Lighting with practicals question?

[dtjohns1]

I'm trying to light a bedroom scene that is setup exactly like 2:55 here ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMOzjoC1n7Y Is it possible to light this scene with two 250 or 500 watt photoflood bulbs with lampshades? Also can someone show me some lamps that would take a 250 or 500 watt bulb? I've tried "carrying the lamp" with a 300 watt fresnel but in the process of trying to soften it it keeps casting a shadow on the lamp itself and is irritating me and making me want to just do nothing but pratical lighting for the scene.

 

[Tvdie23]

no it is not possible to light this scene with two 250 or 500. They have really top soft ambience lights going on, you can tell by the shadow cast by the mirror on the wall.
Sometime the lamp rated 150w bulb only, I put 250watts in it too, but I turn the light off while it is not rolling.

 

[starcentral]

No matter high bright those lamps are, if it finally gets to a level where it lights your subjects the way you like how bright would you think the area directly around the lamp is going to be?

You need a fill light to boost exposure on your subjects, hair lights to separate them from background, and possibly even bounced light to fill and raise overall ambient light in room.

 

[sonofaresiii]

well first, let's be clear: THAT scene you showed us was NOT lit with practicals. We're all on the same page with that, right? If you're only using practicals and going for that kind of illumination, you're not going to get it.

On to your question: Is it possible to light a scene with two 500-watt practicals? Sure. If that's how you want your scene to look. It's probably not going to look very good, but if you can get your aperture open enough and ISO high enough to trigger an exposure... bam. Your scene's lit. I think you want to ask a different question, but I'm not sure what it is yet. can you light the scene WELL with two 500-watt practicals? Probably not. Not because they're not bright enough, but because professionally lit scenes have purposefully placed light... every light that's on something is there for a reason. Intensity included. So just putting practicals up is going to throw the light everywhere, it's not going to hit in the places you want it to or shade in the places you want it to.

But it will illuminate your scene. And sometimes, if that's the best you can do, then that's what you go with.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I'm trying to light a bedroom scene that is setup exactly like 2:55 here ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMOzjoC1n7Y Is it possible to light this scene with two 250 or 500 watt photoflood bulbs with lampshades? Also can someone show me some lamps that would take a 250 or 500 watt bulb? I've tried "carrying the lamp" with a 300 watt fresnel but in the process of trying to soften it it keeps casting a shadow on the lamp itself and is irritating me and making me want to just do nothing but pratical lighting for the scene.

If the 'shot' you are refering to, is the shot where the 'apparent' light in the scene is the light on the bedside table, with falloff going towards the left of the frame... no, the light in that room is not from the practical.

The light in the room that makes a sufficient intensity to make an image, is coming from an array of lighting setup to the camera right, to support the 'motivated' light of the practical, as well as fill light on the left to kick light in the dark areas of the shot, such that there are no blank black holes.

If you replace standard 100W bulbs in lamp fixtures that are 'in the shot' with 500W bulbs... other than the heat issue in such a fixture... you will be shining a high intensity light directly into the lens of the camera, and everywhere else will be relatively speaking much lower, giving a near blank white in the 'practical' area, and a high contrast to most of the rest of the shot.

What some people do in this situaiton, is replace the practical with a lower wattage bulb, put a color correction filter on it, then have high wattage lights outside the frame, often bounced to soften the light, to give sufficient illumination to make for a correct exposure.

The example you give, to me, the intent is for a 'soft over all' lighting setup.

If you were to want to go with 'gritty', say a junky's shooting gallery look... perhaps then one would go for the stark high contrast...

 

[starcentral]

Look at the shadow from the large mirror over the bed. As someone has already pointed out, there is certainly some overheads picking up the ambient of the room to a level of exposure, then possibly additional fill on Natalie's side facing camera.. or not.