Advice for Small NYC Apartment

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NoahSolomon

New member
Hi everyone! I'm DPing a micro budget short in a couple weeks and the space we're working with is a pretty small NYC apartment (all white walls, of course). I've included a couple photos and a simple floor plan. Any tips or advice for lighting a space like this? The tricky thing is that it takes place in a new apartment that the characters are just moving into, so it's supposed to look pretty bare and bland. We're going for a soft daylight look similar to the reference also included below. Most of the action takes place in the middle of the living room area, and the director would like to shoot toward the loft, meaning that the (south facing) window would be right behind camera. How might you go about this? Black out the window and cheat it so it looks less frontal? Advocate for different coverage altogether? It's on the 6th floor, so pushing units through the window isn't an option for our budget. At the very least I'll have a sheer on the window to soften the natural daylight, but I'm most concerned about control as the sun moves. The loft will likely be less of a challenge, as I'm thinking I'll hide a small LED tube to augment a lamp or other practical.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts! I've never shot in a location like this before, so I'm really trying to wrap my head around making a daytime blank white apartment look good. Not ideal but have to make the best of it!

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Oh, man. Creating depth will be tricky. And you have pretty much zero space for staging gear.

The building outside is like a giant beadboard, which means that your light will be soft from the get go. Does it ever get direct sun? If not, I wouldn't worry too much about the exposure levels shifting noticeably. Just compensate for any lighting shifts in camera. I think bouncing off of the ceiling for fill is a good strategy. Assuming that the actors will be facing each other perpendicular to the windows, use the windows as your key and fly in some negative fill on the kitchen side for the OTS shots. I probably wouldn't recommend doing much more than that in a space this small.
 
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So where in this apartment are the cool photos - where would you place someone to take a photo?

Basically 'up hill' and 'down hill'

Camera facing the window or camera facing the kitchen square.

The left and right (white walls) are a bit boring unless you pattern them from 'sunlight through the windoe' but you cant get lights outside so that is hard.

I think blocking and scheduling make a lot of this..

Observations.

People will look cool in front of the big window.

Scenes through the kitchen gap might be nice.

Shooting through that gap might be nice

Keeping it motivated like by the big window might be hard.

That big window will make nice sidelight

Some of the film could happen at night to give a variation (and stretch the scedule)

you could place fixtures on the Mezz and then you wont get stands in shot.

Ceiling is indeed good for bounce .. and risk panda eyes so are the walls and they might look cooler.

Knowing nothing of the script /schedule/ story /blocking those observations may be completely irrelevant.
 
Depending on what you can get in there and how much time you have, doing anything to black out as much of the off-camera walls as you can would go a long way in helping create dimension so it's not a totally reflective box. I'm not a fan of shooting downstage lighting even if it is a soft source, but depending on the story/framing and background, it could work.

You might also be able to create a faux sunlight effect on one of the walls using a hard light and mirror. Since the walls are flat and empty it should read well no matter how you angle them. Just figure out if you can keep the setup consistent during all the coverage and other shots in the scene that might see it.
 
QuickHitRecord said:
Oh, man. Creating depth will be tricky. And you have pretty much zero space for staging gear.

The building outside is like a giant beadboard, which means that your light will be soft from the get go. Does it ever get direct sun? If not, I wouldn't worry too much about the exposure levels shifting noticeably. Just compensate for any lighting shifts in camera. I think bouncing off of the ceiling for fill is a good strategy. Assuming that the actors will be facing each other perpendicular to the windows, use the windows as your key and fly in some negative fill on the kitchen side for the OTS shots. I probably wouldn't recommend doing much more than that in a space this small.
Click to expand...

True, I don't think the building across the street ever gets direct sunlight. Thanks for your suggestions!
 
morgan_moore said:
So where in this apartment are the cool photos - where would you place someone to take a photo?

Basically 'up hill' and 'down hill'

Camera facing the window or camera facing the kitchen square.

The left and right (white walls) are a bit boring unless you pattern them from 'sunlight through the windoe' but you cant get lights outside so that is hard.

I think blocking and scheduling make a lot of this..

Observations.

People will look cool in front of the big window.

Scenes through the kitchen gap might be nice.

Shooting through that gap might be nice

Keeping it motivated like by the big window might be hard.

That big window will make nice sidelight

Some of the film could happen at night to give a variation (and stretch the scedule)

you could place fixtures on the Mezz and then you wont get stands in shot.

Ceiling is indeed good for bounce .. and risk panda eyes so are the walls and they might look cooler.

Knowing nothing of the script /schedule/ story /blocking those observations may be completely irrelevant.
Click to expand...

This is all very helpful! Thanks for your insight.
 
PeopleCanFly said:
Depending on what you can get in there and how much time you have, doing anything to black out as much of the off-camera walls as you can would go a long way in helping create dimension so it's not a totally reflective box. I'm not a fan of shooting downstage lighting even if it is a soft source, but depending on the story/framing and background, it could work.

