Slimothy-Blaine-khmuse -Thou Shalt Not-
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khmuse
Tech Guru
Information on lighting setup for 1st screen grab from "Thou Shalt Not"
This shot is from scene 6 of our script. This was also the very first shot of the first day of principal photography.
The exterior lighting setup on this consisted of a 1.2k HMI PAR about 100 feet to the left of the frame, 2 ECAs were used as practical’s just under the roof line of the diner, the large tree in the back was handled by an Arri 650 Fresnel (full flood) hidden by the pillar to the right of the door.
The interior illumination was handled by a Lowel Caselight 4 (HF fluorescent, like a 4 bank Kino) hidden in the upper corner of the café of the left big window, there is another ECA in a China ball up near the ceiling line just to the right of the front doors (hidden by the pillar to the right of the door). There are a few other smaller instruments key lighting interior features. The stainless steel back board behind the range is being handled by a Dedo (DLHM4). The back room behind the grill is being illuminated by a PAR16 can with diffusion and red gel.
There are a few stories about this setup that illustrate what one can run into when on location. Unfortunately, I was unable to survey the location before arriving on the first day of the shoot. I was given photographs taken by the director and producer, but these are never as good as seeing things yourself. What wasn’t known to me was how damn windy this place was around sunset (when we would be shooting this scene). This gave me several problems. The first issue was that I couldn’t get as much elevation on the HMI as I wanted due to stability issues caused by the gusting wind. I resorted to using as many 20 lb bags as I could spare and even triangulated the base of the combo stand with another pair of C-stands (also heavily bagged). I compromised and only got the source about 12 feet off the ground. The second issue caused by the wind was that I couldn’t use the large butterfly that I wanted (we set it up, but I didn’t want to tear a big silk, so down it came) to so the source is much harder than I wanted, and to make matters worse, the rental house left the half wire scrims out of the kit so I couldn’t control the hot spotted foreground as much as I wanted. The final insult that the wind threw at us was that switch in the HMI head was really tired and when the wind hit it just right, off it went (and back up the ladder my gaffer went to restrike it).
Next up on the problem list was location power. I didn’t want to use any location power for any of the higher powered devices as this is a really old diner with rotten 2 wire outlets; there was no way I was going to plug an HMI ballast into those outlets. We did have a genny, but again due to the location, I was unable to survey this piece of equipment first. It turned out to be a construction genny (5 kW) which was fine in terms of power, but lacked a sophisticated governor so the frequency was gonna be unstable. I set the camera’s shutter to 60.1 Hz which eliminated the flicker when I was setting up the shot, but by the time we actually began shooting the genny’s speed had drifted enough to negate my careful planning. The location of the camera was across the road (very busy) so I couldn’t get the monitor up (no mains to run it) and the LCDs in the dvx have enough persistence that I didn’t notice that the flicker was drifting back. Just goes to show you that as hard as you try, something is gonna come and bite you in the rear when you least expect it. I don’t think the shot was harmed by this, but it bugs me none the less.
We were spilling enough light out on to the road, that we had to get this shot off quickly as it could have been a traffic hazard to oncoming vehicles, so we got 4 runs at it and had to strike the setup.
This shot is from scene 6 of our script. This was also the very first shot of the first day of principal photography.
The exterior lighting setup on this consisted of a 1.2k HMI PAR about 100 feet to the left of the frame, 2 ECAs were used as practical’s just under the roof line of the diner, the large tree in the back was handled by an Arri 650 Fresnel (full flood) hidden by the pillar to the right of the door.
The interior illumination was handled by a Lowel Caselight 4 (HF fluorescent, like a 4 bank Kino) hidden in the upper corner of the café of the left big window, there is another ECA in a China ball up near the ceiling line just to the right of the front doors (hidden by the pillar to the right of the door). There are a few other smaller instruments key lighting interior features. The stainless steel back board behind the range is being handled by a Dedo (DLHM4). The back room behind the grill is being illuminated by a PAR16 can with diffusion and red gel.
There are a few stories about this setup that illustrate what one can run into when on location. Unfortunately, I was unable to survey the location before arriving on the first day of the shoot. I was given photographs taken by the director and producer, but these are never as good as seeing things yourself. What wasn’t known to me was how damn windy this place was around sunset (when we would be shooting this scene). This gave me several problems. The first issue was that I couldn’t get as much elevation on the HMI as I wanted due to stability issues caused by the gusting wind. I resorted to using as many 20 lb bags as I could spare and even triangulated the base of the combo stand with another pair of C-stands (also heavily bagged). I compromised and only got the source about 12 feet off the ground. The second issue caused by the wind was that I couldn’t use the large butterfly that I wanted (we set it up, but I didn’t want to tear a big silk, so down it came) to so the source is much harder than I wanted, and to make matters worse, the rental house left the half wire scrims out of the kit so I couldn’t control the hot spotted foreground as much as I wanted. The final insult that the wind threw at us was that switch in the HMI head was really tired and when the wind hit it just right, off it went (and back up the ladder my gaffer went to restrike it).
