Crazy idea? Giant light tent.

[greg sage]

Can't really find much discussion of people doing this, and thought it sounded like it could work, so I thought I'd ask.

The light tents that people build for product shots tend to work very well. Everything is so perfectly evenly lit that you wonder how the lousy object you just bought ever looked so good.

As I've been checking out all the options for lighting a large greenscreen, I've been starting to wonder if it might just be easier and cheaper to do something radical:

Create a giant light tent.

If one's goal is supremely even, soft, diffuse light everywhere, a perfect key, etc... they you'd want light as diffuse as possible, right? Well since the greenscreen has two stands already to hold it up, what about getting two more stands, and putting them so you now have one stand at each corner of the screen on the floor. Now just stretch white diffusion fabric across the frame, and you've created a light tent. A couple bars between them would let you do the same on top if you want.

So... is this a crazy idea or not? Seems to me at first glance that it would really even things out in the max possible way. It would be a very unrealistic light, but since that's what I'm going for anyway...

I understand you'd need some more wattage to make up for the screen... but in a sense, it's just replacing the diffusers on the front of softboxes anyway, right? Ok, so still more wattage, but not unworkable, right?

Thing I'm not sure of though is whether it would exacerbate the green spill. Would more green get bounced back after the light hits the greenscreen, then reflects off the tent's side?

Oddball thought, maybe, but possible also the answer to my particular needs.

Thoughts? Anybody know of anyone who's done something like this? I'm not just talking about stringing a bit of sheet here or there, but actually boxing the space in so it's max diffusion and the light bounces off all the white walls so you get that reflected from all the walls too... so REALLY diffused.

This idea wouldn't necessarily be ONLY for greenscreen. I just toss that bit out because I'm wondering if the green spill would be more of an issue in that case.

 

[TheDingo]

What are you trying to light?

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

Spilling light everywhere is NOT a lighting technique just like turning on the overheads light is not a lighting technique in most situations. IN other words, yes, you can do it but your results will be far from what we would call good lighting. I could talk more about why, but i'm a bit lazy right now.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Can't really find much discussion of people doing this, and thought it sounded like it could work, so I thought I'd ask.

The light tents that people build for product shots tend to work very well. Everything is so perfectly evenly lit that you wonder how the lousy object you just bought ever looked so good.

As I've been checking out all the options for lighting a large greenscreen, I've been starting to wonder if it might just be easier and cheaper to do something radical:

Create a giant light tent.

For me a light tent works well for certain types of people shots... but mostly for product shots, especially shiny products shots. So, with the tent you get an overall illumination, that doesn't have big ugly reflections, and if there are reflections they are 'cool' lines of the product. Then there's lights, often smaller to add accent and depth to the product.

This works for some types of people shots, but the down side is that one loses the 'dramatic lighting'. If you are shooting a sit com, or 'light' entertainment, which is often lit flatter, over all brighter, then perhaps such a tent would work.

If you're going for more dramatic lighting, well, that method fails, or you'd have to have much brighter lights, to get a couple of stops up from your 'tent ambient'.

And one of the criticisms of 'ambient light' itself, is that it is difficult to 'shape'...

I think you should visit a studio that has a cyclorama or greenscreen setup. Then you can see what you may be able to do. Part of the problem that I see you having is that you are trying to do something in too small a space.

Here's one example I found to give you an idea that maybe your 'over designing/thinking' this for the moment. I chose this one because I'll always go for the girl in the sexy outfit... But the site here:

http://www.astariafilms.com/thehunger/visualfx.html

Has some examples of what they did to key out the green, and composite in the 'egyptian' motif set. The thing to notice is the 'hot' illumination on the green screen. That probably wouldn't work for a full length shot. But with two banks of fluorescents one on each side, you may get an even enough light across the whole back ground. Just flag the greenscreen lights to eliminate any light into your camera lens, perhaps 'gel' the tubes 'green', or even get green tubes, and give the background an even light, eh wala... get on with making something...

Here's a 'quick and dirty' setup I did for the Wife for a grant proposal she was working on... The lights.. Home Depot work lights, green... -ish... bedsheet, and that was 'good enough' for the purpose... I may invest in some real 'green screen' backdrop material, but this worked for getting something out quickly, and allowed me to better understand the process.

 

[bruce southerland]

Lighting on the subject would be based on what environment you're going to drop them into,
and may not require soft/flat lighting. A tent can be good for products, especially those with
reflective surfaces-but I don't think I would go with the tent for people.

 

[greg sage]

Thx. Some good stuff here. I have another thread asking about greenscreen techniques in general for a large space.

This is really meant to just be more of a conceptual sounding board for the idea.

Yes, I should make it clear that I am well aware that the sort of lighting I'm talking about is the opposite of what many LD's might consider "good lighting."

Stepping back, though... what if you were only ever shooting things wehre you only cared about lighting the people since the background was never going to end up in the composite? What if you knew the people were going to move all around the stage? What if you knew you weren't trying to match anything in terms of background lighting or anything like that. What if you just wanted the people dancing or whatever they're doing to pop... to be as brightly and evenly lit as possible without any sort of overexposure, glare, etc. What if you were going for a sort of crystal clear super high-def kind of look?

... and what if you're only doing it for music videos... most of which have animated backgrounds?

I say all this so I can loosen up the definition of "good lighting" Basically, I don't want something that looks realistic. I want something that looks slickly produced, and appropriate over animated backgrounds.



Those are the criteria by which I'm trying to evaluate the concept.


The part I'm really wondering about, though, is the greenspill part... Since the tent not only diffuses light on the way in, but also reflects it everywhere once inside, would the light bouncing off the green floor or back wall, and then hitting the side of the tent and reflecting back and hitting the talent cause a problem in terms of green spill much moreso than, say, a typical wall 5 feet or so further out with no tent?