HELP! I need lighting tips for short film!

B

Beeboop

Active member
I'm doing my first short film and I need some help with lighting! Below are my two main actors and they are sitting inside of the restaurant that we will be filming in. It's a horror story. I will be filming on a Sony A7S II and a Canon C100 MK II. I need some white balance tips, that would be helpful for a colorist. I also need some lighting tips! The guy with black hair is suppose to be evil and the old guy is the man that the evil person is taking advantage off. I need some tips on lighting positions and what lights I should rent for this film. Please! I hope someone can help.

I also need some suggestions for set design. Something to cover up all those big branded words.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9gjWMep_LxfWFFpNUFTRHQ1a2s

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9gjWMep_LxfQnZwQlE1ZEpWa1E/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9gjWMep_LxfaFhLUVNIQ09PSm8

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9gjWMep_LxfekpLUUFOQ0V6M0U

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9gjWMep_LxfTzJhOHU1MW51VFU

2) My lighting package is just one Arri 150 watt 3200k light. I'll need to rent something else. I'm assuming a 650 watt Arri.

3) It's a night scene so exposure will probably be high. Using an A7S II at F-4 at about 10k ISO. I'm not sure, will find out more tomorrow.

4) I don't have any special lighting gags planned.

5) I can go pretty much anywhere in the resturant.

6) Night scene. I might even turn off half of the lights.


1a) The entire short story takes place inside of the restaurant. It's suppose to be eerie like the Twilight Zone but with color.

2a) The entire Twilight Zone series is on Netflix but I'll post something from youtube. The scene is very similar to this eposide from Twilight in that a man is alone with no one around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxZj0_ZDU7k

3a) I want to use wide angles for dialogue. I do have a Steadicam and slider but the Steadicam will probably only be used for the opening B-roll scene. Most of the rest will be handheld.
 
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The place already looks pretty toplighted. You could work off that relatively easy with fresnels (maybe with a chimera) and the place it so it hits the old guy slightly more than the evil guy.
Seems to be quite a few neons going on outside?
Gived you the opportunity to use a red gelled light to slightly back light the old guy but more so to give the evil guy a shy key light with it.

Quick question... what made you decide on handheld?
 
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If you don't have the budget for a small 1-ton rental with lights which should run around $500 in your area, might I suggest a test using a Chinese lantern on a boom pole for a portable key with your ARRI 150w selectively placed as an eye light or kicker depending on lantern placement. The problem with using wide angles without selectively lighting the background is it tends to turn to noisy mush. Shooting wides are a great way to show your set, as long as you have enough light to make it show up. As far as turning lights off to make it dark and scary goes, I would just grade it the way in post rather than killing the only ambient source you have at this point. Wish I could be of more help.

Dave
 
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Thanks leg. Well, I wanted to put some natural handshake into the scene. I figured handheld would be the best. It's probably going to be a mixture between handheld and tripod. Honestly, I'm not sure yet and will need to figure it out soon. There will be a few Steadicam shots, most likely just for the big OMG moments.


Thanks Dave. Yeah, I don't have the budget to rent 1ton lights. I like the Chinese lantern idea.
 
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So you are stuck with house lights for background lights it sounds like? From your RAW file it looks like your practicals may be dimmed incandescent or warm CFL/LED so your tungsten lights may be too cold and need CTO or dimming which will further lose output. But at ISO10000 I guess you can probably get away with a lot. You could seat the characters either at a table or the counter and bounce your 150w off the table/counter in a way that looks natural in the scene and selectively turn off house practicals to avoid having the background look too low contrast and to avoid any harsh shadows on the lead actors faces.

I would probably say either seat them at the counter or at a table/booth by a window depending on what you like for a background and how much of the location you want to see. Either of those locations give you motivation for some lighting directionality since it puts their eyeline parallel to a natural threshold in the location and you can easily motivate a moody far side key so your night scene in your horror film still feels low key and we are mostly looking into the shadow sides of faces. If you put them by the window you could shoot your overs toward the location and do the table bounce or a far side bounce to wrap the interior light on their faces a bit and motivate interesting off-putting colored lights motivated by the street maybe even with some gags to match the action of the scene (flashing faint red lights from tail lights or don't walk signs revealing the shadow side of the bad guys face or just as a subtle kicker etc).

If you seat them at the counter you could do a similar thing and see more of the location either favoring their counter side or the open side and motivate some lighting on the opposite side either bounced on the counter or motivated by the ambient lighting over the booths/tables.

As for rentals it kind of depends what you prefer to use and the quality of light you want. You own one 150W fresnel? Given that you are working at ISO10000@F4 to match the ambient levels and you probably don't have the budget to light the whole location up anyway, just one or two small lights for the foreground may do the trick. Frankly though, it's always better to rent too much and not use it than to show up and realize you don't have what you need on the day, especially considering bulbs can blow out or lighting units can stop working so it's good to have at least one or two backups. I'd never want to show up to set without at least 3 lights and a 4by bounce and 4by diffusion etc, but that's why I own a cheap light kit with diffusion/bounce/flags so I never have to get by without at least a basic kit.
 
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I would probably have to film everything with the Sony A7S II. Below is a video I did with the Sony A7S II at 16,000 ISO and F1.8 with a Sigma 18-35. Start at time 1 minute to 2 minutes to see 16,000 ISO footage.


Password: Project
https://vimeo.com/154146380

Thanks for the tips nyvz
 
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You will need to watch your exposure then. Lots of way overexposed areas in that clip. And that is the issue when you can't control the illumination of the practicals in a scene while not have the extra light to fill in the needed areas. I know something like the Sony A7S II has good low light ability. But in my mind for a film, that means I can cut my lighting package wattage down. Not do without. I guess I'm a little old fashion.
 
Yeah what picture profile is that? I'd have a hard time recommending anything other than slog2 or maybe if you must cine4 but whatever you used has very little highlight range. Actually if you shot the same gain level in slog2 you probably would've been at over iso64000. If you stick to slog2 and overexpose about 1stop like I'd usually recommend, you'd probably still end up with 1-2 more stops in the highlights and probably still ok shadows. And the last thing you want to do in a low key horror film is blow a bunch of stuff out and not be able to bring it back down in post to keep things modify and low key.
 
I believe I filmed that footage in PP 1 or no PP. I forgot really, and I do plan on using Slog for my film. Thanks.
 
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