Dark Knight BTS lighting setup...

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
I think I'm going to do a series of 'locations as they are' vs. 'as seen in the movies'... I'm sure someone has done this to some extent, but perhaps for my own edification... take shots of the 'as is location', then conjecture what a 'big budget' production has done... The idea would be 'given a budget production's lighting', what could a no-lo budget do, if they had '1 hour/30 minutes/15 minutes' to set up, shoot, and getout...
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I'd love to see some of these. Would make for some interesting discussion and great insight.
 
sonofaresiii said:
You're right, but let's keep in mind that ball is five feet or less from the actors... and I don't see Anne Hathaway or Christian Bale wearing sunglasses so I'm skeptical on it being anything close to an HMI bulb. If it was just behind one actor, that'd be a different story, but since they're facing each other we can assume the light had to be low enough that it wouldn't blind either of the actors.
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It's not that bright. If Christian Bale can see just fine during a day exterior, he'll be fine with a diffused 400w chinaball. Especially if the fill light we are discussing is as large as what we are guessing. If those large units are indeed lighting the room, their eyes will have adjusted to a higher level of light and the assumed 400w china ball may very well just be in an appropriate ratio. See what I'm saying?

Just be sure not to fiddle with it during the scene. ;)
 
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Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
It's not that bright. If Christian Bale can see just fine during a day exterior, he'll be fine with a diffused 400w chinaball. Especially if the fill light we are discussing is as large as what we are guessing. If those large units are indeed lighting the room, their eyes will have adjusted to a higher level of light and the assumed 400w china ball may very well just be in an appropriate ratio. See what I'm saying?

Just be sure not to fiddle with it during the scene. ;)
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Sure, I was just talking in regards to it being an HMI bulb. I do 300-watt bulbs in china lanterns regularly, not bad on the eyes at all, but putting what's essentially an HMI five feet from an actor is going to be a lot.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
However, I can do some estimations of the following:

The 'big budget shot'...

esq-avengers-shawarma-050912-xlg.jpg


The 'NoLo Budget shot'...

birdemic-2-teaser.jpg


The place is in LA, and the second shot is 'lit' purely from the window and street bounce lighting.../QUOTE]

What really hit me about the low budget shot is how god-awful the set design is. The shot from Avengers has lots of nice paintings, details to take away from the place looking flat. Even with a low-budget, that shot looks way worse than it should. Some simple ideas on how to bring it alive a bit, even with a small budget (outside of some set dressing):
Negative fill! There's way too much light on the left wall (and too much of it in frame) and as it's without dressing, it really takes a lot of unwanted attention. Get some flags up, bring that down and shape some around the actors. This is really what's missing.
Bringing up the back is needed, as said. Possibly throw in some small fluorescents over the counter and add a cool light underneath the fridge that you then bounce back in the counter.
The other corner can remain a bit darker, as long as adding some dressing or extra in the back. Moving the podium back will bring up color and make it look less dead.
Possibly adding an autopole above the the actors with a Kino shining down, to keep it more on the actors.
Click to expand...
 
Gabel said:
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
However, I can do some estimations of the following:

The 'big budget shot'...

esq-avengers-shawarma-050912-xlg.jpg


The 'NoLo Budget shot'...

birdemic-2-teaser.jpg


The place is in LA, and the second shot is 'lit' purely from the window and street bounce lighting...
Click to expand...

What really hit me about the low budget shot is how god-awful the set design is. The shot from Avengers has lots of nice paintings, details to take away from the place looking flat. Even with a low-budget, that shot looks way worse than it should. Some simple ideas on how to bring it alive a bit, even with a small budget (outside of some set dressing):
Negative fill! There's way too much light on the left wall (and too much of it in frame) and as it's without dressing, it really takes a lot of unwanted attention. Get some flags up, bring that down and shape some around the actors. This is really what's missing.
Bringing up the back is needed, as said. Possibly throw in some small fluorescents over the counter and add a cool light underneath the fridge that you then bounce back in the counter.
The other corner can remain a bit darker, as long as adding some dressing or extra in the back. Moving the podium back will bring up color and make it look less dead.
Possibly adding an autopole above the the actors with a Kino shining down, to keep it more on the actors.
Click to expand...

