Exposure natural scenes?

[Snapper123]

Hey guys, how exactly do you expose for natural scenes? One important scene that comes to mind here, is a shot in one of my favorite "technique" films, Mister Lonely.

http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac77/buttercupblessing/Unssstitled.jpg

This scene in the film has two actors facing each other, their side toward a set of three very near overexposed windows, and their other side turned to a room that, for aesthetic purposes, has no electronic lights on (but by the look of the darker side of the actors' faces, most likely has set lighting for facial beauty reasons.) It's even a possibility that no set lights are used, though, as the window space that the actors are standing in has a window directly beside them, and two others; one behind the woman, and one behind the man - it was the natural design of the house they were in. So I'm not directly sure on the native set-up of this shot; I just know it's extremely beautiful and seems to take alot of advantage of the natural light coming through the window.

Here's another shot and perspective, if I'm not mistaken, of the spot they are standing in, although for this scene, it is night. Just to show the layout of the windows and the room, which is also fully shown during the daylight scene, making it hard for me to assume that set lightings were indeed used:

http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac77/buttercupblessing/Untitdsdssdsdled.jpg

But overall, with the first scene, the problem comes to mind beyond anything else; how to expose the natural window light and facial highlights of that window to be as it looks here? The scene calls for the sides of the actors faces and the window to be aesthetically overexposed a bit, but you can see that there's no real ugliness or information loss to the skin texture with the bright skin areas, so would that mean that the overexposed area of the scene is truly not overexposed by that much? Is there some type of rule that helps when doing these types of shots? Is there any specific percentage grey card that helps out with doing these weird types of shots, even? I mean, if I had to take a wild guess, I would say that they at least waited to it was cloudy to film this shot so that the window's sunlight wouldn't be too bright, and then I'm guessing they exposed possibly for the background room (as later in that same scene, the actors walk all through the room and the window doesn't change it's brightness.), but what even confuses me about that, is like I mentioned, there's no lights in the scene in the background room, the scene shows the whole room too, making it tough for me to decipher wether the windows are truly lighting the entire scene, or if there's set-lighting somehow behind the camera, and even futher, again, just how in the world would correct exposure be done in-camera?

Keep in mind that I don't even know if I'm asking the right questions, hopefully you guys will know what I mean, though. Mainly, I guess I mean that when dealing with a natural light source as part of your lighting set-up, what are some rules that help with exposing for that source? Like if you're working on a built studio set, it seems the rules probably are more focused on what tempeture or strength to set each mechanical light to, but when dealing with a natural source, how in the world do you achieve proper exposure, much less an exposure that is supposed to be slightly-but-not-too-much overexposed? I really just don't get it.

 

[PhilJackson]

I know nothing of the film or production, but assuming that they never shot on a sound stage (unlikely), then I'd think they just ND'd down the windows so that she is a stop or two over exposed on her key while keeping the room a stop or so under. It's not THAT contrasty of a shot from what I can see from the first image. The second is (if not CG or Green screen) just waiting for the right time of day and shooting it. It's right after the sun is set below the horizon but you still have some stray light in the sky. It's a really interesting time to shoot.

 

[slondon]

Let's see. This has a kind of Japanese esthetic as I see it, meaning soft, low contrast and filmy, dreamy. To my eye yes, the key is on the short side of the artist who's facing us and is level with her. A window could do that. More in a sec. The fill interests me as it is around to the side and quite low, see how it shines off the bottom of her curls? I can't think of too many ways natural daylight would supply that fill, but even though it "looks lit" to me I like it anyway. It also looks like an artificial source as I don't think you can bounce the window light as much as this. You can get in trouble with a low light like that because you want to avoid the horror movie look in a romantic scene like this, so watch out for unnaturalness or shadows on the face from the fill. Note too, that there is not much contrast across the face. I can't tell in this photograph how much detail there is in the highlights but they don't appear to be blown out.

