How would you light this bar ? (video)

Megloth said:
The art director in me says this place sux as a location with absolutely no redeeming qualities. Its not the kind of place that would inspire me to choose it as a location for a shoot. The dang place has a cold sterile feel...thanks in part to the low ceiling. I shudder at the thought of drinking there...cough cough... Now that I've probably ripped the only Bar that was kind enough to allow you to shoot there....let's work with it.

The ceiling looks too low to use Chinese lanterns or Kino's, or hang anything but small practicals. (And in a bar I'm surprisde that the ceiling is white, not black.) It doesn't sound like big soft light like a Chinese lantern fits with the mood you are trying to inspire either. (If it's supposed to be a dark dingy bar.) Think about where natural light comes from in that bar at night....and try to enhance that using (small, harsh) floor fixtures. Give the shot depth but don't overlight. Remember...you're going to show this place in the daytime too...so whatever you show at night has to make sense to the viewer for the daytime shots too. The color of the lights are important as well.

Backlights are naturally motivated by coke machines, streetlights, the moon, passing trains, windows, practicals, lights behind the bar, etc. Find those natural sources that will appear in the shot, match their color and motivate all of your light from those sources. The fridge in the kitchen is an aswome opportunity...if you have an actor interrupted while he has the fridge door open, it can serve as a light source for the scene. Add light outside the kitchen window or a lighted clock or someting...(neon beer signs are too bright usually) and you're there.

Previous suggestions of night time lights outside the windows, cars etc., are spot on. Depending on where you put the talent...they could be your key lights.

Watch a few episodes of The Sopranos.... I challenge you to find a scene that even looks lit....the key to great lighting is to not draw attention to the lighting. And of course that's always easier said than done.
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"has a cold sterile feel.."

You just described the characters in "Townies" to a T. Thanks.

"I shudder at the thought of drinking there...cough cough..."

This is a social club. A lot of them in Boston don't have high ceilings, they're more like "rooms". But you're right, YOU wouldn't drink there because you're not a member, and you wouldn't even attempt apply for a membership unless you had the balls to step foot in there. It's riddled with bank robbers and stone-cold killers. It's a hard place for hard people.

"..if you have an actor interrupted while he has the fridge door open, it can serve as a light source for the scene."

Right. At night, I will also likely hang a few lights inside the giant vent over stove, but not too bright, just enough so we can see the sillouhette of a character in front of it.

"Add light outside the kitchen window"

Good idea. I could have it be a spot light hanging from the building or maybe I could have someone out there with a light on a jimb crane and ever twenty seconds or so at random times pan past the window like car headlights (someone suggested this earlier).

"Watch a few episodes of The Sopranos.... I challenge you to find a scene that even looks lit...."

F#ck the Sopranos. I challenge you to watch "Townies" and find the same. Thanks for your suggestions.
 
Biggest problem I see is lack of prodcution design - white ceilinggs and white walls :(

First thing is to have art department paint the top side of these ceiling panels blck and then put that side down (when gig is done you just flip them over)
seconds is putting curtain like materials over the white walls.

table cloths and practicals of course are needed.

bars are some of the most complex and expensive scenes to light properly. A 2000 generator is a joke, that will only light a fews peppers.

if you don't have a decent budget it won't be easy.
take the easy way out and just hang alot of single light 40 bulbs from the ceilings and use a floating chinaball on a menace arm as your key.
 
Table cloths? Guy, this is an Irish gangster movie and we're leaving it as it is. You know gritty and "natural"? If there is a smoked ham sitting on the stove, and the place is a mess, we'll take pictures and leave it that way. There's even a microwave right in the middle of the bar where the patrons are which looks terrible, but its little things like that that makes the place look like a production designer wasn't even remotely close to it.

I'm only concerned with the lighting. But yeah, I dont like white walls either. They're actually a light blue, but they still suck for a gangster social club. But this is how it looks now and I want it to look untouched.

Thanks for the lighting tips though, very good ones. I also like the idea of flipping the ceiling panels over.
 
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Hey, Shamrock:

Wanted to drop you a line from Denver wishing you the best of luck w/ "Townies". Looks interesting and I think you're on the right path.

To echo Matthew Bennett's earlier comment, the 1st thing I noticed was the daylight angling in through the windows. I've had luck in a similar space just blasting hard sources through from outside. Bank the big heads together, leave a few kickers for inside.

Whatever you've got that's reflective (foamcore, mirrors, foil spreads) can be put on c-stands or creatively gaffer-taped for easily-moved bounce sources. Aim some of the outside keys angled but still hitting some mirrors. Pick up leftover light with foamcore. Set-up switches are quick. Rent a smoke machine and some old school oil and really choke the place up. It'll bring up the contrast and the walls you're worried about will just blend with some of the haze. Seriously.

