Natural day light interior

dlang

dlang

Well-known member
so I've been experimenting quite a bit more with a really natural day light look in my living room, and frankly I'm having a hard time achieving good dimension and seperation using all soft lights. We all know soft light is the hardest to control, and really is my weakest link as of now, so I'm wondering if some of you pros out there can share your approach when a director asks you to light a room (on location) looking more natural during the day. This could be a high key or low key look for the sake of this thread, I'm equally interested in both. My problem is when I start using soft light it just seems to flatten out everything. Any tips, pointers, resources etc...this could be a really helpful thread for the lighting forum so let's hear it fellas.
 
I have always thought about getting a bunch of daylight balanced compact fluorecents and setting them up outside a window. Is this always practical? Not at all. I would also like to hear what some experienced users have to say. Lighting is one of the things I have the hardest time with.
 
I'm not an expert by any means, but the "daylight" look is actually dependent on using hard light source to create the impression of sunlight streaming in, then add fill light as needed. Don't just shine a light into a room. Sunlight tends to come in from a high angle. Have it hit objects or walls to create interesting patterns or use cookies.

This is a pretty simple example, set up in about five minutes, there's just a single 650w fresnel behind her hitting the wall

21.jpg


Another common setup is just to put a high light source outside a window

2.jpg
 
Here is a quick general tip.

Three quarter angle back lighting for key light. (Soft , medium or hard sources to match the motivation of the light)

Soft fill from three quarters front.

(Make sure there is an eyelight in the eyes when close up)


(I suspect you are blasting in your light from the front)
 
Ok I thought this would be more specific and help a bit. Here is a link to the stranger than fiction trailer (will Farell) That is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The overall color scheme for this movie included a lot of white...which for most would be a night mare to light, yet they managed to get a really beautiful natural look. Notice the scene at 9 seconds in when Queen Latifa is standing there with Emma Thompson, the whole room is white yet it's not flat, it has dimension, or when Will Farell is brushing his teeth, once again a very nice look with all white walls and soft light. Here is the link check it out and tell me your thoughts.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1150550297/
 
When it comes to making something look natural sunlight, It helps me to imagine what a scene would really look like if the sun was actually lighting it. Next time your in a room that is sun lit and you notice how nice it looks, take some mental notes.

What kind of quality of light do you see? Is it soft "wrap-around" light? Is it gentle warm streaks like you would see in the late afternoon or morning?

To get that soft-clean wrap around light give this a try:

Shoot HMI lights through a large silk frame AND diffusion (preferably through a window as well if its in the frame), back up the light before you shoot it through the silks to get even softer "natural" light. A little tip is to make use of "negative" fill (using black foam board as fill to absorb light), that will help you maintain some contrast while keeping a soft look.

To get the "oh! look at the pretty golden bends of sunlight!" look, try this:

Use larger tungsten lights uncorrected with very mild diffusion. Put the lights outside and up high in the place where the sun would be in a scenario like late afternoon (back them away from the house too!)

Add a little haze and you might get something like this (not my work):
1226905096.jpg
 
I like Hunter's tips. There are things to consider when going for a daylit look, one of which would be time of day. Consciously look at how morning looks in the places that you visit along with your bedroom. It's not always about actual "daylight" color temperature, but sometimes warm glows and even cool "hazes". The image Hunter posted above is a great example.

Here's a shot: http://www.kholi.net/EX/HHTest340.mov ( RED @ 320 ISO, 5000K, Zeiss Standard Speeds)

This was supposed to be an early afternoon setup and the Window in the establishing shot is right behind the camera. So I had to sort of think what the hour would have looked like because this was at 2AM in the morning (Matty should remember this).

I chose to use a 1200W HMI outside of the window with the screen and the white curtain diffusing most of the blast and slapped on a 1/4 CTO to "warm" the light up.

Inside of the room is a Chinaball with an 85W CFL in front of a gold reflector for more "warm" and cool ambient and there's an actual bathroom light on for the left side kick. Regular household bulbs that you don't see in the shot but work in the frame (for me). I tried to still get variations of "shadow" in the room, including casts and shafts of light on the walls, etc. You can't see it that video, but it's there before the handheld track.

I am a fan of very natural lighting, this is the sort of look I go for personally.

And here: http://www.kholi.net/A005_C003_0831T0_3289.jpg
And Here: http://www.kholi.net/A005_C009_0831FW_24677.jpg (Forgive the Diva)

This was actually daylight. The house featured windows on both sides, we framed at the piano and I took advantage of the windows to establish Time Of Day, then used a 400W Joker + Softube (I love them, so very much) to fill the background with softer ambient.

