Can someone link previous thread, I will join them and respond to above question in one go.
Isolate light
- Thread starter Orangeday
- Start date
Hello, I'm new to this forum and this thread caught my eye. Here's my two cents:
You might be surprised just how much good production design can transform/lift your cinematography, not just how the set looks, but the colours used as well. Cinematography isn't just about lights and cameras, production design is just as important. Look at the photos posted in this thread of bars, and googling pictures of bars, they all look like bars (because they are), and you never ever see a plain white wall. The walls all look like bar walls, neon signs, glasses, bottles, pictures, plaques, different textures and designed walls, windows etc.
I would much prefer to take some money from the lighting budget and shoot in a real bar than have nice lights but shoot in a mocked up bar in a friends basement that just looks uninteresting. On this type of low budget stuff, I would prefer to suck ALL the money out of the camera dept budget and shoot in a real bar even if it means with NO lights (by that I mean, most probably you are going to own all your own equipment anyway, I would rather pay say $200 to hire a real bar for a few hours and use 2 cheap LED lights to light the scene, like YN160's and a cheap softbox off ebay and a cheap honeycome grid, than to rent proper lights and have a crappy location).
I've DOP'd a short where the camera dept didn't have any budget at all, instead all the money went into locations, and getting to the locations. We hired a corner store for an evening, I think it cost $200, spent money on props to dress it to make it match the script, I set up some lights and stuff but in the end we ended up shooting with the overhead fluro house lights, I just flagged/cut some of the lights off to one side to get some contrast, taped black sheets over fridges etc. Not one person has commented on the lighting at all, on the other hand if we had spent that $200 or $300 on lights and constructed a shop set in our Uni's studio (it was a Uni project), or someone's garage, it would definitely have looked crappy.
Another example was taking the time and effort to travel to a historical house 3 hours away, it cost money to get there and back and for food etc, thankfully they let us shoot there for free, but only in the day time. The scene was supposed to be at night though, so we blacked all the windows out with blankets and bed sheets (sheets that I actually used on my bed haha).
You'd be surprised how easy it is to secure a decent location with a little bit of tenacity, and I've found getting a confident girl to ask helps as well. On that same short we also shot on a jetty at night, a nice beach with this great 2 or 3 kilometre deep shore at low tide, and another beach and other locations all for free. Even if you have to spend a bit of cash to hire the place for a few hours, do it. Just make sure you rehearse prior so you can get in and out quickly. We shot a 2:30 dialogue scene from 4 angles and some cutaways right on twilight in 25 minutes, as the tide was coming in and we had to keep moving back. Rehearse first.
There's a low budget indie Australian film called Kenny, they travelled with a very light crew (4 people, including the 2 actors) to America and shot a scene in a bar. They just walked into a bar and asked the guy if they could shoot in there, he said yes. So they had one of their crew members walk past behind the actors every now and then in different jackets and hats. Some real patrons actually came into the bar as they were shooting and they just asked if they didn't mind being in a movie, which they didn't so they included them as extras/production value. They used the house lights and a small hand held LED light to light the scene.
Sorry about the length of this post, got a bit carried away. I just want to say one last thing:
If you try and try and just can't get a bar to shoot in, work the "crappy bar" into the script. I assume this is a comedy that you're shooting? Is there one character that's the idiotic goof ball? Shoot a scene where he wants to go to a bar and the other guy goes along, only to find out that it's not a bar, it's someone's garage, and the other character isn't impressed. Like a balding man with a really bad comb over, don't try to hide it, it makes it look worse, draw attention to it, make it look intentional, or shave the head and laugh about it.
Good luck. I'll be following this thread, some great advice here for us newbies. I struggle with isolated direct light as well.
You might be surprised just how much good production design can transform/lift your cinematography, not just how the set looks, but the colours used as well. Cinematography isn't just about lights and cameras, production design is just as important. Look at the photos posted in this thread of bars, and googling pictures of bars, they all look like bars (because they are), and you never ever see a plain white wall. The walls all look like bar walls, neon signs, glasses, bottles, pictures, plaques, different textures and designed walls, windows etc.
I would much prefer to take some money from the lighting budget and shoot in a real bar than have nice lights but shoot in a mocked up bar in a friends basement that just looks uninteresting. On this type of low budget stuff, I would prefer to suck ALL the money out of the camera dept budget and shoot in a real bar even if it means with NO lights (by that I mean, most probably you are going to own all your own equipment anyway, I would rather pay say $200 to hire a real bar for a few hours and use 2 cheap LED lights to light the scene, like YN160's and a cheap softbox off ebay and a cheap honeycome grid, than to rent proper lights and have a crappy location).
I've DOP'd a short where the camera dept didn't have any budget at all, instead all the money went into locations, and getting to the locations. We hired a corner store for an evening, I think it cost $200, spent money on props to dress it to make it match the script, I set up some lights and stuff but in the end we ended up shooting with the overhead fluro house lights, I just flagged/cut some of the lights off to one side to get some contrast, taped black sheets over fridges etc. Not one person has commented on the lighting at all, on the other hand if we had spent that $200 or $300 on lights and constructed a shop set in our Uni's studio (it was a Uni project), or someone's garage, it would definitely have looked crappy.
