Feedback from test shoot

[coldheartproductions]

Hi I just got back into cinematography after dabbling in it briefly on some of me and my friends projects two years ago. I've read a lot on and off in the last two to three years and had some friends that were getting TV work to help me out back in L.A. I picked up a T2i and shot this on a sigma 30mm 1.4f and tokina 11-16mm. I installed the magic lantern firmware so I can shoot at more Iso speeds and used the cinestyle profile. I lite the shots with two mole richardson 1k, with a full diffusion gel on the key and the other mostly pointed at the wall for a light bounce. I need a better solution for soft light and I am running drastically out of money. I would just like feedback on these shots and if you have time watch the whole video. I feel like for a beginner this is an ok start but was hoping you guys could pick these shots apart and tell me how to make them better with the equipment I have to work with.


This is without grading. I used the Tokina wide at 16 I believe. Probably too much lens distortion but part of that was me not knowing if this was a music video or a short. This was lit with one mole 1k positioned to the left of the frame and behind the camera with one full diffusion gel and black wrap to try to limit spill. There isn't too much contrast In this image and I believe that is what is bothering me. Also I know the highlights on the piano are blown out. How would you light this shot for a drama. Also notes on framing, its bothering me but I'm not sure why.

This is the best shot in the piece. I did grade it with magic bullet. I know the top of the piano is a little blown out and the shot, in fact all these shots have too much grain in them which is bothering the hell out of me. The Iso was at 160 and I believe it was a 2.8 f stop, shutter for all of these was 50 because I shot at 24 frames per second. The 1k lamp was behind her and to the right side of the frame, same diffusion gel, but I feel like the lighting worked on this shot. Is this shot to contrasty though, should I tone it down. Is the composition working on this one?

And lastly this close up. I am pretty happy with the footage. I put a over the top grade on it as I felt it helped the story. I may be wrong. So lets talk about magic bullet. My question is that does software like magic bullet degrade the quality of the image. Does upping the saturation in that program from 100% to 120% degrade the image. I noticed with cinestyle picture profile you can up the saturation to 140 without it looking too saturated at times.

So I have a 45 diffusion umbrella coming in the mail tomorrow and I am hoping that would be my solution for soft light. I'll see how well it works. The lighting scheme for this was supposed to be dramatic. Thanks for any input I am learning and appreciate any help you guys can provide. Thanks,
Josh

 

[coldheartproductions]

here is the finished video, thanks again.

http://www.vimeo.com/25725610

 

[Jordan Scott Price]

Coldheartproductions,

It's awesome that you are experimenting and seeking feedback. It's one of the best ways to learn, in my opinion.

I'm just going to comment on the stills you posted, since they reflect the content of the video pretty well.



Your first image:

Frame:

Your field of view is comparatively wide on what is, for all intents and purposes, a close shot. I like that you show that much space, but I feel the set dressing needs a little more attention. I am drawn to the magazine rack on the floor because of the red colors against a white wall.

Lens:

The choice of going super-wide correlates with your interesting frame. Super-tight shots with little art direction are a hallmark of student or micro-budget filmmaking, so, again, I love you went wide. Your depth of field is, too, appropriate. But your talent is out of focus. This is probably due to your getting close on this wide lens to achieve the field of view you want. In fact, it is hard to tell what - if anything - is in focus here. Keep this in mind because a great frame can be ruined by bad focus.

Light:

This is what you talk about most, so you probably want the most feedback on this subject. Lighting, however, is the aspect of cinematography with the most freedom and artistic license - it can be natural, stylized, or dramatic, and each of those categories has combinations of psychological colors that can be applied - natural and romantic; stylized and domestic; dramatic and sinister; etc.

A 1K is a lot of light coming from one source for this shot. Shooting at F2.8 and 160 ISO, you will not need quite so much light from one source, nor two 1K's quite so close.

Three things stand out to me about the light in this shot:

• Strong hot spot on the piano
• A heavy kick from the light causing a shadow on the wall from the piano
• A lack of modeling on the talent or set pieces - i.e. flattening

The first two things are a result of the lamp (here, your key) being both too strong and too close to the talent. The hot spot and the shadow almost draw an arrow to your lamp, which takes me out of the image and reminds me I'm watching a fake reality. This is called "sourcy-ness." When a lamp is "sourcy," it's location/origination is obvious. This can be solved by using some basic principles of lighting:

• Inverse square law - simply, as you move a light away from a subject, the brightness of the subject decreases exponentially. Take advantage of this and walk your light away from your talent. Assuming your Mole Richardson 1K is a baby (as opposed to a softlight scoop), this will allow you to flood out the light and remove some of the harshness of the shadows.

