Lighting for an inexperienced crew

[Deframer]

Hey guys, we're (collectively, though we're using our sound guy's account) a relatively inexperienced crew trying to put together a short in March. We're trying to light a room for a nighttime scene, the unscaled floorplan of which set out below (4.9m x 4.2m). It's a white-walled (damn, white, I know) bedroom with a decent ceiling height that the main character will be moving out of, so aside from what is on the plan below there will be far more boxes and debris scattered about, and a couple of mattresses leaning up against the back wall too. The people depicted by the blue and pink ovals will be sitting from setup 2 onwards. There are no windows.

We'd like to keep the actor and actress sitting up against objects close to the wall, because in our tests set design hasn't been able to pull them far enough off the wall with the debris we have without making it look like a very odd choice of seating location.

So, long story short, the question is - in such a small space, where we're really only utilising half the space for the scene (with shots set up as they are, we will never really see the front-end of the room), will something like the Lowel DV 1 kit + a 2k Photon Beard tungsten be enough to fill the space with some ambient light and sufficiently light the actors? Would we even need the tungsten? We know we can't even begin to approach the mood of this scene from Garden state, given the annoying white walls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnCeVYmCYXY but we'd like to approach something of roughly the same intensity.

If not, we'll hire - it's just that we currently have access to the Lowel kit and the tungsten on the shooting dates for free. We would go set it up for ourselves to take a look, but lamentably we haven't access to the equipment until a few days before starting shooting.

Edit: Forgot to add: thanks in advance for any advice. Know how tiresome this kind of thread gets

Edit edit: Also, more details, but that's where the devil is: we'll mostly be shooting with a 7D, 50mm f/1.4 lens all the way open, though we'll have to switch to a 25mm f/3.5 for the slightly wider shot from Cam 1 and 2.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

I strongly encourage you to get Barry and David's Lighting DVD

Minor thoughts on the diagram ... All of that apartment and everything is shot in one direction as if it was on stage. Use the space to your advantage; you have 360 degrees of set. What you have so far seems very stagnant, unmotivated and visually boring and lacking motivation. OTS, REVERSE, SLOW DOLLY .....

 

[Darren Levine]

sounds like you are thinking mise en scene before thinking actor blocking. get them off the wall and work the 'debris' around that

 

[bruce southerland]

If you want the feeling of the scene from "Garden State", you'll have to block the scene so the actors are away from the wall that will be on camera. Key the actors
from opposite the camera so that you can control the amount of light that will hit the wall that is in the shot. Make a homemade softbox from cardboard or some other
board--something that can be clamped to the barndoors of the light--tape diffusion material to the front( something to control the light and concentrate it on the
actors-not the wall). Fill the scene with one of the other lights bounced off a white
reflector board(at least a 4'x4') from the camera side(or just bounce light off the white wall behind the camera-make it a large soft source).
If you feel like you don't have enough room to pull them off the wall, try blocking the scene so you can shoot thru the door from outside the room-if that's a possibility.

Hope this helps

 

[craigbowman]

Making a room the size of a postage stamp look larger and more interesting can be done as a combination of rudimentary set decoration on the cheap, cheating the layout and using longer lenses, the total opposite of what people might think. Its also dirt simple to light.


Desk is cheated out from the wall to middle of room and camera is placed low looking up.

From reverse we go to a longer lens making it less obvious we're against the wall.

Shooting to the other side of the room.

Again longer lens on the two shot.

Right through a two shot close.

Only in the master shot which was never used do you see how small the room actually is. (The quick set decoration took only took about ten minutes.)

 

[Deframer]

Thanks for the responses guys that all helps immensely. We're working on the blocking as we speak - it's funny you mention that because our actor is also the script writer and came up with that blocking to simplify it for us (the crew) it's a couple in a deep conversation about a long distance relationship as well, so he felt it made sense for them to be close throughout the whole dialogue, especially since neither character is particular comfortable with emotional expression. I suppose that's the easy way out though; at this point, the most popular suggestion is to have more back and forth movement between a cupboard on the far wall in setups one and two.

