How to light a scene like this?

[dtjohns1]

I'm trying to light a bedroom scene with the same setup as this (Basically really soft light that looks like it is coming from a pratical bedroom lamp) but with using a 650 watt fresnel with diffusion paper and a black flag beside it I still for some reason cannot keep the light off of the lamp which in turn creates a shadow of the lamp itself on the wall behind it which is a huge motivational lighting no no. I can easily keep the light off the lamp just using the bare fresnel with barndoors but the light is way to harsh of the face. I partially believe my problem is the room has all white walls so the even tho the light is being flagged it is bouncing off other walls and still lighting the lamp but idk. Can anyone tell me how a scene like the example video is lit?

 

[starcentral]

I would say there is an overhead soft light source approx 45 degrees up and to the actors left (look at reflection in her boot), which for sure has louvers or eggcrate to direct the softlight without much spill. Sometimes it's as easy as hanging black fabric or using cinefoil on the side of the softbox that you don't want to spill backwards, say in this example back onto the wall where the table lamp is.

Doing this with a fresnel is going to be hard without casting harsh shadows. If a fresnel was my only option for this shot then you have three options. Put the fresnel in a softbox, shoot the fresnel through some a diffusion panel, or bounce the fresnel off a white board. If bouncing the fresnel off a white board then your fresnel would be on the right side of camera on spot mode onto a reflector/white board over actors left 45 degrees up. In any of these options you will have to do more to control spill.

I would therefore suggest renting a softbox with louvers or eggcrate and just be done with all the horsing around.

 

[Jarrett P. Morgan]

I'm trying to light a bedroom scene with the same setup as this (Basically really soft light that looks like it is coming from a pratical bedroom lamp) but with using a 650 watt fresnel with diffusion paper and a black flag beside it I still for some reason cannot keep the light off of the lamp which in turn creates a shadow of the lamp itself on the wall behind it which is a huge motivational lighting no no. I can easily keep the light off the lamp just using the bare fresnel with barndoors but the light is way to harsh of the face. I partially believe my problem is the room has all white walls so the even tho the light is being flagged it is bouncing off other walls and still lighting the lamp but idk. Can anyone tell me how a scene like the example video is lit?

A chimera will certainly help (especially with eggcrate as the previous poster said), but it is going to be very difficult to get this look in an all white room. For the shot on the bed you may need to throw up a 6x6 solid to camera right to keep light from bouncing off of the other white walls.

Or you could always just have art department play with the walls

 

[starcentral]

If you're on a real tight budget, you can buy two 85W flo bulbs (see Alzo website) that will fit into standard sockets and put two together that will give you about 600w of softlight without much heat. You'd have to rig up your own flags and what not to stop the spill from the background but it could work for your application.

Definitely don't shoot in a room with white walls, if you do you are asking for trouble. On some sets black fabrics are sometimes used and hung up to stop light from bouncing, so your instinct in thinking that white walls were a problem is correct - it is a problem. Don't put all this time and effort into something that "might" be ruined or not look the way you want because of a poor location choice. Demand a better location.