• Beam intensity - fixtures with Fresnel lenses have the ability to focus the beam they emit. Use this to your advantage - in conjunction with the inverse square law - to control your light more, and thus your shadows and highlights.

• Height - a dead giveaway of an unnaturally motivated light is its height - or lack thereof. Domestic (indoor home) lighting almost demands that your lamps - at least your key - be hung high, unless you are lighting your entire scene with practicals in the production design or are motivating something waist-level like a table lamp. The kick from the piano, even if the lamp is hung high, makes the lamp seem very low - say, eye-level. This kick is also coming from the lamps proximity to talent, as previously noted.

You also mention you diffused your light - which diffusion did you use? There are dozens and dozens of kinds of diffusion, from accessories like Chimaeras and umbrellas to rolls of expendable diffusion, which it sounds like you are using. (Just as an fyi, paper diffusion is not considered a gel like, say, CTB or plus/minus green.)

Each kind of diffusion is crafted to do something very specific to the light. Some diffusers will softbox the light - turning the beam of a harsh source into a soft, open field of light, at the cost of some apparent light level (some light may be lost in the opacity of the diffusion, but most of it will transmit and disperse into a large field instead of being focused at the end of a beam, hence a subject in front of a light without diffusion is lit brighter than if the light has diffusion). Some diffusers will barely spread the light or soften shadows at all but just slightly taper the edges of the beam. Some diffusers are made for HMIs (Rosco's Tough Rolux), while others are made all kinds of applications (Lee's Grid Cloth).

The differences are important because you may find that the wrong diffusion spreads your light too much or nullifies a shadow you like. Also, if you see harsh shadows cast by the talent, so you walk a lamp away from the talent and then clamp heavy diffusion on the fixture, you may find yourself walking the lamp back toward the talent. No problem with small lamps, but it can be a chore if you are a one-man band or on a skeleton crew.

You may not have a ton of options at your disposal, but you can always make do with half white diffusion by doubling or trippling it, for example. Working on others' sets is a great way to pick up expendables, too - blackwrap, gaff tape, bullets, diffusion, etc.



Your second image:

You mention this is the one you really like, but it sounds like you can't quite put your finger on why. Here is what is going for your image:

• Depth - an awesome amount of depth for this shot. I get a sense of space and locale, but I'm still drawn to the talent. The lines of the piano's build take me right to your shot - from the tasteful foreground element to the hands.

• Modeling - your talent has a nice glow from your key, which is acting as a side light. It wraps around her hair nicely and falls off into darkness, although a softer, better placed lamp could have wrapped further.

• Contrast - there is a nice contrast in color here with the talent's orange skin against a mild blue background. It draws the eye to the right place. The contrast in luma - light to dark - however, is very strong. Now, there is artistic license at work there, but you could lessen your contrast a touch and the image would be a bit stronger for the added detail. It also just looks a little too heavily graded, most notably in the very strong highlights.

• Fill - her face is lit nicely with the light you bounced off the wall. It's placement - to her right - gives us a backlight on camera, which makes her profile pop.

Unfortunately, your bounced light is very, very hot on the wall. I am drawn to this white blob, and it is distracting. When you are going in for tighter shots like this, try using a reflective bounce card rigged off camera but in front of talent and spot a lamp right at the card. By changing the angle and distance of the card, and by changing the beam and distance of the light it is bouncing, you can create all sorts of possibilities with just a simple fill.

In terms of frame and lens choice, I think this shot is a real winner. It's interesting, has depth, color, contrast, and sparse but careful set dressing.



Your third image:

This is a very artsy image - nothing wrong with that! - so take advantage of your artistic license and really dress the image with color contrast and art direction. Her hair blends too easily into the painting; the white wall and couch are very bright and do not complement the colors in the talent's skin, hair, and wardrobe; the grading is very heavy, but I'm not so sure it's working. There is an unnatural amount of blue-orange contrast in her skin and hair that seems out of place against such a bland background.

