Lighting for interior bar/restaurant

[dcdirector]

Hello all and thanks in advance for reading and hopefully answering my question. I'm shooting a short film using a Panasonic HVX-200 with the Redrock M2 adapter inside of a bar/restaurant. The director wants the minimal of lights -- use only practicals, candlelight on tables, etc. I know that I'm going to have at least a base light (1K with a chimera) to get enough light on the scene, but I was wondering if anybody has any ideas on how to boost the overall light without losing the integrity of the look of a bar/restaurant. The scene is 3 guys sitting around a booth talking. Thanks.

 

[cinemakinoeye]

The director wants the minimal of lights -- use only practicals, candlelight on tables, etc. [...] I was wondering if anybody has any ideas on how to boost the overall light without losing the integrity of the look of a bar/restaurant [...]

You may not need to boost the overall levels, just make sure some part of critical objects are back or side lit. Bringing up the overall levels may actually muddy the scene. Go for back and side lights to give the scene dimension. Sculpted lighting is what you might expect in a bar/restaurant, especially when the director's talking about "practicals, candlelight on tables, etc." Less is more.

When it comes to bars and minimal lighting, I suggest you start with what's there as your baseline and then think about what you need to add to create the mood, feel, and sense of dimensionality. Backlights are very useful in this kind of scenario, and are easy to motivate, since a bar has all sorts of light sources. Candles are great, and the HVX, especially when your shooting at 24fps and have the shutter speed at 1/24, is pretty sensitive to light and easy to work with in these environments. Here's an example of shooting with existing bar lighting as the baseline and then adding a backlight:



In this shot I started with the existing light at the bar and in order to enhance the dimensionality (I like having lots dark areas, that says "bar" at least for this film) and perceive depth and avoid a muddy look, I made sure some objects were well lit, but from the side and back, for a chiaroscuro effect. Make sure there are always areas of black and speculars and highlghts here and there, increasing the sense of depth and dimension.

This shot is all existing light except for a single Arri 650W Fresnel in full flood on a dimmer (making it easy to quickly tweak to perfection) behind the actors (about 10 feet). For exposure determination I used both zebras, the camera's histogram and a 9" PVM series CRT monitor (calibrated to bars). Had I actually shot this with an HVX (long story why I did not) I would, of course, had used the spot meter. The spot meter in the DVX and HVX is an excellent tool for doing this kind of lighting allowing you to measure EXACTLY where your shadows are in the tonal range, it's the next best thing to a waveform monitor, and handier, as it's built in to the camera. One of the goals on this shoot was to use as few additional lights as possible, but to use then as needed, in order to move quickly from scene to scene, as it was part of a 48 Hour Film Project.

 

[CineMark]

Agreed. The main thing with a bar shot is not over-lighting it, which is super easy to do. keep it as dark as possible. we had to shoot in a bar once and after overlighting it a few times we totally toned back and used the existing bar light with a bit of fill from the Arri 1k fresnel. It came out right.

Go into the bar (or a bar you want to mimic) and get a good feel of the lighting and then just try to recreate that. No big sources or floods of light. Just good and spotty.

 

[dcdirector]

thanks guys

thanks guys

but the scenes is actually in a booth -- imagine a low lit bar where three guys are sitting inside a booth with the wall directly behind the booth and they are looking out towards the rest of the bar.

 

[bcheong]

In some cases you will set an overall higher base level (if you want to shoot at a deeper stop) and then come back in with accent lights and then stop down or print down/cc darker in post. As long as you're contrast ratios are right (you have hightlights that are brighter than your key light level and a good mix of things under key level) it doesn't really matter how bright it is overall to your eye. This of course takes much more lights because you're working at higher levels.

Depending on space you can shoot through larger pieces of diffusion or shooting 1K's in the ceiling works in many cases to set a good base level.

As mentioned here it's much easier to work at a lower key level and just use the base level already in the location adding splashes of light here and there that are brighter than key just to create some contrast so everything is not muddy. Again this depends on your preferred shooting stop.

 

[cinemakinoeye]

but the scenes is actually in a booth -- imagine a low lit bar where three guys are sitting inside a booth with the wall directly behind the booth and they are looking out towards the rest of the bar.

You can still back light them, it may take more rigging/cleverness, but it can be done. Here is also where a practical and/or candles on the table can come in handy. Did you take any photos during the location scout? If so, why not post some of them so we can talk relevant details. Boy I wished they had cheap digital cameras back when I was first learning cinematography, they are excellent tools for judging existing lighting situations.