Okay, I have not lit anything like this before...

D

DDirector

Veteran
This will be my first shoot on the RED.

I have an idea as to how to light this, but im just wondering on your input whether it is a good idea or not, and how would you do this?

Windows facing:
North (conference left side)
West (conference back side)

What I was thinking:
A large HMI (hopefully a 1.2K would work at most)
place it at the front left side, almost near the corner so its more frontal light than the side and light it through a 4x4, 6x6, or 8x8 diffusion panel. (depending which is available and room). Scrim it down a lot for those sitting beside it.

I was also thinking of adding some lights on top somehow so it doesnt look like its just window light thats lighting them, but so there is some light from the ceiling. It should look like a very formal setting. Like a top government meeting is going on.

The windows I was thinking of adding some ND gel, but thats a LOT of gel id need. Possibly ND6
I need to see outside these windows. The view is AMAZING!

TIPS:
But these are my ideas... I havent really done lighting for a room such as this.
So, i may be off, or I could be close.
Any suggestions/improvements/changes?

I'm not saying to give me your ideas, but hoping you could guide me along the way. :)

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Sorry but since we do not know what's happening with the script I have to ask... I assume this is a daytime shoot? Does it really need to be a day shoot or would shooting near evening not add to the darker government meeting effect? What's going on outside that you need to see it? I mean how is spending $900 on ND gels to bring the windows exposure down so you can see the view going to improve your story? Also depending on your camera angles you may also need more than a few flags to kill unwanted reflections and act as negative fill in areas.
 
David W. Jones said:
What's going on outside that you need to see it? I mean how is spending $900 on ND gels to bring the windows exposure down so you can see the view going to improve your story?
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Well, the best way I can say is that its more of a futuristic film. (but not too futuristic) Because this is really the only shot where we will be seeing outdoor scenery, they wanted to add some futuristic stuff in there (buildings mainly i guess?) so we know its in the future and not present time.

The location is up in a tower (13 floors up)
you can see really far out, and its a very nice view. If we could see it, it would look like a bigger budget film due to location and view.

$900 for ND Gel? Gezz. Would it actually be that much?
 
How big is the room?
How many people?
What color is the ceiling? Is it going to be in shot?
What lighting is already in the ceiling?



First thought...one 1.2k HMI wont give you any chance of getting outside exposure balanced. (We did something similar and used 1 x 12 k and 1 x6k HMIs ) The windows had a degree of ND already (ie we did not add it).

BTW : ND on windows is a double edge sword . It is fine for helping you when looking out but it is also cutting the light coming in. (ie the free light)
 
Shooter said:
How big is the room?
How many people?
What color is the ceiling? Is it going to be in shot?
What lighting is already in the ceiling?
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Size of room: Um.. as of now, I am not entirely sure the dimensions. We were not allowed to be in there for long so all we could do was take some pics and check out the location. A proper scout will be done as soon as we can.

Seats: 34

What colour is the ceiling: Outer rim (over people) in white & Brown wood panels in center (as seen somewhat in #2)

Is ceiling in the shot?: It does not need to be. If I will be adding more lights on the ceiling, then I wont. But if there are no lights or anything above, then I may have a shot of it, but most likely not.

What lighting is already in the ceiling?: There are some pot lights over the desk spread out over every 2 people. We didn't have power at the time to check how bright it was or much detail (we were allowed in there for a few min this time)

Because this is inside a building on the top floor, I dont see how we could power anything higher than a 1.2K.
I'm hoping we could get a genny, but even if we did have one for other scenes, I dont see how we could use it in this location.
I was thinking that id need something more powerful (which I can get), but getting the power - tricky from what i see.

Exterior doesn't have to be perfectly match to interior, but as long as it is visible in a way. Not sure how big of a difference a 2-3 stops is on the RED, but it that has to be done, I may end up doing that if it doesn't look all that bad. This is something id like to have on a demo reel. There are some pretty powerful shots in here. The story starts and builds in this scene.

Also would like to mention which I didnt before.
Its a 5 3/8pg scene if I remember correctly. Although most of it is facing the front where the windows will not be in the shot, it will be a long shoot crammed quickly so there isnt much lighting continuity problems. (Shooting towards windows first then podium)
 
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Power - do a tie in to the building supply. Large buildings have a ton of power at the distribution board.

White Ceilings can be used for bounce. ( Overhead soft light)

Stops on the Red are the same as Stops on every camera. (each stop is a factor of 2)
 
Shooter said:
Power - do a tie in to the building supply. Large buildings have a ton of power at the distribution board.