Frame:

Very interesting frame that complements the talent's awkward mask and smirk.

Lens:

A wide angle lens works well with a close frame when you want to put a subject uncomfortably close to the audience. It's definitely working here.

Light:

The lighting is not poor, but the white wall is very hot. It appears your lighting may be very frontal to the talent, which flattens objects and tends to cause very strong, distracting highlights. Your talent should be lit by a separate light from your background here, and she should be given a small rim light to make her pop from the background - something faint falling on her shoulders and head from behind her.


Overall, I think your compositions are strong - now it's just to lighting them for the three-dimensional pop. To that, don't kill your shots with heavy grading. BEFORE you engage in a project, shoot test footage for the purpose of grading it. When you find grades you really like, save them and make note of how you lit that shot. When you finish shooting, all you have to do is drop in the grade, tweak, and render. Thinking that moderate shooting will be made great by strong grading is a derivative of "fix it in post." Grading can only make a good image better; it cannot make a bad image good.


Best of luck.

 

[coldheartproductions]

Thanks so much for your response I definitely learned a lot. I only have the 1ks and for now I'm going to have to make do with them, I have some scrims for them and I ordered a diffusion 45' umbrella....I may get a soft box or just spend the money on a kino flow or something in the future...I'm hoping for the time being that the umbrella will get me by.....I know I have a tendency to grade to heavy I think I convinced myself it looked good when I new better....I appreciate the comments on set dressing something to always keep in mind....and I definitely will spend more money and time on a serious project, this was for all intent and purpose a test for me to learn from....Positioning of the light, you were dead right it was about eye line, my stand does go higher and I though I remembered I should go higher.....is there a rule of thumb or just as close to the ceiling as possible.....the point you were saying is that the light should seem more like its coming from the practical light in the shot or from a ceiling light but not be obviously behind her, my question is would the replacement been right if I had a soft box on it that didn't produce shadows....The fill light your right I didn't even realize that the fill was making the wall so bright I thought it was the key. Are there any good tips in general when shooting against white walls the only one I know is to not do it. About the lenses I don't have a 50mm only a 30mm and wider so it is on my list and if this job works out I'll have it in a week since that canon one is fairly cheap, however I figured it was better to go wider then not as most my favorite directors do this, but for close ups and extreme closeups with a crop sensor what lens would you pick up would just a 50mm work or 80mm. I am going to practice more this week I hope to continue a open dialogue so that I and others can learn from my mistakes....thanks so much again.

also is there a cheap way to clamp a foam-core board to a generic light stand...theres gotta be right...

josh

 

[Jordan Scott Price]

Thanks so much for your response I definitely learned a lot. I only have the 1ks and for now I'm going to have to make do with them, I have some scrims for them and I ordered a diffusion 45' umbrella....I may get a soft box or just spend the money on a kino flow or something in the future...I'm hoping for the time being that the umbrella will get me by.....

Your SOP (standard operating procedure) should be to visualize what look you want, set your light where you want it to act on your subject/talent, and then drop in scrims and diffusion as you see necessary. It's usually better practice to start big and then cut the light level with scrims, nets, dimmers, and diffusion, to an extent. (It's only usually better because sometimes you do not have the amperage capacity to run as many big lights as you want and then scrim them down.)

It's sometimes good practice to dedicate a Chimaera/umbrella to one fixture and let it float around as your key or fill while the other lamp gives you fill or backlight, or it can paint the background with light to add depth and texture.

Kino Flos are wonderful for interiors, especially domestic, because 1) they are soft and malleable, 2) they are daylight balanced, which digital cameras natively prefer, 3) they don't require much power compared to their tungsten counterparts (a short 4-bank pulls about 4 amps, emitting about the same light as a tungsten 1K, which pulls 8). They are also pricey and have multiple delicate pieces, but they are well worth it. If you're on a project with a budget, rent some in various sizes and get 5500K and 3200K tubes. There are also other brands that are cheaper.

