film noir lighting in small space

[redeyephoto]

I need to shoot a scene in a hotel room ini late afternoon and give it a noir feel with backlight and high lighting ratios. I have a 250 w mole, and 2 lowell lights 500w and 1000w with unbreallas and gels.

Please suggest most effective option for giving the scene a noir look. I also have black wrap that i can mold around the lights for shadows.

[500lb Productions]

Leave the umbrellas at home, they're useless for noir.

You need barn doors, flags, snoots, and grids. You can maybe get by with lots of flags (ie big squares of black cardboard) and PAs to hold them.

The key is very high contrast, narrow slices and beams of light from oblique angles, and lots of shadows.

Working with what you have, I'd suggest clipping (binder clips) flags on your lowel (totas?), turning them on end for vertical slices, using them as sidelights, and manual exposure set for key (highlight), allowing everything else to fall into shadow.

Close the drapes fully, or else use only a slice of window light (use foamcore to flag off the window leaving only a slice) and maybe zip tie a cheap miniblind to the curtain rod for shadow effect.

Again, use the light from a sidelit perspective and try to let the background fall to shadows.

[GageFX]

Great advice. also, those 500 and 1000w lights are going to be alot of light in that small space. I recommend picking up a couple 250w Lowell Pro lights and the barn doors for them. Great versatile lights, very good price.

- GageFX

[500lb Productions]

Great advice. also, those 500 and 1000w lights are going to be alot of light in that small space. I recommend picking up a couple 250w Lowell Pro lights and the barn doors for them. Great versatile lights, very good price.

- GageFX

Good point.

And he can always put a 250w bulb in that Tota.

Or, for Noir, sidelight use the 50w peppers I found at Home Depot along with carboard flags or snoots: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=66412

[Justin Kuhn]

Keep those umbrellas, you never know when you might need some fill or a nice softly lit background.

[jonnyh1968]

Ya dude. Heavy contrast. A lot of shadows. Silouhettes. Image Google "The Third Man."