighting half of their face (the half being "lit" by each of the lamps), but how to do that without ending up with a light sandwich and both faces becoming evenly lit (which is boring and flat)?

 

3 - Would you use any of the lights to augment the practicals on stuff like furniture or the walls? If so, I'd be interested in how you'd do it. :)

 

Thanks for helping

Edited November 2, 2018 by Tiago Pimentel

[Albion Hockney]

if it works for your budget LitMat's and other LED's are a really versatile tool for this type of job if you want soft light. I think most DP's have pushed in that direction just because it allows you to get a good quality soft light with much less concern about space and having to control spill from things like bounces. they are also very light if you want to arm them out or even tape to a ceiling and of course also dimmable + color temp adjustable on the head.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Hey Albion, thanks for that. I actually am going to take one or two flexible Leds with me for overhead or backlight and to light one or two things in the background. But when it comes to lighting my actors, I am still a bit old school about that and still light skin tones with tungstens. It's probably an unjustifiable concern from my part and current Leds are probably as good as tungstens, but I don't have much experience with them and wouldn't want to try them on this project as my main keys.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Tiago Pimentel

[David Mullen ASC]

Since you said you wanted the light to be very soft, I figured you were OK with it being lower in contrast in such a small room. It's hard to have it both ways, somehow get shadowy contrasty soft light -- except on close-ups where the soft light can be just off camera. In a room like this the practicals alone fill in the shadows because the open top of the lamp shade causes the bare bulb to light the ceiling and bounce back down. Sometimes you need to put some black cloth on the ceiling above the lamps.

 

Yes, I meant augment the practical next to the actor with some soft light that wraps around a little more since generally your face in bed is almost forward of the lampshade.

 

Yes, a symmetrical shot with the lamp turned on on each side of the bed is an issue, I've never found a satisfactory solution though often the fall-off from each lamp is fast enough that it acts as a fill, not a key, on the person on the opposite side of the bed. All the more reason then to put negative fill on the ceiling to reduce the top ambience.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Thanks David, that was insightful! Let's take this video from AI for example:

 

 

I really like the ratios and contrast there. How would you light this admiting you weren't doing this with the big hollywood budget? I also like the pratical over the bed. Not so much for the practical itself but for the lighting effect on the bed and sheets. I might just cheat a bit and simulate that effect even without the over the bed lamp.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Tiago Pimentel

[David Mullen ASC]

Id probably use some negative fill but this movie was also color-corrected with more contrast to enhance the blacks (I believe a silver retention printing process was used, and the home video version was color-corrected to recreate that look.)

[David Mullen ASC]

These days Id probably use a Litemat with a soft grid to cut the spill down you could do this with tungsten lamps but you have to have the space, with a Litemat, you could be tight against the wall.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Thanks David. The rental house where I'll be renting my lights have a Litemat 4 which looks big enough to use as soft source. In your experience, is this led as good with skin tones as tungstens? In other words, is it ok to use as key? If using tungsten, how big would you choose the chimera with grids to achieve the soft light similar to the AI clip? For shots where I have depth of field, I might try bouncing from muslin for extra softness (I believe Deakins does it all the time and he gets great contrast and moody interiors).

 

Thanks for helping

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, the Litemat is good for skin tones. The Plus version allows you to set lower color temperatures than 3200K to match household lamps better but if you don't have that, you can use 1/8 CTO or 1/4 CTO. You could get a soft grid for the 4, plus one for a 4x4 diffusion frame and a 6x6 diffusion frame.

 

You need the option of creating different sizes of diffusion depending on the shot -- in a wide shot, you might only have room for a small chimera and then as you go tighter, you can go bigger with the diffusion frames. Or switch to a muslin bounce with flags to cut the spill.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Thanks David. I'll take one or two litemats with softbox and grids then.

 

For closeups I do love the softness of bounced muslin. Below is a shot lit by Deakins, from No Country for Old Men and I remember reading on his site, that he used bounced muslin to light his face. It's remarkable that almost no light hits the back wall. Any idea how he did this?

