balancing practicals

[David Evans]

Hi guys,

I was trying to shoot a few scenes with practicals and I wanted to get neutral colors for most of the scene and let the practicals stand out in their yellowish tint. Like this:



Is this better to achieve in post or in camera with mixed lighting? I've always heard colorists complaining about mixed lighting but in order to get the look in camera, the only way I see it is to get HMI or 5600K corrected lights in there and balance the camera to the HMIs and let the practicals stand on their own yellow colour.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Greg_E]

Guess it depends on if you want to have the color change show up on your actors? If no then you would want to get the same color lights as the practicals (or other way around) and then color their illumination in grading.

 

[morgan_moore]

If you were going to de yellow the lamps (in post) then you would need to de yellow the actors too.. which would be a complete pain.

Yellow practicals often look nice. But 'artist daylight' tung bulbs while not actually 5500k are a bit less yellow.

You can also jam CTB into the shade and have a nice little fire

on my last narrative I found some 10w practical tungsten bulbs.. yellow but easy to not blow the highlights

S

 

[Bern Caughey]

I always do it in camera by mixing color temperatures. In the OP's example there's no need for HMI, a 1500°-to-2000° difference would likely be enough, & those practicals may be on dimmers that are driving down their temperature.

 

[Moseph]

The difference between movie lights (usually 2900-3200°k) and household bulbs, especially once dimmed and pushed through a lamp shade (which if it has any textile like the ones shown above will almost always will add a bit of warmth) is plenty to achieve what you see in that still grab. Balancing the camera for daylight would make those practicals go way more orange than they are there.

 

[DLD]

Maybe try some LED bulbs that are higher temp.

 

[Grug]

I always carrying a padded bag with me filled with tungsten globes (in both screw and bayonet mounts) from 5w pilot lights up to 70w halogens (which seems to be the biggest you can easily source from a store). Combining different wattage bulbs with dimmers will allow you to achieve a warmer or more neutral colour rendering regardless of the ambient exposure that you set.