Interior Shooting Advice? (Apartment)

M

machardi

Well-known member
The backstory: a friend of mine works for an apartment complex and wants me to work up a spot for them, and I don't want to completely affect a mad scientist vibe the entire time ("What if we tried...this?") on the off chance that I come off as looking exactly as I am (someone who only vaguely grasps what they are doing)

The goal: So basically I'll be shooting a bunch of indoorsy stuff, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and of course a gym and a pool, and I want it to look as good as possible.

The equipment: The DVX100A, of course, and the Britek 500/1000 with barn doors.

Experience shooting in a controlled environment: None.

The question:

Do I need scrims or diffusers or bounce boards? Should I rent a wide-angle adapter for these tight rooms? A fish-eye? Camera settings?

Any help would be loved and adored, and the permission to sit at the adult table.

M.
 
i would get some ctb gels to match the light to daylight, and try to get the windows/sun involved in your setups. (assuming this place has windows.) i'd also plan on using the britek bouced off of the ceiling and walls alot of the time, as opposed to direct. if the location allows, try to do setups where you think of the sun as your "key" and the bounced britek as your fill. get a good mix of wide stuff and closeups (sorry if that's obvious.) closeups of architectural details and room fixtures and the like will make it more interesting than just a bunch of wides and pans of different rooms.
 
The best advice I got in lighting was "not to; if at all possible."
Try to shoot natural with sunlight pouring in....remember to underexpose
 
dot - Good call with the CTB, I do remember reading about that, I will try to find a good gel supplier right now. (And never sweat being too obvious, definitely the better way to lean). I'm not sure what you consider architectural details and room fixtures (for example), I just had an image of a close up of a wall and a light socket (respectively), and am fairly certain that's not what you meant.

Zordon - Out of curiosity, why do I underexpose?
 
architectural details and room fixtures really depends on the location. wall sockets probably aren't too sexy but if for example they had nice light fixtures, nice crown moulding, interesting windows, fancy faucets, whatever. if it's all just typical cheap non-descript apartment crap, this is harder. but any kind of closeup to break up the monotony of wide room shots/ establishing shots.

as for lighting, i don't recommend the "not to if possible" approach. to me that sounds like advice given to a newb by someone who was either unable or unwilling to talk about lighting with any particular knowledge. i mean, i'm all for the french new wave and dogma, and shooting naturalistically. i know nestor almendros lit "days of heaven" with a match and some old pantyhose or whatever. i mostly make docs and i rely on available light alot. but using available light well takes as much skill as knowing how to use a grip truck full of lighting stuff. and as far as i can tell, you're talking about a shoot, mostly interiors, where you need to make a place look good, to enhance its looks. telling you not to use lights to do this makes about as much sense as telling you to ditch the dvx and shoot vhs.
 
I would definitely get a wide angle adapter! A good one too, cheap ones are TERRIBLE!!! Someone else please recommend one, because I don't know the best for the DVX.

I say this because I am guessing your client will want the apartments to look spacious and wide angle shots will help this.

Also you may find it very hard to shoot in small bathrooms etc without a wide angle adapter. Do a location recce first to try it out. You may find it would be a waste of money if the rooms are huge.

Detail wise, maybe shots of the expensive taps, or sink, whilst a voice-over interview describes the quality of every detail???? Just ideas.
 
out of curiousity, this may be a whole different topic on its own.

How would one get a sense of volumetric lighting like sun coming from a window? That would be a really nice effect if you could get something like that, but im assuming you'd need a smoke or something to actually see the rays?
 
Yeah you do unless there is natural mist/dust, which you won't have.

A fog machine is better and more even than smoke, but be careful it doesn't make the place look smoky and dirty!
 
I gotcha DOT, thanks a lot, I will see what I can do, this has helped me immensely, (although I'm not sure which adapter to go out and buy, however... What's the rental rate on one of those things I wonder?)

M
 
Big window gels can get pretty pricey. How 'bout changing the light bulbs in the apartment fixtures to a daylight balanced bulb, then you'll not have to worry about the different color temps. Before going to rent a wide angle adapter, why not take your camera to the location first to see if you actually need one? Also, if you are going to bring a bunch of extra lights, you'll need to scout the location first for sure. If you plug too many watts into the same curcuit, you'll blow the breaker. In other words, do you know how many extension cords you'll need to reach that outlet that's on a different breaker in the back bedroom? Little things like this can really come back to haunt you! If you are shooting at 3 in the afternoon, don't scout the location at 10 in the morning! "Gosh where did all this sun come from?" Pay attention to the light. The bedroom might look better at 9 am, and the living room better at noon. Plan your shot set-ups accordingly!

Good luck!

Dan
www.DVcameraRigs.com
 
I did apartment scenes in the picture I just finished shooting and we gelled the windows wherever we could. The ROSCO sheets/ rolls of CTO ran me $119.00 Not cheap for plastic film. BUT - the look cannot be beat. In some circumstances (huge wall to wall glass) we went CTB on the incandescents and practicals. That worked too, fortunately when you have a little daylight coming in it's easy to color correct that and hit the scene with lights, and when you have a lot of natural light - you don't need as much extra, and you can use CTB on the lights you do need. Rolls and sheets of CTO, little squares and pieces of CTB.
 
