Lighting "night time"

C

Cheesesailor77

Veteran
Im shooting a short in 2 weeks that takes place mostly in a bedroom at night.

I'd like it to have that fake, moonlit look, where it appears all light is coming from the one window even though everything is clear and exposed. Any advice of how to accomplish this? What lights i might use? post techniques to be aware of and such?

Sry if im being vague, please ask anything that will help you give advice and I'll try to be more specific.

If anyone has examples of their work or even someone else's but they know how they did it, please post pics.

THANKS!

(i was going to post in lighting but felt finally cinematography more appropriate)
 
Hi Cheese

First of all; what equipment (Lights) do you have at your disposal?

Can you do a quickie in Photoshop and give us a schematic of the set layout and describe the scene?

Is it upstairs or downstairs?
 
as far as equipment:

briteck 250watt openface w/ barndoors and stand
briteck 350watt " " "
2 1000watt worklights (2 lamps per stand, 2 settings per lamp, you know, the Sears ones)
2 500watt worklights (1 lamp per stand, 2 settings)
2 500watt painters lights (the ones with the diffused glass, that sit on the floor, 2 settings)
2 12" floodlamps w/stands (numerous varieties(sp?) of different wattage bulbs to use)

I might be able to use a crappy softbox from school but we're not sure it works, plus is doesnt look like any softbox ive seen anyone here use, not that that matters i guess

Schematic? I'll put one up as soon as I can.

single floor home :)

Thanks again!

(oh and john, whats the address for the Undead Nation board? I havnt been for a month because i dont know where to find it!)
 
The UN board is inactive right now; just busy working and learing filmmaking for now. I'll keep everyone in the loop when there is loopage.

Post a schematic as soon as you can; I'd love to see how you plan this one out; in knowing the scene and what's involved it will be easier to know how may lights and where.

Questions on the lights? The briteks are Tungsten right? Are you planning to use CTB?
 
yes i believe they're tungsten. as for CTB, i dont have any but might be able to get some if it will make a difference.

I'm hoping to go the "set" tomorrow for measurements. I'll put up a floorplan and some storyboard cards as soon as i can.

thanks for the help
 
If it's the traditional Hollywood "blue moon" look you're going for, don't bother with CTB, since it'll cut your light level. You can easily grade your image in post to look blue if that's what you want.

Some might argue that this approach -- processing the image with filters versus achieving the look in camera (via your chroma, gamma, pedestal, and saturation settings) and on set during production -- means potentially degrading the image, and to be sure, DV doesn't hold up well to excessive manipulation in post, but simple grading for a moonlit blue tint shouldn't negatively affect your image. Of course, post manipulation won't help if your original image isn't lit appropriately to achieve the low-key, high-contrast look often associated with moonlit interiors and exteriors.

Over the last year and a half, I've been sporadically shooting a short set mostly indoors at night, with a traditional low key, blue moonlight, and shafts of light on walls look.

We've been using my DP's Arri kit (3 1k's, a 300 and a 150), plus two of my briteks (usually sans the softboxes). We often shoot these through blinds clamped to a c-stand to produce blind patterns on walls and actors. This would be easier to do with gobos and cookies, but we had the blinds available, so went with them.

Our fresnels are sometimes supplemented by China balls and Surefire flashlights used as practicals by the actors in the scenes (and occasionally bounced by me into the actor's faces). Lights are not gelled (since our kit's limited, and we want to maximize the amount of light we have), and we shoot with the camera's 3200k preset.

Before production, we decided to go with this deliberately stylized and dramatic (if traditional) Hollywood moon-lit look, which fit the movie's horror/thriller genre. We've have mostly tried to keep the direction of the light consistent, though the geography of our single location, and the way in which we're shooting it, often makes it easy to cheat a little with regards to where light is coming from. For the most part, though, the scenes are lit from one direction with hard light from the 1k's (simulating the moon), and when needed, fill from reflectors bouncing the 1k back at the actors, or some of our smaller lights aimed through diffusion (mostly tough frost).

In post, I grade the image to boost contrast, decrease saturation, and add blue to the image to achieve the look I want, using mutiple FCP cc filters.

The trick to achieving the low-key, high contrast look is to remember that you're not necessarily going for realistic darkness so much as the impression of darkness, which can be achieved via the contrast between light and dark in your frame. Areas being hit by moonlight can be exposed at key, and the darker areas one or more stops under key, depending on how much contrast you want. Also keep in mind that you can boost contrast in post, though it's good to get it in the ballpark during production to avoid introducing unnecessary noise via over-processing in post.

