Another 'how was this lit'? (Mulberry 'Skirt')

[Snapper123]

http://vimeo.com/34519354

Really, really good short film, but the question that pops into my head is of coarse, 'how was this lit'?

I've always been in love with this type of look and I'm trying to achieve it for one of my films. I'm just wondering how much lighting went into this. There's some shots that seem to be genuinely with only available light, and there's others that leave me wondering if it is indeed a certain light that gives that soft, unnoticeable luminance to a at-night or windows-too-bright room (and what exact is it that I need to buy) or if only certain-wattage/color tone bulbs were used in natural appliances like desk lamps, ceiling light fixtures, ect ect. One scene that puzzles me most in the scene with the girl lying on the bed and everything hanging above her - there's a light source above her, shining down from behind-above her (as a shadow is cast in front of her legs and stuff), and I'm wondering what contraption/set-up would have allowed that?

What would your take be on the majority of the shots in this film?

[sonofaresiii]

Nothing too complicated here, though it's all used to great effect: all the daylight stuff looks like it was shot with 90% natural light... the best advice I can give any low budget filmmaker is, open the curtains! They maybe had some small daylight-balanced lights (LEDs or kinos) for fill. The nighttime stuff looks like pretty easy three-point lighting set-ups (again, used to good effect).

The shot of her on the bed could have been rigged a hundred different ways, the easiest way I can think of would be a soft box/chimera (if they did use kinoflos in the day scenes, they probably just used that) clamped to speedrail that's going horizontally above the frame, with two c-stands holding it on either side just out of frame. But then, it could have been attached to the ceiling, or on an arm or something. It doesn't really matter how it got up there because the rigging will be unique for any situation, the key thing to note here is: it's soft, it's more back than straight above, and it's not spilling onto the background. Those elements are what's giving that great effect.
Then there's probably some separate lights for the background and maybe some fill (it is pretty soft though, so I can imagine it just wrapping around by itself instead of there being fill), but who knows-- they may have had just enough distance and just enough spill that they didn't need a background light.

edit: looking at it again, I'd say they probably did use speedrail across two c-stands, because that'd also give them something to hang all that stuff from

[nycineaste]

Also, the production design and color grading on this thing is incredible- Dominantly muted earth tones, offset with some cools/ blues, even the girls hair fit the look. I'm rarely impressed by the look of most short films but this is damn good.

[colebennett]

Thanks for that response. I've been shooting stills for a few years now, sometimes with strobe, more often with ambient. I've only done very basic lighting with video. But having the lighting set up explained in text makes it way easier to visualize, and certainly makes it less intimidating.

[dannowatts]

love the input about this. great short film

[iamWZA]

I don't want to hijack your thread, Snapper, but I'm curious about these three shots too. This is from the film 'Incendies', which, by the way, is astonishingly good, and the majority of the shots seem to have been lit primarily with natural light as well. Can anyone 'shed some light' on how these shots were were lit?