Next up on the problem list was location power. I didn’t want to use any location power for any of the higher powered devices as this is a really old diner with rotten 2 wire outlets; there was no way I was going to plug an HMI ballast into those outlets. We did have a genny, but again due to the location, I was unable to survey this piece of equipment first. It turned out to be a construction genny (5 kW) which was fine in terms of power, but lacked a sophisticated governor so the frequency was gonna be unstable. I set the camera’s shutter to 60.1 Hz which eliminated the flicker when I was setting up the shot, but by the time we actually began shooting the genny’s speed had drifted enough to negate my careful planning. The location of the camera was across the road (very busy) so I couldn’t get the monitor up (no mains to run it) and the LCDs in the dvx have enough persistence that I didn’t notice that the flicker was drifting back. Just goes to show you that as hard as you try, something is gonna come and bite you in the rear when you least expect it. I don’t think the shot was harmed by this, but it bugs me none the less.
We were spilling enough light out on to the road, that we had to get this shot off quickly as it could have been a traffic hazard to oncoming vehicles, so we got 4 runs at it and had to strike the setup.
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
Great info on the setup! Thanks for that! 
That's a heck of a lot of light... I could see it being a hazard to cars... hehe
That's a heck of a lot of light... I could see it being a hazard to cars... hehe
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
LOL! Yes, I know that for sure... how do you think I got this black dot in my eye, heehee.
Edgen
Veteran
Do you think you would add any VFX to the sky? Perhaps some sort of skyline in Post? Looks like a lot of space that could be filled with some stars or distant glow of a city or mountainous backdrop. throw in some skyscrapers and all the sudden you've got a Sci-Fi HOorror Just hope that shot was on Sticks or either you have a hella motiontracker artist.
/j
Just hope that shot was on Sticks or either you have a hella motiontracker artist. /j
khmuse
Tech Guru
The location was chosen for a number of reasons, but not the least of which was that it is an isolated café on a lonely road (this same location was used in a scene from Kill Bill 2). There is a hill directly behind the café, so more of the shot reads as it should than you might think. The shot was a locked down one, so it would be a simple matter to paint up a few stars, but if I were to do it, I would just strip in a night sky from a very slow shutter shot.
Right now, this isn't a high priority issue as it really won't advance the story line. Thanks for the comments though, glad to see someone bothered to give it a serious look.
Right now, this isn't a high priority issue as it really won't advance the story line. Thanks for the comments though, glad to see someone bothered to give it a serious look.
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
khmuse said:
Question
On this shot it seems as though the woman is not lit, while the man is lit quite strongly on one side of his face. And a glare is coming off the back metal panel as well. What motivated you to keep her in shadow? Is he the one talking? Thanks. :thumbsup:
Blaine
Mr. Hollywood
Brandon,
Everyone clamors for clips or bts. That's the problem with posting clips. They are out of context. I have probably mentioned that in your Smuggler's Ransom thread. It's easy to post a grab but to put it in context is much harder. There are so many things going on and so many choices to make, they usually can't be summed up in a single screen grab. And as you know...no footy. Kevin spent a lot of time on the lighting, as I'm sure you can tell by his earlier post on the outside lighting. Let me say that he spent no less time on the inside and how it related to story. At all times, Kevin kept the needs of the story in mind and produced some great images, which unfortunately are sometimes don't do themselves justice when posted "out of context." I hope that doesn't sound like a cop out but I am thrilled with his choices and how they weave themselves into the fabric of the story. I can't tell you how lucky we were to have Kevin's involvement in this project. His name's on the title line for a reason.
Everyone clamors for clips or bts. That's the problem with posting clips. They are out of context. I have probably mentioned that in your Smuggler's Ransom thread. It's easy to post a grab but to put it in context is much harder. There are so many things going on and so many choices to make, they usually can't be summed up in a single screen grab. And as you know...no footy. Kevin spent a lot of time on the lighting, as I'm sure you can tell by his earlier post on the outside lighting. Let me say that he spent no less time on the inside and how it related to story. At all times, Kevin kept the needs of the story in mind and produced some great images, which unfortunately are sometimes don't do themselves justice when posted "out of context." I hope that doesn't sound like a cop out but I am thrilled with his choices and how they weave themselves into the fabric of the story. I can't tell you how lucky we were to have Kevin's involvement in this project. His name's on the title line for a reason.
khmuse
Tech Guru
Brandon Rice said:
Yep, its a matter of using the lighting ratios to move the focus. Keep in mind that I shot anamorphic so I couldn't get as shallow of DOF as if I hadn't (I will discuss my reasoning for this at another time), so composition and lighting was used to push the focus point around in the story.
