Pushing a lot of light through a window

Can you describe the effect you're shooting for more fully?? Are the windows blown out but the room is pretty dark? Are you looking for light streaming into the room but the window is blown out, is nothing blown out?

It depends...
 
Well, the example I saw was in Rent where they have this ulta huge window that basically takes up the entire side of the wall. And it was soooo bright out. But then inside, the light just sort of basked the actors nicely (who were right next to the window) and the rest of the room was fairly dark. I thought, if I tried to do that, the entire room would be way bright. How did they keep it so dark?
 
With millions of dollars. :D

Seriously, I'd imagine they used diffusion on the window, and the room itself had lots of lights in it, as well. You can bet the window wasn't the only light source.
 
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I'm sure they either gelled (ND) or diffused the windows or they tented them and provided their own light source.
 
c.g._eads said:
Well, the example I saw was in Rent where they have this ulta huge window that basically takes up the entire side of the wall. And it was soooo bright out. But then inside, the light just sort of basked the actors nicely (who were right next to the window) and the rest of the room was fairly dark. I thought, if I tried to do that, the entire room would be way bright. How did they keep it so dark?
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The light source - in this case either man-made or otherwise - was probably at a high angle, shooting down through the window, causing shadows to be cast along the floor, rather than the rest of the room, and consequently casting the rest of the room into darkness.

Another way they could have done it is shoot the light through the window so that the shadows are cast off camera. For instance, the subject is in front of the camera, and from the lens's perspective, the light is camera left, off camera. The lamp is focused at a 90 degree angle from the camera's lens, onto the subject. From the lens's perspective, the background will be cast into darkness, while the subject is still well-lit, and its shadows cast to camera right, where all of the light is focused.
 
If the actors were next to the window, making the light source fairly close to them, you would have to stop down to have an accurate exposure. This would make the rest of the room darker thanks to the inverse square law of falloff...granted you need to be in a big room for that to have an effect...if your in a 10x10 room there isn't enough room for the light to fall off fast enough unless you have them baked in front of the light...
 
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