It's hard to tell staging from just a scout tape. i.e. Dialogue at a table by the window, let bar and background fall off. Someone's shooting pool? Pull over the mirrors and foamcore for fill on their reverses. Someone opens the door? Let it blow out.

When you do go night, forget about spending time painting and flipping ceiling tiles. Who needs to see the ceiling? This isn't a real estate walk-through. Instead, just take a few out where you might want to hide key lights. So, the ceiling's low. So what?

You need to see how much space there is between the tile grid and the original ceiling. Pop out a tile and c-clamp down a section of pipe to the metal frames of the hole between the tile inserts. Clamp it straight to the grid or jack it up on wedges or appleboxes to take the pipe as close to the ceiling as you can get and undersling the light(s). Those grids can actually hold more weight than you might think. Don't forget the safety cables though and chain up the pipe. Run the stingers up a corner of the room and over the tiles and you've got your cable out of the way and neatly coiled up top.

Use the same foamcore / mirror idea with the hard keys coming down from overhead. If a 1K's tucked up top and hitting someone hard from above, angle up a mirror and you've got a fill. Kick back the mirror fill with some foamcore and you've got a rim-light. Or - just cover the floor with a white sheet or tarp and bounce up all the fill you can get, creating 'pools of light' for each set-up.... stage, pool table, bar table, pay phone, whatever. When you move, either pull the pipe and pass or get grips up on ladders and move the whole rig from tile-section to tile-section, snaking the already-hidden cable along.

May sound guerilla but it's really not. I've seen {and done} this on shoots of budgets big and small. Even the notion of adding chinaballs to the equation makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Headroom is of major concern. Add to that - when's the last time you saw the cieling of a bar in a scene? And why!?!?!? If there's enough of a gap, pop some tiles and you've got yourself a ready-made recessed lighting grid. If weight does become a concern, drill some bolts in the cieling and chain it up. Once you put the tiles back in, no one will see them anyway!

As for the production design, I'm with you, Shamrock. This ain't no friggin' candlelit jazz club. You could almost grunge it up more. Crumple up some masking tape and hit it with charcoal. You can run uneven, torn sections along the wall randomly. They don't always fully register on-camera and just leave that "Man, this place is a dive!" impression. Nothing says classy like thumbtacks and poorly hung posters.

That's my 2 cents. Hope it helps and I wish you the best. I've got some stills of a similar set-up if you're at all interested. The cieling-tile grid had to work as it was a 360 Ballhaus dolly move and no lights could be in-frame (obviously).

Best wishes..... Michael
 
Not sure if this fits the feel you're going for, or the location of the bar in your film, but I would try shooting in the day for your night scenes, and balancing the daylight coming through the windows so that it is a very warm yellow to try and make it look like street lights. Maybe put up some venetian blinds so that you can angle it better. Stop it down till you get the appropriate effect, and then light the rest of the bar accordingly.

Turn on all of the lights except for the flourescents, and see where that gets you.

I like the idea of not showing the ceiling, and removing a bunch of the tiles so that you can put lights up there. That was a good idea.

The actual "bar" should be well lit, so I agree that you should put some lights down under the bar / at the bartenders feet. Not too bright / hard or you'll be dealing w/ some strange shadows.

If the white walls are bothering you then maybe you can hang some black cloth up over them, and do your best to keep them in soft focus?



I'm not an experienced DP (more of a writer than anything), so don't kill me if any of that stuff doesn't work. Those would just be my first instincts to approaching the scene. Hope I could be of help.
 
These white walls are brutal. I would use downlighting, photoflood refelectors hung from the ceiling on dimmers, keep the light off the walls at all costs. Light up the bar area from behind the bottles with kino lamps. Got any neon in there? if so match those temps with party gels on small fresnels and use them as a hard edge on faces, bouncing off tables, etc.
 
My original idea for the chinese lanterns was just to bring up the ambiant light slightly for less noise in the blacks. Several small fresenels are the way to go as far as these night interiors. Removing ceiling tiles, or pushing them out of the way is a sound idea. But after taking a look at this place, be prepared to clean up alot of dust and ceiling tile scraps after you move them.
I would use a cardellini or mafor clamp to grap on to something above the tiles, rather than depend on the strength of the ceiling tile framework...I still like the idea of some sort of light outside for any shots near a window. The kitchen was brought up as well, and my thoughts too would probably go toward blocking that window completely, but without knowing exactely what the camera angles are, and blocking, and your final choices of lights, and what the parking/view looks like out the window, this might be handled in a different way...When do you start shooting ?
 
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