You might also be able to create a faux sunlight effect on one of the walls using a hard light and mirror. Since the walls are flat and empty it should read well no matter how you angle them. Just figure out if you can keep the setup consistent during all the coverage and other shots in the scene that might see it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree with you about the downstage lighting. I'll have a conversation with the director and see what we can figure out. It would definitely be good to make use of those walls for bounce. Thanks for your ideas!
 
ADR everything haha. Load up the floor with sound blankets? Anyway, despite the challenges, I'd love if you were able to keep us informed about this project and how it goes. A lot of times I actually wonder how things turn out for people asking for advice, for better or worse, and never get to know. Best of luck Noah!
 
NoahSolomon said:
Hi everyone! I'm DPing a micro budget short in a couple weeks and the space we're working with is a pretty small NYC apartment (all white walls, of course). I've included a couple photos and a simple floor plan. Any tips or advice for lighting a space like this? The tricky thing is that it takes place in a new apartment that the characters are just moving into, so it's supposed to look pretty bare and bland. We're going for a soft daylight look similar to the reference also included below. Most of the action takes place in the middle of the living room area, and the director would like to shoot toward the loft, meaning that the (south facing) window would be right behind camera. How might you go about this? Black out the window and cheat it so it looks less frontal? Advocate for different coverage altogether? It's on the 6th floor, so pushing units through the window isn't an option for our budget. At the very least I'll have a sheer on the window to soften the natural daylight, but I'm most concerned about control as the sun moves. The loft will likely be less of a challenge, as I'm thinking I'll hide a small LED tube to augment a lamp or other practical.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts! I've never shot in a location like this before, so I'm really trying to wrap my head around making a daytime blank white apartment look good. Not ideal but have to make the best of it!
Click to expand...

Do you see the windows in any reverse shots?

If not, I'd black out the windows and set up your key light wherever you like e.g. more sidey from your new fake window position.

A light in the loft could work for some colour contrast like you mentioned. Can you replace the hallway light with a light you can control like an aputure or astera globe?

That might be all you need, otherwise you can add another toppy light in the kitchen.

If it serves the story, maybe opening the door will look good, there could be potential for a strong light doing something in the deep background.

If the loft isn't in shot then that's perfect, you've been gifted a free, safe, no time spent boom arm but instead it's an entire platform! You could put lights up there then bounce them into something. Or you could use the platform for some type of light boomed out.

Another thought is if a reverse is required maybe you can use time of day scheduling and have the talent be a silhouette and expose for the exterior or partly expose for the exterior.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Get a large flat LED, like a Litemat or an Intellytech 160. Tape it to the wall and diffuse the crap out of it. Instant "Window source".
Click to expand...

It could look great. But we need to know more really. Because if we are going to see this wall then the tape on panel must be removed.

So it depends on the blocking and the like.

Keeping to the 180 rule will exclude a wall from view.

The OP will need to ask his director and his director will need to understand and his director will need to stick to it on the day.

This both boxes in the director and relies on he/she having a skillset.

A lighting scheme that allows 360 of play (maybe not all in one shot) would be preferable???

Edit.
I nealy always use motivated lighting. So in this case we know there is light coming from the window end. BUt in the kitchen we could have a godox 300 through a 6.6 grid going through the kitchen 'window' replicating (motivated by) the window light. BUt if we need to shoot towards the window we remove the movie light and use the genuine (window) light in the shot.

Taking that further I have placed practicals to drive a motivation for movie lighting. For example one may place a bedside light.. but when shooting from that direction the practical lamp(and table) go to be replaced by a movie light.

Yes.. Ive cracked it.. this scene needs a practical at the south (non window end of the room) this needs to be seen and then can motivate all north facing lighting.

When actually shooting 'north' (towards the window) the practical light is removed and a movie light brought in.
 
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I would consider reality too.

Everyone who walks into a NYC apartment usually [eventually] goes straight to the window to look at the view even if there isn't one. (I know this is common in every tall building in the world but especially in New York City because it's known for skyscrapers and views.)

So if the apartment is very bright on camera, some viewers might wonder where all of that light is coming from (meaning so then will you show it?). Maybe it's not known it's NYC or maybe you can edit around it or maybe it's just not important at all, but just something else to consider.

Personally - and without knowing much about your script to offer any useful direction - I would possibly even consider only using the window source as you may find it to be more than enough for the look you're going for (especially with all of the natural bounce and because you may be using a good low-light camera).
 
I think (this is a 'moving in' scene right?)

The actors stagger through the door carrying a large 'standard lamp' they then place it in the main room 'west' of the kitchen cutout and turn it on.

Now we are in a world where we can place a proper move light in that corner any time it would not appear in shot.

When shooting south the practical creats a backlight.. but that could be uplifted by a movie light from the Mezz
 
Then there's an artistic choice of the shooting style - a single camera on a tripod vs. a doco style hand held vs. sliders and/or gimbals, etc. Depending on the length of the scene and its intent, one may have keep changing the angles over and over again. Move one actor into the loft, keep his POV from high up downward and vice versa with the second actor. Do extreme closeup inserts on various items and/or body parts. Et cetera, et cetera.
 
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