Lighting a Suburban Interior

djkarn105

djkarn105

Well-known member
I have a project coming up this summer which mostly takes place in a single family suburban home.

I remember reading in American Cinematographer Roger Deakins talking about lighting the house in that movie for day by putting two 12k's outside to have consistent daylight coming in the whole day.

That got me thinking. I don't have access to 12k Arris but I could get 10 or so work lights from the hardware store, balance them for daylight and throw those at the windows. Anyone have any advice on how much light one would really need given we're shooting video (possibly with an adapter) not film.
 
To get a true match, you'd need a crapload of watts. 24k of HMIs at 5600k is like 64k of tungsten at 3200k or 256k of tungsten at 5600k (after gels).
(Assumptions: HMIs are about 3x more efficient than tungsten, 3200 to 5600 costs 2 stops, and a constant watt/output ratio)

The reason Deakins uses so much light is because he wants to overpower the sun.

I would suggest picking time of day that's easy to match and using bouce or shiny boards on c-stands if needed. Bring a PA/Gaffer to make constant adjustments. If you're shooting at night, you could get away with a lot less light to look like daylight, assuming you don't need to light whatever is outside the window.
 
I would imagine the AC article was referring to 12K HMIs, which I would estimate eqauls the output of ~40K watts of tungsten light. Assuming you were to actually go through the trouble of balancing all these work lights blue, thereby losing 2 stops, you're not looking at 120 1K lights to equal the output of a single 12K HMI. In other words, it's not realistic.

Smaller lights coming through the windows won't do much of anything to compete with the natural daylight anyhow. I'd recommend simply bouncing light inside to raise the ambient levels. If you really can't afford to rent a few Joker 800s, then at least you'll get the maximum effect of the worklights by bouncing them closer to the area you're trying to light. Your windows will still blow out without ND on them, but you'll get closer to a usable image.

My final recommendation- be smart with your camera angles by using natural light to your advantage (shoot 90-degrees to oncovered windows and map out shots according to sunpath), and the issue of competing with natural light won't be as difficult.

*edit: what ProfessorU said.
 
I just did a shoot on my RED where we took probably 4-5 42"x42" and blasted them through the windows. What it did was give nice hotspots. Of course, there were a decent amount of windows already so we have to enough exposure to begin with. My suggestion is if you are on a budget, go to Home Depot/Lowes and get 4x8 sheets of shiny board insulation. It should be fairly cheap and you can cut a 4x8 sheet in half to make 2 decent sized boards.

Matthew
 
RyanT said:
Why is there a slash :( :( :(

Get a good gaffer and all your problems will be magically wisked away. If not, shiny boards are probably the way to go guessing what your budget is (not much?)
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The slash is there depending on how many digits are in the budget. ;) A gaffer is a great option but if this poster could afford one, he'd probably also have some HMIs in the truck.
 
> Yeah, I was thinking of rigging up a scoop shaped reflector outside the windows.

?

I don't know what that means...


I concur w/ matt Rogers. Goto home depot and get a shiny board if you have no budget. Get a grip if you have a little budget and use some real MSE shiny boards. If you have a good budget, get a gaffer with a truck, and use a couple of 1,200 HMIs, or even some 4-6K HMIs.
If you have a great budget, get Deakins.
 
djkarn105 said:
I have a project coming up this summer which mostly takes place in a single family suburban home.
Click to expand...

Whats the project? A 5 minute short or a feature?

Any Cinematographer needing consistency to shoot a scene at any time of day is going to go with large HMI's and other methods to control light.

But if you are shooting a 5/10 minute short use the natural light and use your home depot lights to add to it. Get yourself some cinefoil (black wrap) and use it to control them, then use full CTB to daylight balance them (approx. accurate). Use black sheets to cut light on windows you dont want to effect the overall lighting scheme. This doesnt give you full control, but will let you get through a few scenes. Then do your scenes all have to be the same time of day? You can usually wing some shadow shift.

You'll need more control so get yourself (make up) some cutters and flags.
 
Most worklights operate at 3000k, not 3200, so you'll need about a full CTB plus a 1/8-1/4 to correct to 5600k.

It's much cheaper to work with the sun than against it.
 
Noel Evans said:
Whats the project? A 5 minute short or a feature?
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It's a15 minute short. I'm mainly concerned because it is going to have to be shot over 4 weekends and weather conditions may change.

> Yeah, I was thinking of rigging up a scoop shaped reflector outside the windows.

I don't know what that means...
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Basically, getting some reflective material and putting them on some kind of frame / stand that angles / curves up reflecting daylight into the window.
 
The scoop shaped reference threw me for a loop. The industry standard tool would be to use HMI lights pumped in through the window to keep things constant, or if you don't have a budget for lights, you could use this (or emulate it) to control the light:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/32729-REG/Matthews_119070_Reflector_42x42_.html

Another option is to silk the windows if you don't need to see out of them. If you shade the silk from direct sunlight, that'll give you soft light at a more or less constant level throughout the shoot, clouds or sun.
 
ProfessorU said:
Most worklights operate at 3000k, not 3200, so you'll need about a full CTB plus a 1/8-1/4 to correct to 5600k.

It's much cheaper to work with the sun than against it.
Click to expand...

What exactly do all of those things mean? Just the filters/gels. What do each of those do? Off topic, but is there an article or something to remind me and teach me functions of all the gels?

Thanks.
 
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