Lava Light

PixelMagic

PixelMagic

Active member
Hey guys. I'm going to be shooting a scifi movie soon and I was wondering if you guys could give me some advice. The whole thing will be shot on bluescreen, and I need to create lava cast light onto the actors. I'm going for lighting on my actors similar to this...

anakin.jpg


Now, I don't want to get a lighting gel that is too red or too orange because it will look fake. Can someone give me specifics on how they would like this, including what color gels and whatnot.
 
This i imagine was done in post, because everything is that color. Doing it by lighting should give superior results to this.

If your shooting video, be sure to white balance before gelling.

As far as gels goes you'll have to do a little trial and error to get the look you want.

Some of the gels you may want to check (these are Rosco numbers)

3407 is a full CTO typically used to convert 5500K to 2900K
3408 is 1/2 CTO
3420 is a double CTO designed to convert 10000K to 2400K

These are all fairly red, more toward the yellows are straw filters
3441 is a full straw converts 5500k to 2900k
3442 is a 1/2 straw 5500K to 3800K

then threr's 3401 the standard 85 to convert daylight to tungsten.

Using different temp gels on different lights (key, fill, back etc.) can really increase the intensity of the look. use the dark red for fill and a more yellow (less red) for back should really make things pop.

One other thing to be careful about is the splash from the blue screen, keep your actor as far from the screen as fesiable, for blue and red are on opposite ends of the spectrum. However it should key nicley.
 
Well what you show is not done in camera. No camera could make such a saturation and no one would want the camera too. So lets make it look more like the way it was probably shot minus the color correction
man1delete.jpg


Thats better. More of a skin tone and all that red overlay gone. That said, notice something? If I can take it out I can put it in too. And if you are planning such and effect, I would seriously consider doing it mostly in post. Why? Because then you don't lock yourself into something you can not get out of. TV hates red so if you start out with too much you are not going to have an easy time with it later. And with the picture I made above, I can give it a very yellowish tinge:
man2delete.jpg

Or a very cool as in cold blue look:
man3delete.jpg

Or I can put him in times square where he doesn't look so tough anymore does he?
man4delete.jpg


The point is that here is an example of where post helps me a great deal. I say shoot him knowing what the background will be. In fact do a test first to see if the lighting matches the look you want.

As for gels, there are two types, color correction and theatrical. Theatrical are basically pure colors like reds, greens blues and everything else in between. We use color correction gels to alter the perceived color temperature of a light source and we use theatrical gels to color a set or person artificially with a hue. If you were going that route here you would not use color correction but theatrical red gels here.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. Yes, I do know that some of it is done in post. I just wanted to get basic similar hues on set, and then I can color correct them to taste. I do know that there will be lava everywhere in the virtual backgrounds, so I wanted to get a similar look that is shown in the image above. Could you explain what CTO means? I have never used gels before.

My idea was to use a deep red for a fill light, and orange/yellow for the key light, and a more amberish light on the rim light. I just wanted more specifics on exact colors you guys would use so that it look like natural lava light, and not artificial. I imagine the light coming from lava would be soft light as well, so I will need to diffuse the light sources.

And while I have your attention, I have looked all over the internet for a trick I learned once. It is to fake fire cast light. I believe it involves cutting strips of lighting gels and blowing them with a fan while a light is shown through them. This creates the illusion of fire cast light on the actors. Is that correct?

EDIT: After a bit of searching on Rosco's site, I came up with these numbers that might work nicely...

KEY LIGHT:
Roscolux # 15 Deep Straw
Warm golden amber with some green. Useful for special effects-candlelight, firelight

FILL LIGHT:
Roscolux # 19 Fire
Strong red amber. Excellent for fire effects.

BACKLIGHT:
Roscolux #16 Light Amber
Excellent aera light. Light pink-amber tint. Safe for most light skin tones.


What do you guys think?
 
If you're planning on shooting on DV, I'd say you'd be well advised to not attempt the all-red look in-camera. DV cameras choke on all-red or all-blue; you'd be much better off to shoot it with a more normal color palette and create the red look in post. Shooting red subjects is going to lead to heavy block artifacts.

With that said, if you plan on mastering out to DV again, the low color sampling of DV is going to compromise the image again anyway...
 
Humm, in that case, how about I just slightly tint the lights toward red and then take it the rest of the way in post, will that work?
 
Barry said it best. Don't over saturate to much color when shooting, especially with DV. As I hinted in what I showed above, start yourself off but finish the effect in post. Notice that when I corrected back to the way they probably shot it then added color in the proceeding shots the highlights became the colors I wanted. So the light that is on the back of his head became a highlight of what I wanted it to be when I used the blue scheme. The reality is you have to test. In the professional world of film if we have a question the answer is always the same, test it out and see if it works. It's a lot easier to test and know something works than not to test and not beable to do what you want. TEST TEST TEST.
 
A directorial question:

Are you sure the actors need to be red-lit at all? Or more than just a teeny bit?

The thing is, if they are close enough to the lava to be lit by it (and the lava hasn't crusted over with the cooler black rock), aren't they also close enough to...well...burst into flame? Or melt? Or at least sweat entirely too much?

What I'm getting at is you might just want red/orange highlights on reflective surfaces, not an over-all cast.
 
Well, at some parts the actors will not be that close to the lava, just on a catwalk above it. But there is one part where the actors will be standing on broken pieces of rock that is riding on top of the lava flow. For those shots, the red light needs to be intense.

Well, I don't have any of my own bluescreen footage to test, so I used some online. Here are the results of doing it in post...

boba_bluescreen.jpg


lava-light-test.jpg
 
OK.

More info...and you may not care...Lava temps range from 500-1500K, so if you want to get the color "right", there you go. :) Not a true black-body, but probably close.

(I tried to find some brightness figures, but all a Google turns up is info on growing marijuana in crushed lava rock.)
 
Wow, thanks for the color temps. Based on the feed back in this thread, I believe I will tint my actors slightly red and orange, and then take it the rest of the way in post. Also, a red lit actor against bluescreen should key very nicely.
 
"But there is one part where the actors will be standing on broken pieces of rock that is riding on top of the lava flow."

DON'T DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your actors will die a horrible death. Lava is more than 2500 Degrees. :)
 
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