Question about filming under fluorescents in an office

adventusfilms

adventusfilms

Active member
I just need to know the best way to color match practical lighting in an office to a wide source of daylight through the windows. I'm also planning to key the talent with a Kino FLo 4 bank. I need to avoid replacing the existing tubes in the large office, it being a, well.......a large office.

Are most contemporary office buildings setup with reasonably color matched tubes already?

Chris
 
Not in my office :) I've seen some offices that are all the same color temp and some that arent. Maybe turn off the overheads and use just the kinos/daylight and maybe some more kinos just to fill the place up.
 
adventusfilms said:
I just need to know the best way to color match practical lighting in an office to a wide source of daylight through the windows. I'm also planning to key the talent with a Kino FLo 4 bank. I need to avoid replacing the existing tubes in the large office, it being a, well.......a large office.
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Of course, it's much more complex to do this but I'm commenting on as low budget method as possible related to your comment about keeping it simple.

I think it's simpler to just change the bulbs in your 4 bank to match whatever color temp is in the office and then white balance it all together and see how that looks. Try to get a higher CRI in the same color temp as the rest of the office.

But I also wonder about whether it might be better to turn off the overheads in the area of the office your shooting in (or just loosen the tubes if there aren't switches to isolate the area) and shooting with better control on the actor(s). Overhead light looks terrible in offices especially if its low cri. Its part of what contributes to the famous sickly palor of people shot in these kinds of circumstances. The background may not matter so much if you just keep it not so prominent.

adventusfilms said:
Are most contemporary office buildings setup with reasonably color matched tubes already?

Chris
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No, i doubt it. Corporations mostly care about economics, not filming scenes in their offices ;-) I wouldn't count on higher than 80 and perhaps lower in many cases. In fact 65 is not unheard of. You won't know what it is really until you go there and shoot some test video. My comment above will be even more relevant if you have 65 tubes in there now.
 
Pop the fixture and read the info off the bulbs. I discovered my office uses 4100k 86cri bulbs. So...I then ordered some Mogul 4100k bulbs for my chimera to match it. 4100k is a very popular color for offices, I'm guessing that's what you're dealing with
 
shawneous said:
Pop the fixture and read the info off the bulbs. I discovered my office uses 4100k 86cri bulbs. So...I then ordered some Mogul 4100k bulbs for my chimera to match it. 4100k is a very popular color for offices, I'm guessing that's what you're dealing with
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4100K. The Color from Hell. You can white balance to it and make it look normal on video but it sure looks terrible to the eye just looking at it in the office.
 
Matching the Kino lights isn't really my worry, it's matching it to the heavy source of daylight. I need the fluorescent fixtures to be on. They'll be in a few shots, especially establishing shots, and I really won't be able to achieve that feeling of massive overhead lighting you get in large offices with them turned off. The 4100k Kinos would probably work, but then I have a slight imbalance with the daylight. If I had enough to cover the windows, is there a good gel out there to compensate?

I'm glad to hear Seaneous has a high CRI lighting in his office because this particular office looks fairly new and so does the lighting.

On a side note: The look of this environment/scene needs to be very bleached and slightly blown out. A lot of light is needed.

I do appreciate your help.

Chris
 
use a gel called: 1/4 cto and add perhaps a 1/8th plus green or even a 1/4 plus green.
Or use Lee filter brand- Lee 242 - this mixes both colors together as one gel.
I can't find the Roscoe version in my cross reference book. I guess I'm just tired..This is for "cool white deluxe bulbs" So try this on your window to convert daylight to match.
 
3304 is the number that Rosco offers as a daylight to flourescent filter. Personally, I'd add a little cto to the mix.
 
Ya -

That's a tough one, unless the windows are small, otherwise you could easily run into hundreds and hundreds of dollars to gel them to match the overheads.
I would use tungsten fixures and bulbs (close to most current "cool Whites" flos) and try to use negative fill to keep the daylight off the subject where the shot permits it. It also works nice to have a bounce card for your subject to try and reflect the flos back as a fill.
Without taking a color meter into the location, at the same time of day that you are shooting it, it is hard to give more suggestions.
Good luck, at least video is more forgiving than film!

-Wilson
 
Cool Lights said:
4100K. The Color from Hell. You can white balance to it and make it look normal on video but it sure looks terrible to the eye just looking at it in the office.
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Its part of a larger conspiracy to make your work experience a living hell. Whoever came up with that spec should be drawn and quartered along with the asshole who came up with my favorite office fixture...the cubicle.
 
cinebuddy said:
Its part of a larger conspiracy to make your work experience a living hell. Whoever came up with that spec should be drawn and quartered along with the asshole who came up with my favorite office fixture...the cubicle.
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Yeah, they've pretty much made working in a corporation a living hell from just about every angle you can think of.
 
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