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consistent lighting through windows for 20 page day interior-3 shoot days


Ben Kahn

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Hello,

I am shooting a day interior scene that is 20 pages shot over 3 three days. The whole scene takes place in an open living room over the course of a day with seven characters sitting in front of a line of bay windows. I've attached pictures.

I would love some advice on how to create a consistent lighting scheme. We'll be shooting from around 7:00am to 6:00pm. The windows face west.

The scene is meant to be like a stage play so the characters stay in this area the whole time. Most of our coverage will be shot towards the windows.

One caveat-the scene is set in Covid time so they keep the windows open. The director wants to see the open windows so we can't use sheers or windows.

One idea I had was to build truss outside and hang a 4k and a few sky panels coming in from the camera right side windows. Then build a shelf off the roof with a 12x silk to help control some of the hard sun light that might get in.

Also, thinking about a 12x20 2 stop net but I'm worried I would see the patterns.

Thanks for the help.

2.jpg

4.jpg

Edited by Ben Kahn
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Hi Ben, sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you. Is the 20 page scene continuous? And does the director want to shoot in sequence? 

Is there no way to talk the director into a different location with north-facing windows at least?

If not, then I think the first thing you have to do is flag off all of the hard sunlight coming thru the windows and either recreate it with HMIs or just recreate the ambient with the Skypanels. There’s not much you can do about the quality of light on the deep background, it will be what it is. So hopefully you get consistent weather over the three days.

Maybe you can run multiple cameras to cut down on reset time?

The only other options I can think of would be:  

1. Put a large green screen outside the windows and put the background in later.

2. Shoot night-for-day, put a large backing outside the windows and light it with the Skypanels.

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Hi @Ben Kahn,

@Satsuki Murashigealready highlighted a lot of things to ask for, I have another question: 

- Does the director want to see ALL the windows open? Maybe you could talk him / her about just having one of the windows on the side open!
If the director doesn't want to see all the windows open you could place Litetiles on the windows (and curtains or voile) that the director doesn't want to see open. 
As the litetiles have a black back the sun wouldn't be able to enter through the windows and your light will be exactly the same through the hours / days, letting you play with, perhaps, patterns of hard sun light coming through the side window. 

My gaffer in Milano did exactly that on a job and it looks pretty believable I think. 
1088189526_Screenshot2021-04-19at18_10_28.thumb.png.75d4b8a48ab72f8a676c5e632124d86e.png

Edited by Miguel Angel
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1 hour ago, Miguel Angel said:

Hi @Ben Kahn,

@Satsuki Murashigealready highlighted a lot of things to ask for, I have another question: 

- Does the director want to see ALL the windows open? Maybe you could talk him / her about just having one of the windows on the side open!
If the director doesn't want to see all the windows open you could place Litetiles on the windows (and curtains or voile) that the director doesn't want to see open. 
As the litetiles have a black back the sun wouldn't be able to enter through the windows and your light will be exactly the same through the hours / days, letting you play with, perhaps, patterns of hard sun light coming through the side window. 

My gaffer in Milano did exactly that on a job and it looks pretty believable I think. 
1088189526_Screenshot2021-04-19at18_10_28.thumb.png.75d4b8a48ab72f8a676c5e632124d86e.png

This looks great Miguel!

My lower budget method for this is to paper the windows with 1000H tracing paper and put Kino Flos or HMIs behind them. Your method is much more elegant though. ?

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2 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

This looks great Miguel!

My lower budget method for this is to paper the windows with 1000H tracing paper and put Kino Flos or HMIs behind them. Your method is much more elegant though. ?

Thanks @Satsuki Murashige, not my frame though! (Too bright! ?)

It was the frame my gaffer in Milano produced from his phone when we were shooting the Gillette Venus commercial to show me how an interior day would look like when lit with Litemats.

I saw it and I was sold on the method!

It is so efficient and as you said, elegant, that I have been using it every time I can.

These frames below (not colour graded) are an interior day and night of a mini series I just finished shooting where we had three windows (2 windows that you see in the frames that we were going to see all the time and one one the left hand side, next to an actor, that you don't see in that frame) in a 4th floor that we had to control at all times in order to do day and night sequences and where I (literally) taped the litetiles inside the windows ? (well, my wonderful gaffer and his team taped them)

Each sequence lasted for about 2 hours and thanks to the litetiles we were able to cut the light from the sun coming from outside.

Interior day

12535145-AADD-4643-B676-4EFAB15BBD26.thumb.jpeg.440d0485c00c8027dd03903875ab4a8b.jpeg
 

Interior Night

ECA06CF7-50A8-4050-A359-E1C3B2ACA365.thumb.jpeg.24f85c29702dfcea17d7e09c06a47c50.jpeg

Edited by Miguel Angel
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20 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

Hi Ben, sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you. Is the 20 page scene continuous? And does the director want to shoot in sequence? 

Is there no way to talk the director into a different location with north-facing windows at least?