"Shirley" (the woman) is lit from a different source, but hers is flatter lighting for this setup and is motivated by the globes that I used on the outside of the café. The story was modified (on set no less) to give us a reason to leave some of the blinds up and some down. This makes all the lighting motivated and gave us different values in different parts of the location. Hopefully all worked to give a realistic lighting scheme that worked to better the story.
The "glare" in the "metal panel" is very intentional (I used a Dado for this). I wanted a fairly low environmental lighting level, but I wanted some things to use the upper range of the dynamic range (limited as it is). This glare acts as a motivated light source for the strong key on "Travis" the cook (though these are different light sources completely).
I will be the first to admit that I didn't have the budget (in terms of actual costs in lighting instrument rentals and also in terms of location time) to get everything exactly the way that I wanted, so as is always the case, compromises had to be made. One of the issues is that we had to overcome was to get the location back to a working diner by 5AM so we could only do so much before we would have had a problem and could have lost our set half way through shooting!
Lets face it, there are a lot of choices you can make when you light a scene, the ones used in this are my choices and I guess time will tell if they served the story well.
Thanks for the great questions. Keep them coming, I will answer as many as I can.
rogar-BigGrin(DBG) 
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
Thanks for the answer. Very informative
I agree, it's tough viewing stuff, especially stills out of context. I was just curious as to specific choices made
I totally agree. And coming from one who is learning, it's great to hear why one does certain things. That way I can think of those things while I'm shooting. Thanks again. :thumbsup:
Not nit picking by any means my friend, simply asking questions to further understand choices made, so I can learn more myself
Blaine said:
I agree, it's tough viewing stuff, especially stills out of context. I was just curious as to specific choices made
khmuse said:
I totally agree. And coming from one who is learning, it's great to hear why one does certain things. That way I can think of those things while I'm shooting. Thanks again. :thumbsup:
kimko said:
Not nit picking by any means my friend, simply asking questions to further understand choices made, so I can learn more myself
khmuse
Tech Guru
Hello Atsuma,
The movie that you are referring to might be "Freaky Faron" which was shot in the Tulsa area. Check this link out.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475277/
What might explain the confusion is the photograph in my signature line. This is my daughter who played the title role in "Freaky Faron".
To answer your question, all of the lead roles in "Freaky Faron" were cast in California and were played by LA based actors. The remaining roles (supporting and background) were cast in Tulsa.
As for finding Tulsa talent, I know that there are two or three agencies there, in fact, my daughter was offered a booking by one of them when she was filming in Tulsa, but due to scheduling conflicts, it never worked out and she returned to LA without shooting the project (a local market commercial).
If you are looking for the best actors from your area, consider looking at professional guild members (SAG). The office that handles your area is located in Dallas. Go to www.sag.org and follow the link to its branches to find the Dallas office. There you can find information about SAG franchised agencies and casting directors that work in your area.
Hope that this information helps.
The movie that you are referring to might be "Freaky Faron" which was shot in the Tulsa area. Check this link out.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475277/
What might explain the confusion is the photograph in my signature line. This is my daughter who played the title role in "Freaky Faron".
To answer your question, all of the lead roles in "Freaky Faron" were cast in California and were played by LA based actors. The remaining roles (supporting and background) were cast in Tulsa.
As for finding Tulsa talent, I know that there are two or three agencies there, in fact, my daughter was offered a booking by one of them when she was filming in Tulsa, but due to scheduling conflicts, it never worked out and she returned to LA without shooting the project (a local market commercial).
If you are looking for the best actors from your area, consider looking at professional guild members (SAG). The office that handles your area is located in Dallas. Go to www.sag.org and follow the link to its branches to find the Dallas office. There you can find information about SAG franchised agencies and casting directors that work in your area.
Hope that this information helps.
Slimothy
Veteran
Getting the set ready.
Setting up the HMI outside.
Our producer Blaine Golden.
DP Kevin Halverson, gets the next setup ready. Foreground: Actors Robert Olding & Julie Horner patiently waiting.
Co-Producer Tashauna Riley looks over the monitor.
Dave Concannon just killed some people.
L-R: Actor Nathan Johnson, Director Tim Hyten, Actor Dave Concannon.
A shot at the monitor.
Actor Miko Hughes.
Setting up the HMI outside.
Our producer Blaine Golden.
DP Kevin Halverson, gets the next setup ready. Foreground: Actors Robert Olding & Julie Horner patiently waiting.
Co-Producer Tashauna Riley looks over the monitor.
Dave Concannon just killed some people.
L-R: Actor Nathan Johnson, Director Tim Hyten, Actor Dave Concannon.
A shot at the monitor.
Actor Miko Hughes.
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