Lighting Hallways.

David G. Smith

David G. Smith

Steak Knife Member
I seem to find myself having to light hallways where I can not change out the practicals or where there are no practicals and the shots always end up showing the whole hallway (nowhere to hide fixtures). I have been lighting by hideing fixtures in junctures to try and cover part of the hallway and opening stratigic doorways and hiding/angleing lights to get as much coverage as possible. Then I use angled soft light from the front to light the talent. It always seems to be a compromise and I dread lighting them...

Anyone else have any suggestions for lighting hallways?
 
Questions first:
1. Night time or Day?
2. Dramatic/scarey or reality?

Shooting down a hallway...
Do you have doorways along one side of the hall?
You could punch some lights through these and make that your key.
Day time - warm up the lights a little- 1/2 CTO and stick a branch with some smaller leaves on it (makes a sharper shadow) in front of the light. "Branchalorous."
It'll look like light coming from a window.
Night time- go the other way. Put some blue gel on the lights- 1/2 CTB(?). That will look like moon light in relation to the pratical lights (lamps, hall lights).

Set up a soft/front fill for shadow levels. Vari to your taste. There's more to it, but that should be a good start.

On your locations, Set your KEY light and source/motivation, and finish lighting from there.

Hope this is helpful,
Jeff Patnaude :beer:
 
Thanks Jeff. I have been fortunate so far, in that alot of the fictional narrartive work that I have done lately has been Horror/Fantasy which leaves me alot of room for lighting choices. The problem I am now faceing is that I am negotiating to shot a Drama that takes place in low income highrise apartment building, and according to the Producer, we can shoot in a real LIHA, but, we are limited in time and equipment, in that we are not supposed to disrupt the residents of the housing project in any way. Of course, the script has two five page scenes, set in the hallways of the housing project that, according to the Director, must be shot in the hallways. The Director, Producer and "Production Designer" want, a "post modern noir" look and I am cool with that, except for these ****ing hallway scenes.

Oh well, I'll come up with something.
 
Use the practicles as best that you can, change out bulbs, gel or whatever. Use hand held reflectors to fill from the camera angle, this will keep you from crushing your blacks. Try to pin down the director (good luck) on where the close up scenes are and insisit on lighting those. otherwise prepare them for what they are going to get, substandard results due to the lack of proper lighting
 
Okay - there's a million things to say on this one, but I'll try and be brief.

1st: mattpoles (polecats), or spreaders are worth their weight in gold if you have time for pre-rigging and enough ceiling height. That's always my first option so I can 'control' my light from above and snoot it, even if I'm using kinos, so I can keep light off my walls. Always keep hard light off you walls.

2nd: the suggestions above were good for noir and horror lighting from doors. but sometimes you need to have light on a subject walking towards you(camera), in which case you floating light, either on a dolly with you or hand held by a grip so as to keep the subject from over heating as they near.

I'm under the impression from your posts that you lack the time or budget to do any of the above, in which case low lighting always works best, just spill from windows and doors and keep it creepy. And for key moments where a character stops to say something and they need to be lit, you stick one of those cheap battery operated closet lights on the wall where they's supposed to stop. Never be affraid to create a practicle.
 
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