How to achieve this lighting technique

B

Bawes

Active member
Very interested in this lighting look.

This is from Project X trailer. I want to say a light is just lighting up the two girls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj_ZNnehHAQ

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Now this is from a music video.

The first three screen shots is the look of most of the shots from the video. Music video look.

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Then you have shots that have a different lighting look. This is what I want. if you look at the video you can see the difference.
TyreseFtLudacris_TooEasy_MusicVideoDirbyMa3097.jpg


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Here is the video so you can see it in motion.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0bs_0FEWrs

Project X has a lot of those style looks as well. I havent seen that movie but I think it's a look of a camcorder video'ing?


Could it be lighting everything and then using an on camera led to light the main person up?
 
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Well, the first shot looks like it's simply an on-camera light blaring at the girls.

The other shots look like various kinds of club lighting.
 
David Jimerson said:
Well, the first shot looks like it's simply an on-camera light blaring at the girls.

The other shots look like various kinds of club lighting.
Click to expand...

Yep. First set is a bright on camera light. LEDs or ring light or something similar. Middle set is a lot of actual location lights and probably some additional lighting for the video. Third set is back to an on camera light again. If you want to get that look, grab the brightest one of these you can afford:

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I actually don't think the shots from Project X used a ringlight. The shadows are too harsh, and there's way too much punch to it (note that there's a pretty hard shadow on the girl behind the 2 girls). The light isn't coming from the camera-axis, if you look at it carefully. In the shot with the two girls, it's coming from above, and slightly to the left of the camera. I looked through the trailer and found several other shots with very similar shadows and lighting.

Funny thing is that this isn't a new lighting technique! Check out this video from 1997, which was probably one of the first ones to use it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOzayDpWoI&ob=av2e
The intended goal with the Fiona Apple video was to create something that looked like a camera flash, and I believe they just ended up mounting a very spotted hard light (potentially a PAR?) to the top of the camera. The look from Project X is similar, although I feel it's trying to replicate the new look of cell phone cameras with harsh LED lights, or potentially a sun-gun on camera (I noted that there's a camera that one of the characters is using later in the trailer, and it has an Anton Bauer light on top of it). A nice soft ring light doesn't provide this kind of light.

For Project X, I'm imagining they used a small light (maybe a 200w HMI? Or maybe just a 650 or so tungsten?) held by a grip on the end of a C-stand arm, walked with the camera. It's a technique I've used a lot when doing Steadicam shots (not with HMIs, but with small Kinos and LED panels). There also might be a snoot on the light of some sort, to help keep it to just the small circle of light. It doesn't have to be that complex, however. If you're not doing walking shots, all you need is to take whatever your key light will be, place it above and very slightly to one side of the camera, and spot it fully, and use barn doors to prevent it from spilling onto your background.

The music video you linked to looks more like it could have been a ring light. The light looks soft and doesn't have any noticeable hard shadows, and i see the reflection of a nice circular point of light in the character's faces. It also could be a light very close to the camera axis.
 
I love that video! Fiona rocks. My favorite is her "Paper Bag" video. The choreography is amazing.
 
Tom Wills said:
I feel it's trying to replicate the new look of cell phone cameras with harsh LED lights
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I swear, that would have never crossed my mind not once. That is what I want!

Tom Wills said:
For Project X, I'm imagining they used a small light (maybe a 200w HMI? Or maybe just a 650 or so tungsten?) held by a grip on the end of a C-stand arm, walked with the camera. It's a technique I've used a lot when doing Steadicam shots (not with HMIs, but with small Kinos and LED panels). There also might be a snoot on the light of some sort, to help keep it to just the small circle of light. It doesn't have to be that complex, however. If you're not doing walking shots, all you need is to take whatever your key light will be, place it above and very slightly to one side of the camera, and spot it fully, and use barn doors to prevent it from spilling onto your background.

The music video you linked to looks more like it could have been a ring light. The light looks soft and doesn't have any noticeable hard shadows, and i see the reflection of a nice circular point of light in the character's faces. It also could be a light very close to the camera axis.
Click to expand...

I plan to build a DIY ringlight to use for the shoot.

I am thinking about renting a Litepanels MicroPro. Could that work also?

Thank you for the advice!
 
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I don't have an actual MicroPro, but I've asked a friend of mine to bring out a little LED panel, and I'm gonna do a quick test if I have time tonight, so you can see a basic idea of how it'd work.
 
The first looks like a traditional hard on-camera light, the rest look like ringlights, but maybe not as large as the one pictured earlier here.
 
Actually I had 2 friends that were there, well my younger brothers friends..hehe. They said that they used what looked either like a 500-600 LED panel light, Battery powered. They said that it was pretty bright too. I just asked them when I saw this. One of them works for a studio here in Las Vegas, so I assume he knows what hes talking about.
 
Tom Wills said:
I don't have an actual MicroPro, but I've asked a friend of mine to bring out a little LED panel, and I'm gonna do a quick test if I have time tonight, so you can see a basic idea of how it'd work.
Click to expand...

Did you ever manage to do a test?
 
Apart from the first shot which is obviously not inside a club, the rest look to me like very standard club lighting with a little white fill (probably the same light as the first frame grab). Other than that, there seems to be a few difference in the color grade, especially in the blacks.
 
Hey, I like it too, but funny w'ere talking about replicating this look when that look is trying to replicate unpolished, on-camera lighting from a non-professional shooter. Project X is pretending to be amateur video, and the Fiona Apple is eluding to Polaroid snapshots and/or porn.
 
It seems to be a common technique actually that a lot of people are using. Especially the ring light. They use it for small house parties, intimate moments, promiscuous moments, etc. Seems to be big for music videos too.

Just Dance - Lady Gaga used it, however it seems to be more of a handheld focused spot light as it sometimes moves on it own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Abk1jAONjw
 
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