Exterior night pool -- lighting help

Drew Ott

Drew Ott

Wish I were banned.
I need some help coming up with a lighting setup for this scene.

It will be at night outside by a pool. Two characters stand by the edge of a pool looking in. I'd like the light from the pool to be the key light, and have it be very blue, as if the pool lights are tinted blue.

Behind the pool will be a large stairway down to the pool area, and I think that area will be lit by strands of Christmas lights (that's the motivation at least).

I'm trying to figure out how I can get a really soft, low key coming from the pool.

I can't use my fluorescent fixtures (I imagine these would work well for mids and close-ups) unless I figure out a way to rig them out over the water.

I might be able to bounce a gelled open face 2k down into the pool for the illumination, but this wouldn't work for the wide when we see the water.

Also, one of the characters will get into the pool half way through the scene which could complicate keeping consistency.

If anybody thinks it would help, I can try to take some pictures of the location I have in mind.
 
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Here are some pictures of the location.

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I'll probably be shooting mainly from the approximate angle from the third picture.

The actors will also walk down those stairs.
 
Shining a light into the pool is the best way I know of, but it takes a pretty hefty beast. We had a scene similar to this in Fingerprints. We had several lights around the pool but to get light value out of the pool we had to hit it with a 12000 watt HMI. You might try a 2500/4000 and see if you get enough light from that. Also be aware the waves in the pool are going to cast refelctions on to your talent. If there is any way to set your key from the other siode of the pool, It would reduce the complication of the shot alot. Then you'd just have to supply enough light to the pool to expose it.
 
Wow..a 12K huh? I guess that'd definitely cover him in case he wanted to do a wide establishing of the pool...

...but if NOT, IF he mainly wanted to focus on medium shots and CU's, couldn't he extend his flourescents on well-rigged-&-'safetied' C-stands with 2, maybe 3 arms extended so that they may reach if they come in from the side?

You might need even more C-stands from another angle just to GRIP the light's C-stands (since there doesn't seem to be anything else to Safety tie into, like trees or what not)....hmmm...sandbags....lots of them...

this is tricky...good excersice though...
 
Interesting. I can't afford to rent an HMI that size.

As far as mids and CUs go, I imagine I could just cheat the actors back and have a fluorescent fixture at their feet. This should probably work, but I still can't figure out how I should light the wide when I show both talent and the pool. If I shine a really powerful light into the pool, won't it reflect off the surface off the water and look bad?
 
If you shoot your wide on a stationary tripod, you should be able to paint out the flo in post very easily. Anyone with AfterEffects could do it in about ten minutes.
I had to light a huge church with only 30 amps, so I cheated, strung chinaballs everywhere, and painted them out in post. It would have taken way too much time and energy to mount lights in hidden places, and they'd need to be much higher wattage.
 
True. Good call with the 'Do-in-in-post!" call.
Sometimes it just HAS to be done. :-)

So he'd need to do a shot without the fixtures in there right? To then have something there once the fixtures are painted out huh? To have the actual background as it's going to end up?

BUT, wouldn't the lighting be a bit different on the 'background' shot from the 'lit' shot? Well, I guess that's where AfterEffects experience might come in handy also...
 
That's a great idea.

I may try to do that.

I'll probably end up hanging china balls everywhere too so that the pool seems to be casting out the blue glow everywhere instead of directly on the actors.
 
I wouldn't think you'd want a plate without the light, since you would never get it to match. Just place the light on a uniform surface so it's easy to redraw by hand. Probably right on that big white platform.
 
Hey Drew, so did the shoot already happen?
I'm curious as to what type of setup you ended up doing...
 
I would say, since you dont have access to a 12k HMI, the best option would be to bounce a gelled 1k or 2k off a large fabric silver reflector (like the kind youll find in a 6x6 frame kit) and have someone shake a little. OR maybe even a couple of silver reflectors you put in the dash of your car to keep it cool in the sun and just have a grip wiggle them a little.

I think either option would work pretty good and you could always enhance it in post pretty easily and not look too cheesy or digital.
 
Well, since you're on a budget ... this is what someone told me tonight that he did for a pool scene.

he wanted the same kind of thing at night ... he blasted a bunch of par64's into the pool and he said it really illuminated up. ... plus pars are one of the cheapest lights to rent.
 
Sorry, forgot about this thread. I did a lighting test so I'm not screwed for the real shoot.


Here's the result:

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I have a Cool Lights 4x55w fixture sitting at his feet pointing up through a 4x4 sheet of 216 diffusion.

Back to the right is the Cool Lights 150w HMI providing the backlight from pretty far off.

There's a C-stand behind and to the left that's reaching way over his head and hanging a china ball for fill because the 4x55w was creating the "flashlight effect" because it was on the ground.

There's a open face 2k bounced to the bottom of the pool and onto the wall behind him for reflection. I didn't have any gels so that was 3200k mixed with all of the daylight stuff.

For the actual shoot, I'll probably pick up another 2k so I can get some of that reflection on the talent for more realism. I'm also thinking about getting a Kino to put under water pointed at the sides of the pool so it looks realistic. The way the frame looks, the light that's supposed to be coming from the pool is much brighter than the actual pool looks.
Click to expand...
 
It looks good. Maybe you could throw some light on a tree or something in the far background to break up that negative space.
 
Maybe this will help. This is a pool scene me an d valladao65 did a few weeks back. What you can't see from the pictures is a 1.2 Arri par bouncing off a 4x4 white card just to the left of the photo.

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I don't think the mixing 3200K thing looks bad in this particular case and wouldn't even be all that noticeable if you didn't say anything about it. Very subtle.
 
Cool Lights said:
I don't think the mixing 3200K thing looks bad in this particular case and wouldn't even be all that noticeable if you didn't say anything about it. Very subtle.
Click to expand...


It's interesting that you say this because the color temperatures are the exact opposite of what I originally intended for the scene. Lucky mistake I guess.

By the way, do Cool Lights operate at a high enough frequency to use under water? I know Kinos can do this.
 
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