Shooting light through smoke is a common and often beautiful approach if you want your image diffused and/or want to create visible shafts of light projecting through your frame (see E.T. for great use of smoke). We considered doing this, but opted against it because our crew is limited and it would take too much time to keep the location properly smoked throughout the lengthy shoot.

You didn't mention the genre of your movie. Whatever your genre, it'll affect your lighting approach. I think the low-key, high contrast night look is more suited for noir, horror, and drama, whereas a romantic comedy night scene would probably work better with softer light and less contrast.

Here's a link to some screen grabs from the short.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=2688


Hope this all helps.
 
I think Walter Graff posted a pic of himself in the bathtub doing this. It was in lighting, maybe a month ago. It I remember, he used a gel, and then some geffers tape on a stand in front to look like a window. It looked great. The gel was called something like "Nite blue"...or something similar.

Anybody else rember that?
 
HEY GUYS!

a lot has happened in the last couple weeks. We I found that I couldnt shoot in the room I was going to shoot in because u cant get back far enough to get boths corners of the room in a square room. the larger the room, the farther between the corners so larger rooms dont help either.

We decided to actually build a set, but the day we were to start construction we found a couple rooms in the offices that looked quite appropriate, not wide, like a smaller square bedroom, but very long, long ebough to back up and get that wide angle i wanted.

so here is a floor plan to check out. Its two long rooms with a large room between them. each of the smaller rooms has a window in the wall connected to the big room, so I can set up lights in there that will ack as my practical sourse (the moon).

the nice thing about the two rooms is that i can dress each room as one side of the room so the room on the right has the bed in it and the window on the left, thr room on the left has the dresser in it (the reverse angle of the bed) and the window is appropriately on the right.

I also put up some story boards to see the kind of stuff im trying to light.

Ask me anything that will help you help me.

THANKS!!!!!

floor plan


Storyboard page 1


page 2


page 3
 
I'm impressed with the storyboards! Did you do it this way because you're framing it in 4:3 during production and then cropping in post?

Matt
 
yep


I'm shooting on saturday, less than 48 hours from now, so if anyone has any advise of how I should pull this off, I'd GREATLY appreciate it.

THANKS!
 
What's the mood here? Is there any other light source other than a simulated moonlight? Street lights? City Neon Hotel blinking lights? Any bedroom lamps on? Any nightlight plugged into the wall for the youn glady?

Or are we talking NOTHING BUT MOONLIGHT?

Also, I respect the creativity of using REVERSES to give the illusion of a bigger room but..........

What side of the room do you plan to be on here? Is it straight on like your storyboard suggests? One shot looking into DRESSER and one shot loooking into BED?
 
John to the rescue!

nothing but moonlight. I mean fake, everythings exposed moonlight, but pure moon is supposed to be the only source.

yep, every shot in the bedroom set is ABOUT straight on, like the boards. And the illision is that its a SMALLER room. We had access to big rooms, but the didn't look appropraite. I needed a small room but still be able to back up far enough, hence our long rooms.

because there is that large room between the rooms, I can have any lights I need sitting in there to shine through the window.

Any other questions?
 
I did something similar to this for my church, but I edited in black and white cause I liked the way it looked but it looked good in color too. I'm not sure exactly if its what you were going for, and I didn't do the lighting, I just told the guy what I wanted...and he kinof listened(the way he did it was probably better than I suggested). I don't know anything technically about lights, but he just stuck a light outside the window and put a few blue-ish gells on it and something to diffuse the light for a few shots. The blind shadows are from the actual blinds if I remember correctly, if not they were just taped in front of the window. So if you like the way this looks, well thats how he did it! If not, then ignore my post.

http://www.petemurph.com/upperroompromocut1.mov
 
search for that walter graff post, someone asked about making a nice moonlight look and walter actually grabbed his gear and set it up and sat in a bathtub to show the look he created.

he mentioned some moonlight gel, i forget the exact name but i got one and it gives that hollywood "blue" moon look.

the two looks i wanted to make sure i could create were the moonlight blue look and a really strong sunny early morning look, there is a roscolux #21 golden amber.

i found the sunlight one when we went to see a play and their sunlight streaming down was fantastic so i called and got a hold of the production designer and he told me it was the roscolux filter.

matthew
 
yeah i looked for the walter post and couldnt find it

But guess what? I set up my light yesterday, tried different things, and u know what looks best? 1 500watt through the window. Thats it. the white walls provide enough fill to expose everything. I manually white balanced for a cold, blueish tone.

I'll post some pics when we're done.

Thanks guys
 
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