 

 

 

Btw, since I'm shooting in a relatively small room (270 square feet or 25m2), I wasn't thinking of taking very potent lights (if using tungsten, I'll probably take 3 x 500w). If bouncing on a muslin frame, to get it all lit, it'll probably take all 3 fresnels, right?

 

Cheers

Tiago

[David Mullen ASC]

Deakins maybe had siders to cut the spill, but it also wasnt a very bright bounce so theres some fall-off.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Guys, the rental house doesn't have any litemat available for the date of my shoot. They offered a smart light motion SL1 as an alternative. Anyone knows if it's any good? From what I can tell it's not bicolor, but I'll just need tungsten anyway...

[Roly Osborne]

Hi Thiago,

 

Here's a review of the SL1 under a slightly different name. Seems pretty positive:

 

 

It appears to be available in bicolour and RGB versions

[Giacomo Girolamo]

Congratulations for the amazing location you get. Hope the short go well Tiago!

 

The female talent is natural red hair or tint, because the real gingers has a "transparent" hair, but the girls with dye hair have "black hair paint on red". It's kinda difficult to explain, I can't find the proper words, but what I mean is beware when you backlight the talent, because if is a real ginger, some angles just blow their hair making and halo of light. A nice effect but distracting and I suppose something you don't want in this narrative work.

 

 

Hope you could understand what I mean, always looking forward to watch your amazing work,

 

best of lucks!

[Tiago Pimentel]

Thanks for the heads up Giacomo! Actually, her hair is tinted, she is a natural brunette.

 

I was looking at the pictures I took from the room and I think I'll need to get some diffusion on the lamps to attenuate a bit of the effect on the walls. Do you guys usually use a stronger diffusion on top than on the bottom part of the shade?

 

Thanks

[David Mullen ASC]

The size of the LED affects its softness so you might need to put it through a diffusion frame or bounce it.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Guys, just two more questions concerning the Alexa XT (camera that I'll be using for this shoot):

 

1 - for monitoring, do you simply use the REC709 viewing that comes with the camera?

 

2 - Not sure how's the IR pollution of the Alexa, but better to use IRNDs instead of simple NDs, right?

 

Thanks

[Stuart Brereton]

Guys, just two more questions concerning the Alexa XT (camera that I'll be using for this shoot):

 

1 - for monitoring, do you simply use the REC709 viewing that comes with the camera?

 

2 - Not sure how's the IR pollution of the Alexa, but better to use IRNDs instead of simple NDs, right?

 

Thanks

The standard REC709 LUT that comes with the camera looks great, just make sure you carry it through into post production.

 

If you're shooting night interior with tungsten and LED, you shouldn't really need any NDs at all. IR pollution is really only an issue when using heavy NDs (greater than 0.9), which is usually in DAY/EXT situations. Newer cameras suffer much less with IR than older models do.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Hey Stuart! I want to shoot at a low T stop. I'll be using the master primes, so I'll probably want to shoot at T1.3 to keep a very shallow dof and accentuate the soft light look. To do that, I'll probably have to use at least a .6 ND. I was thinking of taking a set of IRNDs anyway. Shouldn't be a problem to use them instead of classic nds, right?

 

Thanks!

[Stuart Brereton]

It won't hurt to have IRNDs rather than regular NDs. IR contamination doesn't generally start to happen below ND 0.9, and like I said, newer cameras like the XT are much less prone to it anyway. You could also try setting the camera at 400ISO. You'll get an extra stop of latitude in the shadows, and need less ND as well.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Stuart, that was actually something on my mind. Have you ever rated the Alexa at iso400? Theoretically it should give some very clean shadows, so I'm interested in that. Never done it myself, though.

Edited November 14, 2018 by Tiago Pimentel

[Stuart Brereton]

I usually rate it at 800 ISO, but there are many people who prefer the cleaner shadows at 400. You'll lose a stop of highlight latitude, but that may not even be noticeable if your scene is relatively low key.

[Tiago Pimentel]

Thanks Stuart. Do you know if the REC709 monitoring in Alexa is similar (or the same) as the Arri Log C to 709 LUT that comes with Resolve?

 

Thanks