That aside, do you think the kit we have access to will be sufficient for the small space? My guess is yes, but we're trying to reduce guesswork as much as possible. Bizarrely, the room craig posted is almost a facsimile of ours, save that the walls are white and it's minus one beveled edge.

 

[j]

It's been mentioned a couple of times, but it should be emphasized: keep your actors away from the walls. Why? lighting, movement, camera placement - too much info to go into but just try to keep it in mind. Just take a look at any movie or tv show. The actors are never against a wall. Instead of putting your camera in the middle of the room and actors against the wall, switch it around and put your actors in the middle of the room and the camera against the wall.

As for the location - white walls? Ugh. Offer to paint the room in a "designer" color for free. Off white is soooooo much better than plain white. Think earth tones if possible.

Those two things are not lighting elements directly, but will impact your lighting more than anything else.

 

[Darren Levine]

This logic is entirely backwards, keep this writer/actor away from these decisions! they aren't COMFORTABLE with emotional expression? and he wants them sitting there static so the audience can focus on just how badly they are displaying these emotions? i'd rather watch the pope wave his hand around!

it's the same as don't polish the turd, or don't do closeups of crappy CGI: Don't focus on the weak elements. rehearse these actors until they're damned comfortable, try the whole scene with them holding hands, arms around each other, being physically connected to each other, as close as awkwardly possible, until they as comfortable as my down alternative memory foam $30 pillow from costco. and don't let the price fool you, that pillow is darn comfy!

so after you've gotten them comfortable, then figure out the blocking and pacing. maybe one of them has something they are doing, like packing a bag, but maybe at some point their attention is grabbed and then they go sit down, then the other person says they want a kitty and that makes the other person hold their hand, then one says they want to adopt a jungle baby like angelina jolie does and that makes the other person put their arm around them, etc... etc...

Just make sure their actions have reason and you'll be fine.

oh yea and lighting, do some of that as well, it keeps the doctor away, i think

 

[Deframer]

Hahaha cheers mate valuable advice for perspective

What I meant was that the characters themselves aren't the sort who would ordinarily have this sort of conversation, it's just that the crisis has come to a point and they're both forced to talk about it - the actor and actress are extremely competent, probably the most competent part of this merry little bunch to be frank. Lead male in particular has this kind of nervous, Downey Jr. like energy and turn of phrase that fills the screen. Lead female is an amiable ballbuster

 

[Darren Levine]

ah, well that's a far better situation!

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

will something like the Lowel DV 1 kit + a 2k Photon Beard tungsten be enough to fill the space with some ambient light and sufficiently light the actors?

For the purely technical question of 'is this enough light', you have to look at the Lowels and the 2k's delivered footcandle/lux at given distances from the lamp. Then know what your camera does
with those fc/lux values... is it under exposed, requiring a higher ISO... and living with noise in the shadows.... etc.

I shot a short with what I believe is the same Lowel kit, and with a camera that I had never used, rented, when the Panasonic HMC-140 first came out... I would have liked a lot more light... but with more light
you have to more carefully about shaping the light to give 'visual depth' to the scene.

I really don't think you should be afraid of 'white walls'... you can point your lights at the opposite wall to give a rather 'clean' softbox effect. The biggest problem with 'light colored/white' walls is shadows from the lights ti get enough on the talent... which is were the light shaping comes in...

Since you say your actual target shooting date is in March... I'd recommend testing if the Lowels are 'free and available'... and learn how to deal with the light in the space. You may also change your blocking/camera placements/framing.

For the short that I shot with the Lowels, while I didn't have them for free, I did take measurements before the shoot, and set up my topdown drawings to scale with camera placements so that the only 'question' was the light...

I would also recommend looking at "Architectural Digest' for 'room shots', to get an idea about how to light to give sufficient detail in all areas of the shot... from the examples that I've seen here and elsewhere the emphasis is placed on getting the 'talent' lit, but there are blank black holes in the frame because some background elements were not lit well...