Lighting

[jansik]

How about a thread where we demonstrate samples of Video Lighting and talk about it. Critique, Ask questions etc. I think it could be interesting ?

[seunosewa]

Coollights fluorescent key light from the top left and silver-golden reflector fill from top-right. Angle between them was 30 to 45 degrees. What do you think?

[jansik]

Beautiful Light!
Soft is the way to go

[bcheong]

From a short film I shot this past summer. This is from a digital SLR (Nikon D70 50mm 1.4) - the actual film was shot on super16 (Kodak 7218). I used the D-SLR to check my contrast.

There was a 24" Chinaball rigged above the table with 2x 150w household bulbs on a dimmer skirted with duvatyne. There was a 300w(?) probably through some opal coming from frame right backlighting the girls hair. A 650(?) with probably opal or 250 was lighting the bartender from frame right. 2x 4' single kino tubes were rigged into the bar to provide that underlight by the counter. 15w practical bulbs were rigged into the two side lamps behind the bar.

[HorseFilms]

Beautiful work, Barry!

[jansik]

very nice, complete work
Looks like you must have had something from the cam side (?)
Nice mood.

[bcheong]

very nice, complete work
Looks like you must have had something from the cam side (?)
Nice mood.

Nope. The two actors were lit entirely by the chinaball. When we went into our over the shoulders I think I had a 150 bouncing into a silver bounce for some eye-light but that was it.

[jansik]

Barry... was the chinaball alittle off towards the camera side?
There is illumination on camera side of the guy's shirt which could be part of your ambiance ... that is if there was one on the top of everything you've mentioned about.
I love your Light treatment. Professional execution

[Danstin Studios]

Nice lighting, and also very nice location. I love the floor, and the light you get coming off of that. The light on the bar is also pretty nice. Did you leave standard bulbs in the practicals on the bar, or what are they?

[bcheong]

Barry... was the chinaball alittle off towards the camera side?
There is illumination on camera side of the guy's shirt which could be part of your ambiance ... that is if there was one on the top of everything you've mentioned about.
I love your Light treatment. Professional execution

The chinaball might have been positioned a little closer to camera side so it would wrap a little more and be a tad more fronty. I can't remember now. I know I did re-po the unit a little for the closeups to wrap a little more and get into the eyes.

[bcheong]

Nice lighting, and also very nice location. I love the floor, and the light you get coming off of that. The light on the bar is also pretty nice. Did you leave standard bulbs in the practicals on the bar, or what are they?

Yes the sidelamps (left and right of the bartender) had practical bulbs in them - I think probably 15w or 25w households as I think I ran out of dimmers and didn't want them to blow out. And there were the 4' kino tubes in the front which provided the downlight on the front of the bar and actually lit the countertop which was made of this translucent material - happy accident!

It was a great location - a good example of how great locations can make your job easier as a cinematographer.

[Matt Gottshalk]

Lowel rifa/Pro and DP with reflector.


Speaking of reflector, I see the camera dude in the pans!

[Gopher_Greene]

I wouldn't worry too much about the camera man in the pans, someone is going to have to be looking very hard to find that. But there are a few things I'd work on in this shot. You have a nice Chaircusco effect with the boy, lighted background into his dark hair, and nice level of light in the background to help depth. You lose that effect on her left side, the background goes really dark against her dark hair. Secondly the height of the light makes the darkness under her eyes standout, you could minimize that by lowering the light. The thing that draws my attention the most is thier clothing. The white skiers dominate the frame and her blue sweater comes in a close second. You could use an open side net and cut some lighting off of the clothing so the focus of the audiance will remain on the faces.

[Jeff Anderson]

Wow, this thread is fantastic, please do keep contributing guys! I'll see if I cant find some still of some of the stuff I do and see what you guys think. My lighting could definitely use some help. I think they are at the office but I'll post em up after the new year. I think I've just increased my lighting abilities two fold by reading this thread.

[bcheong]

Here's another one. This one was from a music video I shot last December for a friend of mine. The pic is an actual screen grab shot on an HVX200 (no adapter) after some color correction (in Final Cut Pro).

The location was actually a college cafeteria which was re-dressed. The location conveniently had a suspended grid (about 8-9ft high) made of out of conduit piping which was used for the compact fluorescent bulb sockets and wiring. We switched off all the power to the cafe and blacked any daylight ambience leaking in.

From that grid I rigged about 8-10 300w fresnel creating various pockets of lights.

A small Chimera was rigged to the grid as well positioned near the red backdrop. Originally I had hoped to use that to light the artist but after some re-blocking it ended up top lighting the drummer and creating some ambience. The Chimera was also boxed in with foamcore to reduce spill.

300's on the grid backlit the musicians and a 650 with 216(?) keyed the artist. Art dept. hung these ornament type lights which you can see behind the bassist. The whole location was hazed.