Need advice on a shoot

Alternative_3

Alternative_3

Active member
I have a shoot coming up in April, and about 45 minutes of the film is supposed to be in a warehouse, bathed in blue light(emergency lights, and it has to be blue). Now, I thought about gels for each existing light, and shooting that way(DVX100A by the way), but now someone has suggested to gel the camera lense instead. I seem to think it would look better if I went to the lights and used gels on each one, but also realize it's more time consuming. I can only shoot overnight, and that means I would have to tear everything down each morning.

Does anyone have an opinion on which would work better, or an entirely different idea all together?
 
Mixing light sources

Mixing light sources

Well , I dont use a DVX, but if you subject if not getting the outside light, then use a inside setting...let me explain in my poor english.....I use a Panasonic DVC Pro 900, When I shoot with variable light, I focus on my subject light, giving me a nice color on trhe face on a lite blue background.

But if you subject move from position to position then use the white balance on the outside light with youe setting for outside shooting then put blue gel on uyou light and you will be face from position A to position B.

I hope I can help.
 
In retrospect, this probably should have been in lighting. But anyway, emiranda, I think you are misinterpreting what I'm saying, or perhaps I didn't explain it well enough. I am shooting inside a warehouse, and I need to make the entire warehouse lit in blue colored light. My question is, should I gel each individual existing light, or do as a friend of mine says and blue-gel the camera lense and leave the lights as they are? Or, again, if there is another way, I'd be happy to hear about it.

Wouldn't there be a difference in how it would look if comparing between the two? I just can't see how puttting a blue gel on the camera is going to acheive the same effect as the real thing. Butmaybe I'm wrong.
 
Could you just do it in post, maybe? Probably not, and if you couldn't, you'd have a lot of un-usable footage. I'd say try to gel the lens and just shoot some stuff in a studio, see how it looks. If you're satisfied with it, do it. If not, just gel the lights.
 
Can you get your hands on some HMI's? Gelling the lights would not only be a hassle but will kill a lot of the output. A tungsten white balance under HMI's will give you plenty of blue. Or you white balance through varying degrees of CTO gel to dial in the amount of blue you want with the HMI's.
 
IMO if this was a 2 -5 min scene i would use a 85c ( orangish) filter in front of the camera lens then white balance (3200k light)then take the 85c filter OFF = everything would now have a bluish tint ...

BUT because you have 45min sceen time i would not use blue filter in front of lens = i would set camera to tungsten ( maybe use 81c filter in front of lens then white balance (3200k light )- then remove 81c) i would use HMI's , daylight kinoflows and gel other lights ... to vary the blue i might use 1/4- 1/2 CTO on the daylight HMI's and daylight kinoflos
 
donatello said:
IMO if this was a 2 -5 min scene i would use a 85c ( orangish) filter in front of the camera lens then white balance (3200k light)then take the 85c filter OFF = everything would now have a bluish tint ...

BUT because you have 45min sceen time i would not use blue filter in front of lens = i would set camera to tungsten ( maybe use 81c filter in front of lens then white balance (3200k light )- then remove 81c) i would use HMI's , daylight kinoflows and gel other lights ... to vary the blue i might use 1/4- 1/2 CTO on the daylight HMI's and daylight kinoflos
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Hmm, I think I get the gist of what you're saying, and it may be easiest to do it that way. Could you perhaps go through the effects of each step you're taking ..just so I get a clearer picture? Dyslexia's a killer.

Can you get your hands on some HMI's? Gelling the lights would not only be a hassle but will kill a lot of the output. A tungsten white balance under HMI's will give you plenty of blue. Or you white balance through varying degrees of CTO gel to dial in the amount of blue you want with the HMI's.
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I am shooting on weekends, and I worry about rental costs, but again, that is worth a look. HMI's are what Carpenter used in Halloween , right? That would be ideal, but again, cost is a factor, which is the only reason I considered gelling every stinking practical.
 
When you say bathed in blue light, do you mean like the only light sources are supposed to be blue? If thats the case You can just shoot and colorize in post and be able to change the amount of blue you want. If you are trying to just get a blue background and have the talent in normal light you have a bit of work to do i think with gelling the background lights. If you are trying to get everything bathed in blue but want to see other colors also You would probably have to shoot normal and create the effect in post with layers and modes giving you the option for how much you want also.
 
Aram Bauman said:
When you say bathed in blue light, do you mean like the only light sources are supposed to be blue? If thats the case You can just shoot and colorize in post and be able to change the amount of blue you want.
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Yep, that's exactly what I want to do. Would I do this in After Effects?(I just got AE last week)

I guess I can test it on sample footage. If it'll look like the light source is actually blue, then by all means that's the easiest way to go, and it would save me tons of trouble.
 
What kind of lights does the warehouse have? Just the normal lights or are you going to bring tungsten or (preferably) HMIs? If just the normal, you must test if they actually have any blue content, for example those orange sodium lamps popular in industrial use cannot create a blue light effect no matter what you do, as the light does not have any blue in it!

If everything must be blue, there is no difference if you gel the lights of use the same color filter in front of the camera lens. Exept that the later solution is much easier, faster and cheaper.

BUT: as you can tweak the white balance, there is really no reason to use filters, which eat away about half of the light output. With HMI lights which have a lot of blue you can make everything really blue with WB alone. With tungsten lights you can not go as blur with WB alone.

Adding the blue in the post might be the easiest and safest way to go. I do not even think you need After Effects for this, Premiere Pro and other major NLEs have tools to make the general color anything you want. That way you can get the right amount of blue and you are not stuck with the blue-shot footage from which it would be difficult or impossible to get the blue out if needed...
 
Petrus said:
Adding the blue in the post might be the easiest and safest way to go. I do not even think you need After Effects for this, Premiere Pro and other major NLEs have tools to make the general color anything you want. That way you can get the right amount of blue and you are not stuck with the blue-shot footage from which it would be difficult or impossible to get the blue out if needed...
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I would love to do it in post, but all the footage I've seen of movies being colored/tinted in post , it was obvious-perhaps they just didn't do a good job?

I have Vegas 6, and I'll fiddle around with some things, see how it looks.
 
In order for the blue lights to look believable, it can help to have a *bit* of white light, in order to give the eye a reference. a couple of subtle white points of lights in the background (perhaps low watt emergency lights, or instrument panel lights?) or perhaps a small flashlight held by the hero.

If I were doing this cheap and quick, I would whitebalance thru an 85 or different strengths of CTO (as mentioned by Preston H) Start w/ 1/4, and go up to double. This would make all the lights look bluish. I would then gel a couple of practicals with the opposite strength of CTB to balance those out. That should provide a nice look.

Now if you want it to look very solid blue, then yes I would gel each of the warehouse lights. Lee Filters Alice Blue has a great look. You are probably looking at getting a whole roll of the stuff at ~$100 and spending a day or half day lighting.

Personally, I don't like the look of "color it in post" It looks fake to me and takes me out of the story.

Hey let us know which way you decide to go, and by all means, post some pics!
 
In after effects make 2 layers of the same movie and apply a hue/saturation filter to the top layer. Then go into the modes and go through them and see what works best. This way you can get the blue you want and also be able to bring up some of the other colors also.
 
I messed around with Vegas and added blue to some old footage, and it actually looked better than I thought. I think I may be able to pull it off in this manner. After 10 minutes I made it look pretty good, so I'm sure I could make it look awesome with a lot of time invested.
 
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