ambient light

E

enes

Member
Hello,
I am lighting a few interior nite locations soon where the diector wants to only have low blue light coming infrom windows. Its an abondoned house. An actor then walks around the room looking around. What would be the best way to bump up the ambience inside but no make it look lit.? Just enough thats it still clearly night but you can see the actor and some furniture. I am guessing maybe a china ball from the ceiling?

I will also need to be doing this in a club. would the bewt thing be to bounce a large light off the ceiling?

Thanks veyr much!
E
 
If you really want the "low blue light coming in from windows" effect, I'd light the whole interior 3200K relatively flat with enough white paper lanterns to cover the area, then blast the set from outside with 5600K light. Use some fog/mist for ambiance. Balance to 3200K.
If you needed more light or have the time and money, consider using purple/indigo as your fill or bouncing it off the ceiling.
 
Doesn't the director want only a Moonlight effect and not 3200K which would imply an interior light source ?
 
yes, that is true. Director wants only a moonlight effect with the rest of the space relatively dark, only a bit of ambience. there wont be any curtains etc on the windows, so I was thinking of bouncing low level daylite balanced lite off the ceiling or something to bring up the levels a bit. Then blasting lite throught the windows.
 
You'd balance to 3200 so tungsten would just go white, basically a colorless fill. Your "moonlight" would go cyan/blue at 5600.

If you use 5600 inside and out, the scene might seem a little flat, but you can experiment with the room, just bring both lamps for your ball.

If the floor is glossy and you're lighting aggressively, you might not need much fill at all.
 
One of the last scenes of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is very, very, very similar to the scene you've just described.

While I don't know the technical info. for that specific scene, I urge you to take a look a the scene, and preferably the entire movie (If you haven't already, of course.)
 
Have you thought about overlighting and correcting in post. It is the easiest way to ensure you have the detail in the spots you need and crushed blacks that are clean.

Most films do it this way.

Don't light it flat, but still shape the shadows how you would want them with a plan to crush them and tweek with he yellow/blue filter for the ominous moon light.
 
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