Collink said:
fortunately when you have a little daylight coming in it's easy to color correct that and hit the scene with lights, and when you have a lot of natural light - you don't need as much extra, and you can use CTB on the lights you do need. Rolls and sheets of CTO, little squares and pieces of CTB.
Click to expand...

That doesn't see to make sense to me. If you're putting a CTO on the window you're correcting that light to 3200k and if AT THE SAME TIME you put CTB on your indoor tungsten's you're getting 5600k. this seems counter productive because you're still mixing color temps by just reversing them. you should be picking one colour temp. and sticking to it. ie. don't touch the window and put CTB on your tungstens or gel the window CTO and don't touch your tungstens

Maybe i just misunderstood the last sentence.
 
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear - I do one OR the other NOT both. It depends on the environment and situation as to which color temp I choose to set up to. The point I was trying to make is you don't always have to go to daylight or tungsten, as long as you color balance the camera to your source. It can be MUCH easier to balance your practicals sometimes if you have huge windows.
 
Collink said:
Rolls and sheets of CTO, little squares and pieces of CTB.
Click to expand...
What Collink said makes sense. He's describing the kit you'd need, to be able to address pretty much any situation. Rolls and sheets of CTO to cover windows, if you decide to go tungsten. Little squares and pieces of CTB to cover your tungsten lights, if you decide to go daylight. You wouldn't use both at the same time, but you would need both in your kit if you wanted to be able to address any situation.
 
Go to your nearest fabric supply store, and pick up a few meters of black "bridal veil" material :) .

Hang it outside the window, or cut and tape inside.

It's cheap, and takes a minute to hang.

Best of all, unless it's bunched-up it's practically invisible to the video camera.

Cuts light by a bit less than a half, and you can use gelled halogen lights to fill in the shadows without having to compete with strong sunlight.

Unfortunately, you can't double-up as you get crazy moire patterns.
 
When bouncing light from existing walls, be careful. The reflected light will contain the colour of the painted walls or ceiling. Most ceilings are painted with a ceiling white, so you should be cool. White poly boards against coloured walls bounces beautifully.
I just worked a soap opera, shot inside an existing house, nightmarish space confinement. For all those reading we balanced sun light with 1200 HMI. Worked well, majority was shot with good Australian sun through big windows, filled with a single HMI. Remember gel will cut your output, we never gelled the room practicals, it made little difference. Subtly balancing sunlight and tungsten is the work of a master, go for it, you may achieve greatness. Take your time, you’re the boss, and photography can be a creative experiment.
 
Pmark23 - black mesh is great for cutting the light from a window down a few stops (which sometimes needs to be done) but all should know this will do nothing to color-correct daylight to tungsten. If you color balance to 3200K you will just have LESS "blue tinted light coming in the window. "Subtly balancing sunlight and tungsten" may be the work of a master, but you have to start somewhere. It's really not too difficult to understand the basic concepts, and then work with it as much as possible. Along the way I hope to learn what I need to know to be considered a master. One trick I have learned along these lines is this: If you want to color balance to tungsten, but you have a window or two that is just too much - even with CTO on it there's just too many footcandles blasting through the glass. Rosco (and Lee, Great American) make a product just for this! In the Rosco E-Color line (VERY similar to Lee filters) they have #207 which is CTO + .3 ND in one gel. #208 is CTO and .6 ND. So you can cut the light 1 stop with the 207 and two stops with the 208.
When you think of it as a ND filter for just a part of the frame you realize the creative possibilities. Also if you are balancing to daylight and that window is really overblown and say you will be shooting out the window or a persons face very near the window (where using mesh to cut down the light would be just too obvious, you can use gels #209, 210 or 211. these are purely ND .3, .6, .9 respectively. I've gone so far as to drape a 210 over the lens one time to get an extra two stops beyond the 1/64 ND setting on the camera so that I could have the iris wide open in extreme sun for DOF. Gels can be expensive, but when using them like I've described, if you take good care or them they will last for many, many shoots, you could use a roll of sheets for years. The only thing you have to watch out for is when gelling some lights the heat will eventually cook the gel into an unuseable condition ESPECIALLY blue CTB. Watch to make sure you are not re-using a CTB that has been bleached to the point that it is no longer making the correction you are trying to achieve. But then that might be a creative opportunity as well. - Collin
 
And yet another option is to shoot at night, thereby not having to deal with the outside light color. You might also get some nice looking shots when you can have it be more "mood", "sexy", whatever.
 
That is a good idea - You could even put a couple of 1000w instruments outside aiming in the window to "create your own "sun" "Cue the sun!"
 
Collink said:
That is a good idea - You could even put a couple of 1000w instruments outside aiming in the window to "create your own "sun" "Cue the sun!"
Click to expand...

If it was good enough for Batman Begins, it's good enough for us. :happy:

Dan
 
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