Stick with your 1K's and learn to master them. They are workhorses of lights and do very well when used right. Also, keep them clean. Take out the Fresnel lenses every month or so, depending on frequency of use, and clean both sides. Remove the globe and clean the reflector with a dampened cloth. If the lens or reflector are dirty, you're cutting your light level significantly.

and I know I have a tendency to grade to heavy I think I convinced myself it looked good when I new better....I appreciate the comments on set dressing something to always keep in mind....and I definitely will spend more money and time on a serious project, this was for all intent and purpose a test for me to learn from....

Quicktime 10, Vimeo, YouTube, and televisions will always make your footage more contrasty. If you are coloring on an LCD or LED monitor, you are not seeing the real picture because your monitor is lying to you. If you keep your histogram NTSC legal (no clipping), your final product will look better nine times out ten. Also, saturation should be applied very judiciously, even if you shoot with a flat setting.

A good rule of thumb I use for skin tones - before upping the saturation across the board, pull down the saturation of the oranges, and to some extent the reds and magentas. This is easy to do in FCS Color - I don't know about other programs. Pull down these colors until they're halfway between default and gray. Then, globally raise your saturation until your most eye-catching subject has a healthy amount of saturation - enough to maintain detail and appears realistic. Your skin tones will almost settle perfectly in the right spot, adjustable with some minor tweaking. Skin tones should almost never be the most saturated thing in the frame - no pumpkinheads!

This rule of thumb doesn't apply to every grading session, but it does for a lot of them. I know, for example, I have to color - and light - differently for black-skinned talent.

Positioning of the light, you were dead right it was about eye line, my stand does go higher and I though I remembered I should go higher.....is there a rule of thumb or just as close to the ceiling as possible.....the point you were saying is that the light should seem more like its coming from the practical light in the shot or from a ceiling light but not be obviously behind her, my question is would the replacement been right if I had a soft box on it that didn't produce shadows....

A softbox would have diffused the beam some, depending on the diffuser velcro'd onto it, but it would have also just diffused the hot spot some. You still would be getting a defined shadow on the wall because of the lamp's proximity. It's better to back off a light that strong, and then go from there. Rarely will a 1K be placed that closely to talent. Also, hot spots are generally taboo. They reveal the light source and seem unnatural and unmotivated. This is not to be confused with specular highlights, like a well-placed backlight or sidelight causing a glint on a wine bottle.

The fill light your right I didn't even realize that the fill was making the wall so bright I thought it was the key. Are there any good tips in general when shooting against white walls the only one I know is to not do it.

Remember, you may see it as white, but your camera is far more limited in what it defines as white. Use color temperature to your advantage. Gelling and dimming (only tungsten) lights will warm the source, which, if directed onto a wall, say, at an angle, will provide a textural slash of light along the wall. If it is a textured wall, this could be an even more fun texture to play with and a nice element in the frame. (Dimming fluorescent lights will cool them.)

Use a white wall to your advantage. You're already doing that by using it as a bounce. Next time, try the ceiling to raise your ambiance, or bounce a light off a white wall behind someone to give them a soft, diffuse trace of a backlight.

About the lenses I don't have a 50mm only a 30mm and wider so it is on my list and if this job works out I'll have it in a week since that canon one is fairly cheap, however I figured it was better to go wider then not as most my favorite directors do this, but for close ups and extreme closeups with a crop sensor what lens would you pick up would just a 50mm work or 80mm. I am going to practice more this week I hope to continue a open dialogue so that I and others can learn from my mistakes....thanks so much again.

Don't rush your lens purchases. Starting wide on APS-C is a good choice. Wide angles are still viable for close-ups, but not so much for extreme close-ups, unless you want the distortion.

It is common practice around here to shoot Nikon lenses on Canon bodies. Nikon has made very nice glass for decades, and glass can be found for relatively cheap on eBay, KEH.com, and Craig's List. Nikon F --> Canon EOS adapters are dirt cheap and can also be found on eBay. If you prefer Canon EF lenses, the 50mm 1.8 is hard to beat for $100 and will be a great MED to BCU lens.

also is there a cheap way to clamp a foam-core board to a generic light stand...theres gotta be right...

Yes, but the only solutions I can think of require a grip head: Cartolini Clamp or a Duckbill. I made some homemade cartolini's by taking 10" of spare all-thread and taping it firmly to the arm of a #2 speed clamp. You can then clamp onto anything and lock it down on a grip head/knuckle on a stand. Works quite well.