Lighting a big room

C

c.g._eads

Veteran
Still learning this whole lighting thing. Let's say you're lighting a big room for an establishing shot. Big being relative as the room is about 800 sq ft. Now what I do, is I blast my biggest light, a 1k (sorry, it's all I got) towards the room. Now what you veterans already know, and I'm finding out, is that the back of the room trails off in light, and it gets dark and yuckier looking. It looks cheap. So, my question is, how do I fill in the rest of the room without putting lights physically in the shot. I have another 1k and some 500s. So that should be enough to light the room, right?
 
Bounce the key light. Or bounce the other lights?

If a light is shooting into the front of a room, and you bounced a light off the ceiling to take care of the back of the room, because it's *bounced*, it wouldn't be as powerful, right? So the back of the room would still be dark (albeit slightly brighter). Also, wouldn't that light inadvertantly light the front of the room up even more, keeping the difference between the front and the back of the room the same?

I know these sound like stupid questions, but I'm just trying to learn.
 
I agree, bounce them (off the ceiling or foam core) or shoot them through diffusion so the fall off is less dramatic and the shadows less harsh.
 
I agree that bouncing off the ceiling is a good way to raise ambient light levels in a room, however, for an 800 sq ft. space, you're going to need a lot more than a 1k and a couple 500's. Are we seeing the ceiling? What color are the walls? Is it night, day, are we competing with windows? These are all things that can be taken into account. What stop are you trying to achieve on your camera? Also, keep in mind that if you just bounce all your light off the ceiling, you might not be left with much to actually light the actors, and you'll be left with light that looks like it's bounced off the ceiling. If the ceiling isn't white, you might be able to tape large 4x8 pieces of foam core or bead board up there to eek a little more light out of the bounce. It's a pretty broad question, and each situation is different. Also as yourself if there are any practical lights in the shot- if there aren't, think about adding some. I was lighting a restaurant once and needed some light, but we were seeing the whole room, so I had our gaffer rig some 100watt practicals into this stainless steel prep station in the room, we had about 500 watts of light coming out of there, and the stainless steel made a nice bounce. Practicals can be anything, candles, lamps- you can get really creative. Chinese paper lanterns can work wonders, especially if you put a couple 150 watt globes in them. Just be VERY careful, they can catch fire easily. Also, when using them, cut a small piece of diffusion for the hole in the bottom- 216 works well.
 
The problem you will have with bouncing or diffusing your light is that it will make your 1k light like a 500, it will cut your light output considerably.

The best solution, but not the cheapest, is to use an HMI light. They are really expensive to buy, but you can rent them for pretty cheap.
 
a 1200 HMI is a good solution if you're going to be running off of standard 20 amp household power. Give it a dedicated circuit, and you should be good to go. Make sure to carry some 1/8th and 1/4 plus and minus green- some HMI's can burn a little green or a little magenta even after warming up. A 1200 HMI will give you about 5 times more output per watt than a tungsten light. Just beware of flickery magnetic ballasts, especially if you're filming with a high frame rate or shutter speed.
 
hey seunosewa, the setup is in another location unfortunately. thanks for the replies so far. Very informative.

How much is a 1200 HMI? Shooting over weekends so purchasing one then selling it later would be a better option than renting every weekend.

what are flickery magnetic ballasts? I assume that's the slight flicker the light gives off that might show up on video. How do you prevent it?
 
Yes, a flickery ballast would be one that has a flicker that might show up on video. You can avoid it by A) renting an electronic, flicker free ballast (more money, nicer) or B) using the synchro scan on your camera and adjusting the shutter speed to get rid of the flicker, similar to filming off of a TV screen.
 
Very informative about the HMI light flickering. When buying or renting, how do we make sure that the ballast is flicker free unit? Do we just have to ask them or is there something on the unit that verifies it is a flicker free ballast?

So something like this will work, right? By the way, is Altman a good brand compare to Arri? It seems Altman brand is much cheaper compare to Arri for a similar HMI 1200 watts.
 
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I'd spot a couple of 1ks up into the center of the room, that'd evenly illuminate the entire room, softly. You could also use practicals and light coming in from windows and hallways to suppliment.
 
Note: If the building is really old or if the paint isn't heat resistant, bouncing that much wattage into a small area on the ceiling could well cause the paint to crack.
 
The scene is a simple one. Two friends talking at a table who haven't seen eachother in a while. It's supposed to look very neurtral.
 
Where is your light source ?

Are you just throwing light in from anywhere ? Are there windows ? Lights in the cieling ? Lamps ?

Determine this and you'll know how to light it. You have to have a motivation to why you are lighting it.
 
You know, I've seen a lot of lighting questions in my day, and this is a really good one.

Why?

Because any shot that has a lot of width, depth or both, especially if its an interior, is going to be a challenge to light, and the sooner you realize that, the better.

Whenever a director approaches me with shots they want to do on a tiny budget, one of the first things I ask them about is the shots width and depth. Quite frankly, I can't do much on a shoe string budget that actually looks good if the director wants to do some huge interior shot. Granted, there are some exceptions to the rule. If the director and the DP realize this early on, you can actively work your way around it. I once did a pilot TV show that had this big huge hallway shot, EVERYTHING is seen, ceiling, walls, floor, you name it. The budget was micro size. How do you shoot that?

Having done wide and deep shots before, I was very upfront with the director... I told him this shot would take quite a bit of time, several hours to pull off what is really just a few seconds of footage. After explaining why, he was cool about it, he really wanted that shot, so he budgeted about 4 hours for it.

My solution was a lock off composite shot. I hung china balls down the hallway and shot the live action stuff first. The next setup involved tearing the china balls down and lighting the ceiling on its own. In post, I composited the two shots together, and it worked like a charm.

Communication and planning are essential for these types of shots, heck, filmmaking in general. As a DP, every other sole working on the shoot is a liability to me and my success at creating the directors vision. A good example would be an inexperienced producer. Why? Because they often times don't understand what is required for a DP to do a really good job, and next thing you know, they lock in a location for way to short a time period. I once had a producer secure a location for only 2 hours, at the last minute. 2 HOURS!!! Thats enough time to get gear in the door and be halfway setup, and yes, this was a big huge wide shot (deep and wide), and it looked bad because time wasn't properly budgeted. We had the tools, just not enough time, or man power, to do it in only 2 hours.

End of Rant!
 
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