Another example was taking the time and effort to travel to a historical house 3 hours away, it cost money to get there and back and for food etc, thankfully they let us shoot there for free, but only in the day time. The scene was supposed to be at night though, so we blacked all the windows out with blankets and bed sheets (sheets that I actually used on my bed haha).
You'd be surprised how easy it is to secure a decent location with a little bit of tenacity, and I've found getting a confident girl to ask helps as well. On that same short we also shot on a jetty at night, a nice beach with this great 2 or 3 kilometre deep shore at low tide, and another beach and other locations all for free. Even if you have to spend a bit of cash to hire the place for a few hours, do it. Just make sure you rehearse prior so you can get in and out quickly. We shot a 2:30 dialogue scene from 4 angles and some cutaways right on twilight in 25 minutes, as the tide was coming in and we had to keep moving back. Rehearse first.
There's a low budget indie Australian film called Kenny, they travelled with a very light crew (4 people, including the 2 actors) to America and shot a scene in a bar. They just walked into a bar and asked the guy if they could shoot in there, he said yes. So they had one of their crew members walk past behind the actors every now and then in different jackets and hats. Some real patrons actually came into the bar as they were shooting and they just asked if they didn't mind being in a movie, which they didn't so they included them as extras/production value. They used the house lights and a small hand held LED light to light the scene.
Sorry about the length of this post, got a bit carried away. I just want to say one last thing:
If you try and try and just can't get a bar to shoot in, work the "crappy bar" into the script. I assume this is a comedy that you're shooting? Is there one character that's the idiotic goof ball? Shoot a scene where he wants to go to a bar and the other guy goes along, only to find out that it's not a bar, it's someone's garage, and the other character isn't impressed. Like a balding man with a really bad comb over, don't try to hide it, it makes it look worse, draw attention to it, make it look intentional, or shave the head and laugh about it.
Good luck. I'll be following this thread, some great advice here for us newbies. I struggle with isolated direct light as well.
hello crazy_bob, thanks for your comment.
Yes, it would be great to use a real bar. But, I live from about 400-500€ a month. Rent is about 300€ and the rest is for food. I would have to save money for months.
I also walked around one day and asked about 15 bar owners if I can film in their bar. Everybody said no, so its a bit hard to stay motivated.
Now, one of my actors has some private problems and said he is out of the project. So I have to search a new one and film everything again. But, it gives me time to plan everything again and make it better then the last time.
If I will have a budget one day, it will be no problem to pay for a location, to pay for actors, to put money in set design. But if I do it right now, I could barely realize a project every 3 years. And now everything seems weak, the story isnt perfect, I have to get a lot more experience in directing and filmmaking before thinking about putting a lot of money in the project.
So, right now I want to learn all the stuff that will be important later, the basics. My biggest problem is, how to plan the light for the next shoot, where will I place it, where will I flag, how much intensity will it need, how could I make a not-perfect location acceptable for filming. All the technical things that were bad at the last shoot needs to be better the next time.
Yes, it would be great to use a real bar. But, I live from about 400-500€ a month. Rent is about 300€ and the rest is for food. I would have to save money for months.
I also walked around one day and asked about 15 bar owners if I can film in their bar. Everybody said no, so its a bit hard to stay motivated.
Now, one of my actors has some private problems and said he is out of the project. So I have to search a new one and film everything again. But, it gives me time to plan everything again and make it better then the last time.
If I will have a budget one day, it will be no problem to pay for a location, to pay for actors, to put money in set design. But if I do it right now, I could barely realize a project every 3 years. And now everything seems weak, the story isnt perfect, I have to get a lot more experience in directing and filmmaking before thinking about putting a lot of money in the project.
So, right now I want to learn all the stuff that will be important later, the basics. My biggest problem is, how to plan the light for the next shoot, where will I place it, where will I flag, how much intensity will it need, how could I make a not-perfect location acceptable for filming. All the technical things that were bad at the last shoot needs to be better the next time.
Andrius Simutis
Veteran
Don't get too discouraged. Take all this as a learning opportunity and use it to make the next shot better.
Even big productions don't always have everything they'd want to make a shot perfect so they take what they have and improvise. I worked on a TV shoot with a really talented DP that was able to make all sorts of things look amazing on screen that looked straight up stupid on set. We needed a shot in a high school but didn't have any extras or even a school available. Instead we found a few lockers and had the two actors stand in front of them and had two of our PAs squeeze through the two actors while holding notebooks. The final shot with the sound effect of a school bell and background noise of a lot of kids totally sold the shot as the moment when class lets out. I showed the shot to a friend and after watching it asked him how many students were in the shot. He said at least ten. Watched it again and counted two. That's the magic of filmmaking. Take what you have and make it look like more.
