Blue lit room

Moog

Moog

Well-known member
Hello there :)

I wonder if anyone can give me a few pointers.

I'm doing another music video pretty soon and I want to have a room lit with a deep blue colour scheme.
This will be the performance part of the video, so the room is fairly small and the action reasonably static.


Thing is, I've not actually lit to a particular sceme as yet and would like to avoid any problems if I can - well... obviously.

So - what can you lovely lot tell me? I presume I'll need to use MORE lights, but how many more?
Can you reccomend any particular colour gels? Is there a really good work around that I might not know?

If I'm lighgting blue, what do I need to consider about other colours (skin tones / clothing).
I would presume that i just throw a decent white at those elements, but will that effect the rest of the scene.

Thanks for your help folks

moog
 
You could color balance for blue, and not need anything other than CTB gels or cool lights.

But, if you want to have natural skin tones, I remember from my theater days the Dichroric filters had the best intense blue color.
 
It will probably be simpler to get the color balance temperature on the camera as low as you can get it. You can experiment with WB to an orange or yellow card. You can also probably increase the color temp digitally in the camera. As an example, I shot a blue scene on a GL2 and ended up white balancing for 3200k with 2x CTB gels on the lights plus an 80a filter on the lens.

If you gel tungsten 3200k lights to daylight, you'll lose 2/3 of the total light.

The biggest consideration for colors is that blues will pop and reds and greens will go very dark. Skintones can look odd, keep an eye on the talent. If you have a makeup person, let them know you're lighting blue.

I would experiment with color temperatures. Consider using one warmer light that still reads as yellowish after your white balance. This will have the effect of making the other lights look true blue instead of making it seem like a camera or post effect.

If you're looking for some creative lighting ideas, blacklights often read as superblue on CCD cameras. I have used some blue CFL partylights as set lights before, and they provide an intense blue shade at a reasonable wattage.
 
Dichorics are more green than blue. If you want normal skin tones and everything else blue there's a few ways you can do that. First white balance 3200 light the talent with tungsten and everything else with HMI or tungsten with CTB gel. I'd just use daylight florescents to light everything but the talent, if some wash falls on the talent thats OK cause you can easily overpower that with tungsten. The other thing you can do is place a 1/2 or full CTO over the lens and white balance to that. Then add some CTO to the lighting of your talent and the rest should have a blue cast to it.
 
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