Diffusion for arri lights

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Captshiznit

Member
Hi guys, Fairly new to lighting but learning fast. I bought 3 arri Fresnel lights 2x650 and an 800 at most given my size of room need to use 1 light on me and 1 perhaps dimmed lighting background (I guess? unless I'm wrong). I was wondering what diffusion i'd need to get for arri lights to film myself playing cover songs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfAh3uDXWEo i'm looking for a video look such as this. What steps could I take to achieve it? bare in mind my room isn't massive it's a medium sized home studio kinda setup so I think I went overkill on the lights they are pretty powerful and illuminate my entire room with just 1 light however using barn doors I can make it quite directional so its ok. That's why i'm here asking what diffusion I should get / next steps and maybe getting some dimmers for each light. Any help greatly appreciated! MY camera is Canon 550d with a Tamron 17-50 F2.8 lens.
 
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There's a massive amount of info here and all around the internet - and dozens of books - on this subject.

Generally you point the light at a frame with diffusion material. If it's close to a hot light, you need flame proof diffusion (such as toughspun).

But if your light bounces all over the place and lights up your entire room, you need a bigger, blacker room, or a softbox. Or a bunch of flags or foamcore.

There are choices to make regarding how heavy the diffusion, or if you need it at all (hard open-faced light or a fresnel), how much bounce or fill to use, what size panel, etc.

Maybe someone will pipe in with how they'd light the example video. Roger Deakins lights stuff like this with bundles of regular household bulbs on dimmers or bounced off unbleached muslin, and it's good enough for the Coen bros. That to say - there's as many ways to get a look as there are shooters. I'd read up everything you can about diffusion materials and the effects of distance from light to diffusion and diffusion to subject and size of diffusion panel vs. size of subject.... etc... And start testing.
 
Captshiznit said:
I was wondering what diffusion i'd need to get for arri lights to film myself playing cover songs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfAh3uDXWEo i'm looking for a video look such as this.
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Looks like a fresnel to me. No diffusion. Not a softbox. The key light (45 or more degrees from camera left) is fairly hard. There's also a kicker being used on the right side, to give you that little specular reflection off the lead singer's face on the camera right. There seem to be a couple of practicals being used for some level of fill in a couple of places too. I could well be wrong, but that's what it looked like to me at first glance.

The thing to remember is: cameras need light. If you starve the camera, it gives you noise, low saturation, and sometimes screwy hues. All hard to correct in post. Better to get some light into the shadows, then lower their value in post. Yet another way that video isn't film.
 
Controlling where the light falls is definitely the first step, but I think you may find that if you shoot at the lowest ISO and the highest f-stop that your footage will be quite good. For example if you spot a hard source directly on your face and then expose for that light, everything else will sort of fall away and isolate you. That's how I shoot with hard light sometimes. If the shadows are too harsh definitely experiment with diffusion or bounce and a lower f-stop.
 
Single source Fresnels are quite good at this - the biggest problem is that while you can shape a beam's diameter, and chop off the sides, top and bottom, nobody has invented a way to chop off the beam after it passes the subject - so big spaces and black drapes have to do the work of giving you isolation. A single Arri can give you that look, as it comes out of the box, as long as you stop the beam illuminating things you don't wish to see!
 
Bruce Watson said:
Looks like a fresnel to me. No diffusion. Not a softbox. The key light (45 or more degrees from camera left) is fairly hard.
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It didn't look like a straight fresnel to me, the facial shadows would be much harsher. The directionality and lack of fill conspire to make it appear hard., but the triangle that hits the left eye is less defined than it would be with a direct fresnel.

You can see a reflection in the guitar closeups (1:56 for example) of what is clearly a soft source (a fresnel would have shown up as a smaller diameter hit). It's probably not huge but at least a 4x4, and flagged off the other musician.
 
Justin Kuhn said:
Controlling where the light falls is definitely the first step, but I think you may find that if you shoot at the lowest ISO and the highest f-stop that your footage will be quite good. For example if you spot a hard source directly on your face and then expose for that light, everything else will sort of fall away and isolate you. That's how I shoot with hard light sometimes. If the shadows are too harsh definitely experiment with diffusion or bounce and a lower f-stop.
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Got to be a little carefully with reducing aperture size on many lenses. Many video cam lenses go soft after f/8. The op didn't state what cam was in use, but it is a question worth asking.
 
paulears said:
Single source Fresnels are quite good at this - the biggest problem is that while you can shape a beam's diameter, and chop off the sides, top and bottom, nobody has invented a way to chop off the beam after it passes the subject - so big spaces and black drapes have to do the work of giving you isolation. A single Arri can give you that look, as it comes out of the box, as long as you stop the beam illuminating things you don't wish to see!
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Actually you can get some background / foreground control using half scrims, half difussion and combinations thereof. i.e a half scrim in the top of the light will give you full intensity on the face in the bottom of the field, while cutting off the intensity of the light going over the subjects head.
 
I believe what Paul is saying is that light doesn't magically "stop" after it passes the plane of the subject, so if they happen to be in front of a wall, you'll get a shadow no matter how much you can shape the light close to them. I joke about the same thing myself, especially with soft sources which are harder to cut--ruefully wishing I could coat a white wall with a virtual teflon to make it nonstick to light!

Half scrims and diffusion etc for me have very limited use--they only work with direct fresnels or other focused lensed units (I suppose they would work with Source 4's also, it's hard enough getting scrims on those due to their non-standard fronts) and being so close to the unit, the cut is fairly soft. It's almost always better to use a net a distance away from the light because you can dial it in more specifically. Same thing with a diffusion topper or bottomer.

As far as using a half scrim as a topper, why not just use the top barn door?
 
I really appreciate responses to this thread, all responses super helpful to thanks! and those links I will give them a read, I feel like I am getting pointed in right direction. If I wanted to buy a softbox for one of my arri lights what kind should I look for and how do I fit it to my light? However I havn't got huge amounts to spend and softboxes seem to cost loads! so a couple other methods suggested in here may be the alternative for me.
 
Chimera is the classic brand, you'd buy a speedring that is spec'd for your head (or an adjustable one that can fit multiple heads). Photoflex would be a budget alternative, and I'm sure there are eBay specials that are cheaper still, in all senses of the word.

If you are working in small spaces, a light control grid (confusingly abbreviated LCD) is a great accessory. It's essentially a fabric version of an eggcrate. Helps keep the light from going everywhere. Soft sources are hard to cut even with flags, this is the most convenient way to limit their spread.
 
morgan_moore said:
I shoot through a scrim - could be a lastolight like I have, or some net curtain rigged to some pvc pipe

http://www.sammorganmoore.com/backlot/soft-daylight-source
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I have built some frames out of 1/2 inch PVC pipe and they work great. They are easy to make and very inexpensive. I made 24"X24", 24" (Tall)X36" (Wide), 36"X36" and 48"X48" frames. I want to make some 36" (Tall) X 48" (Wide) frames also. 48" is about as big you can go with PVC I have found as they start to get a lot of warp in them past that size. I attache them to stands with a standard grip head that will take 1/2" sized pipe. I suggest getting a PVC cutter when making stuff out of PVC. I got two from Harbor Freight that work very good. Do not get the cheapest ones from them as they are pure crap.
 
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