Lighting setups as seen in BTS

Jared Meyer

Jared Meyer

Veteran
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Every time I catch a glimpse of the lighting setups in featurettes or bts I press pause and try to figure out exactly what's going on - but rarely can, never having been on a set myself. Books only get you so far and I still feel like I am absolutely clueless with regard to lighting.

So I'll start throwing the grabs into this thread in the hopes that the hive mind can, er, shed some light on the subject... (groan)

Basically, what's going on in the above shot? What tools are being used and why? Is this natural light? What is that in front of the window?
 
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Looks like a reflector in front of the window. And a silk cutting and softening the light on the actress.

My GUESS is that the DP wanted to augment the natural light coming through the window (or what we are to believe is natural light) but the principle actress wasn't getting enough light. So it appears the reflector is getting an HMI bounced off it toward her, and it's being softened with the silk.

Nice setup actually. She gets lovely soft light, no heat, and the directionality is perfect. The contrast is taken down on her background by letting the reflector spill. Economical.
 
Actually Perrone, these are two 4x4 frames of diffusion. Looks like maybe 250 or similar. The one nearest the window seems to be diffusing the BG talent, while the one closest to the actress is softening up her key which could be natural sunlight coming in, but is most likely HMI either inside or outside the window. The sun moves too quickly to be consistent as a key in scenes like that, unless it's only a few shots.

You can tell it is not a reflector/mirror because you can see the taped edge, and it has no swing arm for positioning and tilting.
 
HA! Yes, your right. Taped edge. And your comment about the sun is exactly why I said about natural light. Common practice seems to be putting 2-3 18ks o a condor and blasting through the window. And the window is allowed to completely blow out.
 
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What wattage do these look like?
Why are they set up this way? (Are lights ALWAYS bounced onto the actors? Why do you need black wrap? Aren't the barn doors enough?)
Why two and not just one? (Is there one on each actress? Is it to create multiple shadows? Or is it just to get the level of light up to the right spot?)
 
Its really hard to tell what the units are but looks like 1 or 2ks. The black wrap prevents light leaking from the vent slits/holes from spilling on the rest of the set. The lights are bounced because the DP/gaffer wanted the light to be soft as opposed to hard direct light. There are two maybe because they wanted more fill, but my guess based on position is they are hitting different areas of the frame.
 
I might also add that the ?spelunkers? have head flashlights, so a bounced light might appear as spill from those lights, as a hard specular light coming from anywhere but the source direction might look "wrong". Just a guess.
 
scorsesefan said:
I might also add that the ?spelunkers? have head flashlights, so a bounced light might appear as spill from those lights, as a hard specular light coming from anywhere but the source direction might look "wrong". Just a guess.
Click to expand...

Actually that sounds like a very educated guess to me. I didn't think of it before you wrote it. But it makes a lot of sense, to use indirect/soft lights, in a scene where the only lightsources are very small flashlights in the frame. If you had a person off screen with another flashlight, it might make sense to have a direct light as well.

I think this is a very good excercise, and a thread that I will definately keep up with.
 
Good info. Thanks guys!

A lot of images coming up:



It looks like maybe the reflector is needed to get light up underneath the strangers fedora? Here's the closest frame I could find:



And here's the establishing shot. I'm curious how much those billboard lights are doing to light the frame in this and any of the following shots in the sequence.



Almost every single scene in this movie has an obvious light source in the frame. A lot of times it seems like you're actually seeing all the lights being used. Is this unlikely?







And the reverse of that shot:



These feature just one (apparent) main light source:



 
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What I think is the shot from the previous bts photo: (I don't know why the direction doesn't match up.)



More lit from directly above:





And some of my favorite lighting in the film... The strangers are always lit with a ghastly blue or green hue. The way they are lit tends to defy the motivated lighting in a scene but I imagine that is both to increase their creepiness and deal with the wide hat brims and high collars. I dunno though.







I know that's a lot all at once... but if anyone wants to talk about noir lighting or the style and technique they used for Dark City or practical lighting, chime in! Love to get a discussion going to decontruct some of the setups.
 
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