Even big productions don't always have everything they'd want to make a shot perfect so they take what they have and improvise. I worked on a TV shoot with a really talented DP that was able to make all sorts of things look amazing on screen that looked straight up stupid on set. We needed a shot in a high school but didn't have any extras or even a school available. Instead we found a few lockers and had the two actors stand in front of them and had two of our PAs squeeze through the two actors while holding notebooks. The final shot with the sound effect of a school bell and background noise of a lot of kids totally sold the shot as the moment when class lets out. I showed the shot to a friend and after watching it asked him how many students were in the shot. He said at least ten. Watched it again and counted two. That's the magic of filmmaking. Take what you have and make it look like more.
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
One doesn't need to be on a limited budget... I live in So. California, about 100 miles from Downtown Hollywood, and it is very difficult to get 'locations'. Everyone thinks a 'film' has infinite budget, or, are worried about any 'liability', and so even if they may give the location for 'free' they will often ask for a insurance 'rider' limiting their 'damage' should someone sue for some reason. The same is true for city and state property, even if there is only a minimal or even no 'use fee', must have insurance.
The only way I've found to get access to locations is to have someone in the group who has a friend, who has control over the property... and then the project crashes if that group member decides to move on to other things...
As for 'how much light', the basic exposure setting for 'movies' is the following:
for ISO 100, 100 footcandles (1000 lux) @ 1/48 sec. exposure (180 deg) @ 24 fps @ f/2.8
These days with modern cameras shooting at ISO 800, the formula is:
12 Footcandles @ 180 @ 24 @ f/2.8
If you like to shoot at f/2.8, fine, but I prefer f/4 - f/5.6, so I'd have to increase the light to about 25-50 footcandles (250-500 lx).
This formula has nothing to do with 'shaping' light etc. just how much light is required for a basic exposure.
However, it does indicate that one needs far less light than in the past.
The other issue is 'light quality'... the problem with tungsten is that it requires lots of power, even for the 25-50 fc delivered to the subject... the Inverse Square law is a killer... And the LED/CFL lights that are popular consumer low power solutions to tungsten, have very poor 'color' characteristics.
So my recommendation is to think about presenting in glorious Black and White...
Understandable. Damn money, never have enough of the stuff.
How about shooting little paid jobs to put towards your budget? Or find a bar that will let you shoot in there in exchange for a promo video for their website/facebook/youtube channel etc. I don't mean to be that guy that says "what I did was...", but we did this once, shot a paid video (promo/internet advert) for a hotel and used that money for the budget for another film.
Anyway, failing that, just shoot somewhere else. Use what you have available now. I wish I could underdstand your videos but do you actually NEED a bar? Or is it because it will look cool? Shoot a scene with the same thematic/story reasons in a different location. Re-assess whether you really NEED the bar or not. EG: A film involving a lonely old man who drinks too much, you can shoot him sitting at a bar drinking alone, or the same effect sitting at his house drinking (poor example but you ge the point). I shoot comedy sketch videos as well, and when we're developing them we always just use what we have available. I know my weakness is lighting interior scenes, well my weakness is everything, but it's worse with interior scenes, so I avoid using interiors until I can light them acceptably. If we have one planned at a bustop, can't find a appropriate bus stop? No worries, shoot it on a bench in a park, can't find that? Go to the local university where they teach film, you're generally allowed to shoot on campus whenever you want (done it heaps at all hours), if that's too busy, do it at night at 2am... it's the content that matters the most.
Anyway, I digress, this thread is about lighting, not locations. Maybe save the more ambitious stuff for later and practice on smaller, logistically easier stuff now using what you have available to you now. Then when you get more skilled down the track, you can shoot in bars and what not. For now, just get good at lighting stuff in general, practice practice practice. Practice lighting by getting your two actors together, light them sitting somewhere and shoot something, anything. I did exactly that 2 nights ago, a quick improvised skit, lit with 1 cheap $30 LED light from ebay (Cn160), also had a cheap flashlight as a rim light but turned that off, this is straight out of the camera, no grading/correcting:
Another one in the same style, lit with a cheap halogen worklights from the hardware store, and the same cheap cn160 LED, also ungraded:
And yet another, this time a 250w redhead and another LED light from ebay (these things are fantastic):
They are far fom perfect, but I'm practicing as much as I can.
In my limited experience, what you're missing is controlled directional light. The interior room shots, I would start by getting 2 or 3 pratical table lamps (bulb strength will need to be experimented with. turn only 1 of these on and all other lights off in the room, then turn each one on one a time and look at your camera sreen, put them off to the sides/angles of your actors, behind, basically anywhere besides directly in front until you get something pleasing. Maybe bound a little light into the opposite corner/wall/roof to to bring the room level light up slightly, then for close-up shots use a small LED light with some blackwrap to create a snoot or sometihng just to augment the lamps. Move your actors away from the walls when possible, if you can't, like say one is sitting on a couch which has to be against a wall, put a lamp behind them or directly to the side, or move the couch to infront of the window. Maybe even a bit of blue light coming from outside the window inside, from a CFL bulb in a softbox, or clamp light or something similar. Spend a night doing this, even alone by yourself if you have to.
EDIT: sorry about the long post again, I got carried away... again.
EDIT 2: Get some grids/honeycomb grids for your softboxes as well, they are cheap and will help
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