I blew the pic up a bit and the catchlights in the actor's eyes reveal only a comparatively large source, "the window" and I can't see a reflection of the fill light which must be low enough and far enough around to the side that we cannot see it in her eyes.

Obviously,the key is not direct sunlight. Conditions change so fast when trying to use the sun through a window that it is often a nightmare to do so. To get control over the light coming through a window it is common to use an artificial source such as an HMI outside and reflect it off the fabric on a frame or use diffusion on something like a 4X4 open frame with the light aimed at it and covering it so the resultant source evenly illuminates the window. The cheap, less effective alternative, is to stretch a piece of diffusion like grid cloth over the outside of the window to smooth the sunlight and make the changes less as the sun moves across the sky. You could also get the look from a large softbank that's close to the actor or a 4 bank fluorescent with diffusion gel pinned on it or better yet skinned on a large frame between the actor and fixture.

Light one of these ways and expose so the highlights do not ring the bell and you will get a similar look. Actually, I strongly suggest that you do some testing -- experiment with various ways of using a large nearby source for a key and also a large lower source for the fill. Notice that here, as in interview lighting, the fill is doing the work -- it is illuminating the major part of the face we see.

The best advice I ever got, from an ASC cinematographer, was to observe what light is doing on faces and objects in everyday life and store the images and setup in your mind. Or make notes if you prefer.

Hope some of that is useful

 

[Snapper123]

I was able to find the scene on youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FYblsqhRoA&feature=related

The one thing I have to say about this film, is I know from the production notes that it was filmed on location, but I'm still skeptical about what's done for the inside shots, if they were really filmed on location or not. There's many times in the film where the outside of the building is shown (it's like a castle designed building), and the room designs really seem to match up with the architecture. As well, the scenery is always shown outside of the windows, even in this scene, you can see that the room is on the second or third floor, with the outside architecture showing behind Marilyn, and the highland mountains shown behind Michael. (There's even a bug on the window!) It'd be very tough to match this up so many times with green screen (plus they rented this entire castle for months, so I doubt they wouldn't take advantage of the inside of it!), and since it's on a second building level, it'd be also seemingly hard to use something positioned as an outside source. It seems to make the most sense that they probably have some type of unnoticable diffuser layered on the windows to soften the face and keep it blue in tone; thing is, the details outside the windows seem pretty crisp and unblocked? So I almost want to guess they just used that great UK weather to their advantage *shot in Scotland*. But it seems weird that it would be naturally that blue. Could be a white balance trick or two, but at the same time, the actor's faces on the dark sides do have quite a bit of redness too, especially on Michael's face.

With the inside lighting filling the actors faces, I do think the lighting on her curls seem a bit strong and a bit coming from the camera/room's position rather than behind Michael (where the 3rd window is), but I'm still curious because like the scene's layout, there really are 3 huge windows that form a half-pentagon shape literally around the position the characters are standing; Korine and his crew are very location based, after all, one of the actors in this film kept proclaiming that he always changes his scripts to match the shots and all that stuff. What seems to be the biggest give-away of at least one fill light, though, is when Marilyn walks away from Michael, she stays very well lit for a long distance (though again, the windows are huge, three of them, and it is daylight coming through, so it truly could have done the trick as well?), and what makes it confusing is the back of the room was very dark and her shadow against the wall is going completely left? So I have no clue.

One thing I'm testing alot lately is inside-the-car shots because they're like this shot in many ways. It keeps surprising me the results I'm getting; I'm finding it hard to grasp why green screen is used for cars so much. Sure; you don't really want your actors driving while talking, and you always want things to be fairly even with the light sources but overall, if you overexpose the outside light coming in through the windshield to about the level seen in this Mister Lonely scene, it seems as though everyone gets beautifully lit, and if I were to optimize that by placing my characters in a pickup truck with a clear window right behind their heads (and me filming in the truck bed), it seems from my tests that it would make for absolutely beautiful in-car material. Combine that with a cloudy overcast and right time of day. But I don't want to underestimate any problems I may be ignoring, I'm no expert about this at all.