The 'nolo' budget shot needs to be thought of as 'run and gun', the restaurant is a working restaurant and the makers most likely had a 'get in for 10 minutes and then get out, with no 'changes' to the restaurant in any significant way'... There are some things that could have been done, to be sure... but there definitely was no time for set dressing and the like for what the "Avengers" crew had available to them.

I don't know if a couple of LED 'lamps' setting on the table in the back could have been done, to lighten up the cleaning woman in the background (more obvious on the moving pictures version than this still...).

As a note... just so it is clear... I had nothing to do with the shoot... so I'm just conjecturing 'what would I have done, had I this opportunity'...

But if people looking at this, become better 'run and gun' shooters, in LA, and subvert the 'permit process'... I'm all for it...

And secondly... if looking at this pair, and one does have the opportunity to set up and 'dress' the set... this should show what a bigger budget will do, and model their activities accordingly.

I sure there are added lights on some form of rigging. I think the bulbs in the practical fixtures may have also been changed. There's a number of things like the placard covering the 'Cokacola' logo, individual spigot coverings for the drink machine. Less obvious is the signage in the back of the room... covering most of the 'visible' wall. Crud on the floor. Even moving the trash can back, and there sort of a 'strange' light coming from the very right hand edge... which is probably the 'added' light to highlight the cleaning woman. And last but not least... the left wall with a hodgepodge of pictures and a flag... and a 'A' restaurant rating that 'looks' slightly different than the standard...
 
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Well if we're doing this (and it's a fun game), my suggestion for biggest improvement on the no-lo budget shot would be to take away the light that's spilling over everyone (looks like maybe a window off to frame right is pouring in sunlight?). In the Avengers it looks like there's a big light right above the center of the table which is adding most of the contrast we see on the characters... nice texture on Thor and Iron Man, good backlight for Hawkeye and The Hulk. Having the big light just spilling on everyone is probably what's creating most of the "flat" feeling.

Yep, I totally get that it was run and gun, but I thought it might be nice to do a "how would you improve it?" shot. Not to take anything away from the filmmakers for the birdemic... I totally know that sometimes, you just have to get the shot.
 
Ok, so with all this talk about the China Ball, dance scene, lighting... you'd expect that I'd be on the edge of my seat last night... at about 1:30 or so AM, waiting for this shot... yeah it wasn't until I was driving home, around 4 AM... that I realized I didn't even bother looking at the 'lighting as a technical exercise'... at all of that scene... I think I was mentally commenting on the bright red, glossy lips of Anne Hathaway, thinking how the previous Nolan Batman's Girls all had a sort of wyrd asymmetrical left or right 'quirk' to their smiles, where as Hathaway's seems pretty symmetrical... but 'china ball attributed highlights'... uh... nothing... but now basking in the sleep deprived daze of hindsight, looking at the position of the Ball relative to Hathaway and Bale... perhaps the china ball is to give her lips a bit of gloss 'guaranteed'... and not much more...

Here's a large image of the scene, don't know obviously when this was taken relative to the BTS shot... but you can see how the light is further down on her face and softer, than Bale's. Classic 'hard(er)' light for men, 'soft(er)' for women.

film-review-dark-knight-rises-005
 
Just saw this today, is it just me or some scenes the lighting wasn't that great? It looked pretty badly done... rushed. Maybe its just me
 
A lot of the blacks looked really grainy (difference from shot to shot... one time, reverse shots on JGL, I think when he first comes to Wayne at Wayne Manor, was noticeably bad), and I noticed some blue shadows a lot of time. But with that kind of stuff, I can never tell if it was just bad projection. I saw it at AMC, and I know the sound system was totally blown. Just awful audio.

A lot of the set pieces looked really great though. I did notice in the final fight between Bane and Batman outside on the steps of whatever the giant building was, some of the shots were clearly beauty shots, looked amazing, then the close-up fight sequences were just kind of eh.

Wally Pfister is an amazing cinematographer, so I have a hard time believing he'd let "bad" lighting through... especially on such a high budget project. So I lean towards bad projection.
 
sonofaresiii said:
A lot of the blacks looked really grainy (difference from shot to shot... one time, reverse shots on JGL, I think when he first comes to Wayne at Wayne Manor, was noticeably bad), and I noticed some blue shadows a lot of time. But with that kind of stuff, I can never tell if it was just bad projection. I saw it at AMC, and I know the sound system was totally blown. Just awful audio.