Right side is an unbalanced (pissed me off so bad) Diva and to the left is a 4bank Kino Wide Open with a sheet of diffusion over it. There is a bounceboard as well right in front of the camera to sort of defeat the hard shadow, bring it up a little bit because it was too contrasty for a raw image for me.

The major drawback in these two stills, for me, was the lack of Gels (they forgot them, I didn't have any). I would have killed to have that DIVA properly balanced and CTO'd but it just didn't happen.

The gyst of it, in my opinion, is to truly mimic daylight and all of it's shadows, along with the various degrees of color temperature. Mixing color temperatures realistically tends to satisfy my personal tastes. Whether that's CTO or a Gold Reflector.

Mileage may vary.
 
Thanks for the great write ups guys. Hunter that shot screams morning to me. Even though the sun is a bit higher, the haze makes me want to drink some coffee and read a paper. I am curious to your approach with negative fill. Often times I will shoot my mole par through a 4x4 piece of diffusion but it just flattens everything out. Can you explain a little further into making use of negative fill? Kholi, the Red clip was excellent and had a very natural look to it. I would love to see a master shot of that room, or even some different angles. Do you have any other clips you could post as reference? I love the pictures guys they are a tremendous help...picture speak a thousand words.
 
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I think I can find the master after I get home. I forgot to add that the interview setup also incorporated large floppies. I'm just now beginning to appreciate the value if negative fill myself.
 
Try this RIGHT NOW:

Grab a white sheet of paper, and a black sheet of paper. Now stick your hand out in front of your face, with your other hand bounce some light with the white paper. See how much it adds to your hand? Now replace the white sheet with the black sheet, notice how much the contrast changes?

I use negative fill for 2 things; avoiding a flat look when there is too much ambient light (like in a white room), and the other reason I use it is to get rid of unwanted ambient light with a color cast (like if you were shooting in a room with lots of Red or green paint). The concept is easy, you just replace where the fill light or a bounce board would be with a large black foam board or something similar.
 
Yeah I need to start employing more of this negative fill. Just started using flags to control my lights but adding in negative fill sounds like the next step. Thanks for the nice simple explanation there Hunter, that makes alot of sense.
 
puredrifting said:
Hi Kholi:

Is that Dick Sherman? If so, he is a sweetheart of a guy, I have interviewed him many times for Disney and some other stuff.

If not, it sure does look like Dick Sherman.

Dan
Click to expand...

That's him! Really funny guy, extreme amounts of character and quite the musician. It was really cool to work on this, big thanks to Matty_G for calling me in on it. This was a Disney job.

Matt also got to see the cut and he says the cut looks great. I can't wait to see it myself.
 
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Kholi said:
That's him! Really funny guy, extreme amounts of character and quite the musician. It was really cool to work on this, big thanks to Matty_G for calling me in on it. This was a Disney job.

Matt also got to see the cut and he says the cut looks great. I can't wait to see it myself.
Click to expand...

He is a legend, the Sherman Brothers. He is one of the major songwriting talents of the 20th century. Nice you got to work with one of the few legends still around.

Dan
 
Look at your example then evaluate what you see:


You will see:

1. Three quarter angle back lighting for key light. (Soft , medium or hard sources to match the motivation of the light)

2. Soft fill (or negative fill) from three quarters front.

3. an eyelight in the eyes

To which I would add. The example perfectly demonstrates what appears to be motivated light from a single source and perfect color balance and tonal scale.
 
HMIs are your friend when dealing with daylight interiors, so are bounce boards... big bounce boards.

Emmanuel Lubezki used daylight balanced Kinos to light most of the interior scenes in Children of Men and Burn After Reading. The look is very sharp and naturalistic... realistic almost. I kind of like where he was coming from with it so I went and bought some work light fluorescent fixtures from home depot, built some barn doors for them with tape and cardboard and then used some daylight fluorescent tubes. The secret is to go for the T8s and to use the highest CRI possible. The results were very very nice. I'll show some stills I find any.

The Par Can fixtures they use for concerts and stuff are very inexpensive and they throw out a very decent amount of light. If you gel a couple of those, shoot them through a large white sheet outside of a window and you will get a nice sunlight fill. I wouldn't rely on it as a directional light but it can help give some nice effects. Use the gels to make it a little warmer than the rest of the light and you can get some of that sunlight glow.
 
Shooter said:
Look at your example then evaluate what you see:


1. Three quarter angle back lighting for key light. (Soft , medium or hard sources to match the motivation of the light)

2. Soft fill (or negative fill) from three quarters front.
Click to expand...

Could you please explain the 3/4? thank you
 
Light from the front of a subject = frontal (Usuallly flattening)

From the Side(s) = side light

Halfway around towards the back = 3/4 back lighting

Directly behind = back lighting.

3/4 back lighting is a method to shape subject/objects because it creates shadows that can be filled or controlled.

I generally start with this light first.
 
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