lighting women in hard light

[nycineaste]

I very much wanted to use hard light for an old school/70's look on my next horror short, but in my tests the dvx100a seemed to show too much skin detail. The actors are both female and I dont want them to look all blemishy. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this- whats the "missing element" that enabled women to be lit this way in the olden times? I know "lighting down the nose"/direction is vital, (butterfly lighting), but there must be more. I'm guessing it amounts partially to makeup and maybe the silkiness of a fresnel (versus an open face)?

In any case, here's a clip from a cheapo Youtube movie called "death factory". I had abandoned the hard light idea and then I saw this and got all jealous and was like hey I wanna do that. What are these guys doing that I'm not- the gals don't look too bad.

talk to me

 

[gonzo_entertainment]

whats the "missing element" that enabled women to be lit this way in the olden times?

Well probably #1, Makeup. We never shoot without a make up artist. She is one of the highest paid people on set, making as much as my DP.

Where ​you put the light matters as well. It is definitely possible to accentuate the good features and minimize the bad features of someone's face with where the light is placed.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I very much wanted to use hard light for an old school/70's look on my next horror short, but in my tests the dvx100a seemed to show too much skin detail. The actors are both female and I dont want them to look all blemishy. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this- whats the "missing element" that enabled women to be lit this way in the olden times? I know "lighting down the nose"/direction is vital, (butterfly lighting), but there must be more. I'm guessing it amounts partially to makeup and maybe the silkiness of a fresnel (versus an open face)?

In any case, here's a clip from a cheapo Youtube movie called "death factory". I had abandoned the hard light idea and then I saw this and got all jealous and was like hey I wanna do that. What are these guys doing that I'm not- the gals don't look too bad.

talk to me

It would be better to see your efforts, along with what you find 'attractive'... for some value of attractive...

In the olden days, make up was much thicker, and so would cover some set of blemishes on faces, men or women. In addition, women were not lit all that hard, even when it was a film filed with violence.

In both of these examples, a predominant element is the lack of 'powder' to take down the shine on the women's faces, with hard...ish side lighting and 'low' fill.

 

[CharlesPapert]

35mm film was (and is) much more flattering on skin tone than an older video camera. Some would argue that no digital camera yet matches the skin tone rendition of film--I feel like we have just arrived in the last generation of cameras.

Even with an older camera like the DVX, there are some great post tools available to help smooth out blemishes and wrinkles. I use the secondary keyer and Pop control in Colorista, very easy and if used correctly, quite transparent.

Beyond skin tone, the facial structure of some actresses will take to hard lighting better than others. High cheekbones and sculpted features can really pop and you get a great highlight in the eyes. I have shot a few that can take almost any kind of light, whereas others need soft, flat light with plenty of bounce to look great.