A lot of the set pieces looked really great though. I did notice in the final fight between Bane and Batman outside on the steps of whatever the giant building was, some of the shots were clearly beauty shots, looked amazing, then the close-up fight sequences were just kind of eh.

Wally Pfister is an amazing cinematographer, so I have a hard time believing he'd let "bad" lighting through... especially on such a high budget project. So I lean towards bad projection.
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Funny you say that, I got the same impression.. Waiting until I can get a Blu Ray version to make my judgement on the lighting.. Wasn't impressed in the cinema, but like you said I think it might have been the projection
 
I watched the film at an AMC, Downtown Disney @ Disneyland, which as I recall touts 4K projectors... don't know what the media was, but I was not watching an 'imax'... just an ordinary screensize... in any case, I didn't see much in the way that I'd object to... but as I indicated I got into the movie, rather than sitting back and look for 'technical details'...
 
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Looks to me like the china ball is creating a perfect specular highlight on the pearls. They were important in that scene.
 
Gabel said:
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
However, I can do some estimations of the following:

The 'big budget shot'...

esq-avengers-shawarma-050912-xlg.jpg


The 'NoLo Budget shot'...

birdemic-2-teaser.jpg


The place is in LA, and the second shot is 'lit' purely from the window and street bounce lighting.../QUOTE]

What really hit me about the low budget shot is how god-awful the set design is. The shot from Avengers has lots of nice paintings, details to take away from the place looking flat. Even with a low-budget, that shot looks way worse than it should. Some simple ideas on how to bring it alive a bit, even with a small budget (outside of some set dressing):
Negative fill! There's way too much light on the left wall (and too much of it in frame) and as it's without dressing, it really takes a lot of unwanted attention. Get some flags up, bring that down and shape some around the actors. This is really what's missing.
Bringing up the back is needed, as said. Possibly throw in some small fluorescents over the counter and add a cool light underneath the fridge that you then bounce back in the counter.
The other corner can remain a bit darker, as long as adding some dressing or extra in the back. Moving the podium back will bring up color and make it look less dead.
Possibly adding an autopole above the the actors with a Kino shining down, to keep it more on the actors.
Click to expand...

With a bit of color grading you can make it look a bit more Hollywood and professional, IMO. My example below. Of course, would be better with a higher resolution jpeg or better file. Surprised it turned out as good as it did considering the low resolution. lol.

editwg.jpg
Click to expand...
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
The 'nolo' budget shot needs to be thought of as 'run and gun', the restaurant is a working restaurant and the makers most likely had a 'get in for 10 minutes and then get out, with no 'changes' to the restaurant in any significant way'... There are some things that could have been done, to be sure... but there definitely was no time for set dressing and the like for what the "Avengers" crew had available to them.

I don't know if a couple of LED 'lamps' setting on the table in the back could have been done, to lighten up the cleaning woman in the background (more obvious on the moving pictures version than this still...).

As a note... just so it is clear... I had nothing to do with the shoot... so I'm just conjecturing 'what would I have done, had I this opportunity'...

But if people looking at this, become better 'run and gun' shooters, in LA, and subvert the 'permit process'... I'm all for it...

And secondly... if looking at this pair, and one does have the opportunity to set up and 'dress' the set... this should show what a bigger budget will do, and model their activities accordingly.

I sure there are added lights on some form of rigging. I think the bulbs in the practical fixtures may have also been changed. There's a number of things like the placard covering the 'Cokacola' logo, individual spigot coverings for the drink machine. Less obvious is the signage in the back of the room... covering most of the 'visible' wall. Crud on the floor. Even moving the trash can back, and there sort of a 'strange' light coming from the very right hand edge... which is probably the 'added' light to highlight the cleaning woman. And last but not least... the left wall with a hodgepodge of pictures and a flag... and a 'A' restaurant rating that 'looks' slightly different than the standard...
Click to expand...

Even if that, if you were to go there a couple of days before, could get some ideas. Some simple things you could do it bringing along a Kino (or similar), which you could use to bring up the actors a bit, flag that left wall and the shot would work better.
 
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