HELP! Turn white walls into....

T

therussian

Well-known member
HELP!
I will shoot a no budget feature which takes place mainly in an apartment. The problem is I want a gritty look like Blade Runner, Seven, but the walls are very bright (not exactly white but a light beige). I would like to get a solution here, because i could use it for free and it's full equipped and furnitured. (While renting a flat is usually comes at a cost + empty...).

What could I do with these bright walls to make it more gritty? I can't paint them and destroy them...

Thanks
 
Get some fancy blue decor lights and place them in the apartment, and that'll give you an excuse to drown the white walls in blue light.
 
Coloured lighting would certainly be the obvious solution, but may look weird unless there's some plot/character reason for the room to look that way. And be aware that you may need to spend more time and effort separately lighting your characters to stand out from the background walls - again, depending on the look you want.
 
Blade Runner used a lot of strong backlighting from behind, along with smoke for atmosphere which when used also acts as fill lighting. You can definitely color up the walls with gelled lights, or keep the light off of it so it reveals darker.

Here's something I did when faced with white walls, white couch, etc.. but I wouldn't exactly call it gritty.

8116406821_37ab0b7f9b.jpg


BTS:
6493679891_2178377eab.jpg


Lighting Diagram:
KTlighting-diagramII.jpg
 
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therussian said:
HELP!
I will shoot a no budget feature which takes place mainly in an apartment. The problem is I want a gritty look like Blade Runner, Seven, but the walls are very bright (not exactly white but a light beige). I would like to get a solution here, because i could use it for free and it's full equipped and furnitured. (While renting a flat is usually comes at a cost + empty...).

What could I do with these bright walls to make it more gritty? I can't paint them and destroy them...

Thanks
Click to expand...

Are you in Russia?...

In any case, if you lock down your shots, you could distress the walls in post.

If not, perhaps you could build light 'frames' with light foam core, or use paper that is for photo backdrops attach it to the frame, and place it against the real walls, and distress that surface.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
If not, perhaps you could build light 'frames' with light foam core, or use paper that is for photo backdrops attach it to the frame, and place it against the real walls, and distress that surface.
Click to expand...
thats your ticket... several insulation panels from a hardware store and/or rolls of paper to temporarily tack to the walls
 
This:

2012-03-01 13.55.43.jpg2012-03-01 13.56.10.jpg



Is the room we did this in:

3sm.jpg
Image16.jpg


We did it in one night and everything was put back exactly as it was when we found it. Everything tacked up was done with Command strips -- this included the pictures, the blinds, and the wainscoting, which was cardboard with chair rail stapled to it. The white trim was covered in blue painter's tape, which obviously we could get away with for a black and white shot (and it was chosen for two reasons -- no residue, and the blue could be color-corrected separately from the rest to match darkness with the wainscoting). The set decoration, lighting, and framing took care of the rest.

Obviously, it required a lot of planning and measuring and pre-cutting/pre-painting pieces to go up quickly and come down easily, but it was basically a big room with blank pale yellow walls, not too dissimilar from a beige apartment.

Keep in mind that all of those pale walls are going to be huge bounce boards, so you're going to want to try to cover them up as much as possible, or you're going to have light flooding everywhere. (Note black blanket hung in the background).

Untitled.jpg
 
Alternatively, this:

20130208_231510yhtre.jpg


Was shot in a garage, which has all white walls.

20130208_231510.jpg

Again, everything's tacked up with Command strips, including the fake brick sheets and the 2x4s (painted black). (A LOT of Command strips, because those sheets are heavy, though resting them on the ledge helped quite a bit.)

You can fairly cheaply redress anything with little permanent impact if you plan it well and get creative.
 
These white walls are black. Until some light hits them.

Flags and hard lights well controlled.

Of course shooting in the day if there are big windows that wont work!

S
 
Ha, ha, David Jimerson, those are some nice set tricks :).

Another simple way is to hang curtains in front of the wall (couple of c-stands a boom between them - offset grip arms, so it's closer to the wall, and cloth hangs off the boom) - give the illusion of windows (for short curtains) or further room (longer) etc. In general, cloth gives texture and design without distraction, and is completely non-destructive, fast to set up and move around, cheap, and tons of variety.
 
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