If not, then I think the first thing you have to do is flag off all of the hard sunlight coming thru the windows and either recreate it with HMIs or just recreate the ambient with the Skypanels. There’s not much you can do about the quality of light on the deep background, it will be what it is. So hopefully you get consistent weather over the three days.

Maybe you can run multiple cameras to cut down on reset time?

The only other options I can think of would be:  

1. Put a large green screen outside the windows and put the background in later.

2. Shoot night-for-day, put a large backing outside the windows and light it with the Skypanels.

Thanks for the tips @Satsuki Murashige The scene takes place over one day but the last couple pages fall into evening. The location is locked in unfortunately and won't be using green screen or backing.

I think the HMI and skypanels is my plan. Maybe instead of a silk overhang outside I'll use a solid to block as much hard sunlight getting in as possible.

I'm going to see if we can schedule all the wide coverage in the mornings before the sun would make it through the windows. The houses on the west side of the street are the problem though because they will get direct sunlight.

I'm crossing my fingers for cloudy days!

thanks

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8 hours ago, Miguel Angel said:

Hi @Ben Kahn,

@Satsuki Murashigealready highlighted a lot of things to ask for, I have another question: 

- Does the director want to see ALL the windows open? Maybe you could talk him / her about just having one of the windows on the side open!
If the director doesn't want to see all the windows open you could place Litetiles on the windows (and curtains or voile) that the director doesn't want to see open. 
As the litetiles have a black back the sun wouldn't be able to enter through the windows and your light will be exactly the same through the hours / days, letting you play with, perhaps, patterns of hard sun light coming through the side window. 

My gaffer in Milano did exactly that on a job and it looks pretty believable I think. 
1088189526_Screenshot2021-04-19at18_10_28.thumb.png.75d4b8a48ab72f8a676c5e632124d86e.png

@Miguel AngelI love this idea! I Don't think it will work for this but I'm definitely stealing this one! ?

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1 hour ago, Ben Kahn said:

Thanks for the tips @Satsuki Murashige The scene takes place over one day but the last couple pages fall into evening. The location is locked in unfortunately and won't be using green screen or backing.

I think the HMI and skypanels is my plan. Maybe instead of a silk overhang outside I'll use a solid to block as much hard sunlight getting in as possible.

I'm going to see if we can schedule all the wide coverage in the mornings before the sun would make it through the windows. The houses on the west side of the street are the problem though because they will get direct sunlight.

I'm crossing my fingers for cloudy days!

thanks

Sounds solid, best of luck Ben! Let us know how it goes. 

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972416935_MRSHEENFHA_157305.thumb.jpg.571fa50978af6208d30307de73540f9a.jpgWe shot this Mr. Sheen commercial nearly 20 years ago (aargh!) in an apartment in Brussels. Filmed at night, four or five 20k HMIs outside the windows. The London skyline was added in post. Here it was the only way to keep the lighting consistent. 1731891670_MRSHEENFHA_157032.thumb.jpg.e4e3ecc2c96a61e83444bdb7623971cf.jpg

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Five 20K HMIs!

One thing about this that may be worth a bit of consideration is how it's scheduled. What I'm thinking here is that any mismatch between the lighting is likely to be less objectionable if it happens between big changes in angle, so maybe shoot all your stuff one way during a morning, shoot the reverses in the afternoon, and repeat over your three days. May drive the cast slightly bananas hopping around in the script, but eh, it's a very big ask to see all that exterior and have it look consistent for three long days.

I think something has to give; if you try to do what's been proposed for a knockdown price you're likely to get results that feel a bit inadequate.

 

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8 hours ago, Uli Meyer said:

972416935_MRSHEENFHA_157305.thumb.jpg.571fa50978af6208d30307de73540f9a.jpgWe shot this Mr. Sheen commercial nearly 20 years ago (aargh!) in an apartment in Brussels. Filmed at night, four or five 20k HMIs outside the windows. The London skyline was added in post. Here it was the only way to keep the lighting consistent. 1731891670_MRSHEENFHA_157032.thumb.jpg.e4e3ecc2c96a61e83444bdb7623971cf.jpg

Looks great Uli!

Did you use blue/greenscreen outside then?

Did that limit your ability to do any camera movement inside where you see outside? Or did you just put tracking markers for those shots? 

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13 minutes ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

Looks great Uli!

Did you use blue/greenscreen outside then?

Did that limit your ability to do any camera movement inside where you see outside? Or did you just put tracking markers for those shots? 

Thanks Satsuki. We used tracking markers on the window panes and moved the camera freely on a dolly and jib.

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I think if I had the budget and manpower to pick the background in post I would go that way to save the headache of having to stop or worry or even think about the background while having to cover that many pages of dialogue. You could hang a big overhead diff over the green and  the window and get enough light to get ambient through the window and nice levels on the green and leave some room to sneak your sunlight lamp streaming in through the window. You'd still get some ambient fluctuations if the sun was in and out of clouds and some color variations throughout the day, however. You could tent the whole thing big enough to allow your green, sun motivating lamp, and fill units to all work inside the tent. Time, money, manpower, the works. 

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