White Ceilings can be used for bounce. ( Overhead soft light)

Stops on the Red are the same as Stops on every camera. (each stop is a factor of 2)
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Tie to building supply? Hmm.. Never thought of that nor done that. Id have to see how to do it and if possible. Thanks for that.

I meant, with the dynamic range of 13stops, I don't know how overly exposed the window will be. I'll be borrowing the camera to experiment.

txdp said:
Use epic and HDRX. No way a 1200w hmi will be enough.
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I was just thinking about HDR. But all we got is the Red One & Scarlet.
Not sure if the Scarlet does HDR in 4K or 3K @24fps?
 
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Chroma key the windows and put in the background later (granted that works better when it's a set and you can light from outside the windows).
 
Gary Huff said:
Chroma key the windows and put in the background later (granted that works better when it's a set and you can light from outside the windows).
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No outdoor access though

David W. Jones said:
My thought too if this is going to be a futuristic movie.
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It is futuristic, but I mean, its not THAT futuristic that everything has changed. Trying to keep it realistic where 100 or so years in the future not much really will change. Sure a bit, but not that dramatically. A few building here and there
 
Wondering how much of the exterior will really be in focus with your primary interior characters for example 10 feet away from the camera shooting say T4 with the exterior buildings 250 feet away?
 
David W. Jones said:
Wondering how much of the exterior will really be in focus with your primary interior characters for example 10 feet away from the camera shooting say T4 with the exterior buildings 250 feet away?
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I believe that most of the shots facing the wall will be the audience facing the stage and these shots will be generally wide. As far as I know no one in the 40ish seats is important and wont have many single shots or anything, only two times in this scene will 2 characters ask questions and those will be med-cu, but everything else more of a wide and in focus. It will be more as an establishing shot.

On the reverse facing the projector screen, yes, there will be more closer shots, but then I dont believe you will see any of the windows then.
 
DDirector said:
Tie to building supply? Hmm.. Never thought of that nor done that. Id have to see how to do it and if possible. Thanks for that.
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I'm sure shooter knows, but it just has to be said since you don't seem to know too much about tie-ins.

It's extremely dangerous. Like, I've had a number of friends who have narrowly escaped death by electrocution from some close calls with a tie in. I do know you can have an electrician come in and do the tie-in for you, sure it'll cost you a little bit of money, but it'll be done safely and by a professional.

However, with that being said it does have its place. I did a show a while ago where we lit a number of different stories of a skyscraper, and our power needs on the roof changed pretty quickly from a couple of 6500watt gennys to 400+ amps. We ended up having to run 5-wire up the stairwells, which was bad enough, but what made it worse was the fact that we all knew this work could easily be accomplished with a tie in at the top floor, then a couple sticks of 5-wire onto the roof. This would have used a lot less gear, less manpower, and we wouldn't have had so many voltage problems since we had four or five greatly different runs. It's a prettty easy and simple solution, but the reason we didn't do it...I wish I knew.

If you want it to feel like a top secret government meeting though, I honestly feel like shooting this one at night with a lot of skirted overheads would be much more interesting. It'd probably take more time, which you don't seem to have the luxury of, but it sounds much more like the feel you're going for.
 
Tie ins are done by the lighting department where I roll and I assume everywhere else in the world. Many gaffers, gennny ops etc.. have electrician qualifications

Qualified electricians are the only personnel allowed to do so by law. They have no problem dealing with the three phase systems that large buildings have installed.

Alternatively..we do long runs from gennys...but that would be unusual if a fixed supply for a tie in is available.

Problem of power supply is slightly less difficult for those of us on 220-250 systems vs 110volts. ( amperage and cable size)

Likelihood and realistically... the OPs shoot is probably somewhat "indie" and therefore these suggestions are just not going to be doable or practical or affordable.

Worth him knowing about for the future though.
 
I can only simply say Gel it and you'll be much happier. You can always bring the exposure up in the room. Those windows, even with 13 stops, will blow if you're keeping on a subject. Also dont forget about lens glow. Some lenses just dont like that much solid light from a large backlit subject.

Spending the money and doing a good gel job is MUCH more worth it than anything else, and is really little effort for big payoff.

Overlighting the room to match outside exposure is just a no-no. You'll cook everyone in that room, the sound guy wont want the AC on, so you'll all melt, plus makes working in that room right with all the extra lighting you'd need.

Gel is worth the price even if you need 2 rolls. Just make sure its cut nicely and you can always roll them back up and reuse later, even though its cut up, most windows will be that size or smaller. You can also sell the gels after they are cut up to another production that might need gel but in smaller pieces. I just got off a gig that bought a roll of cutup gel, and they were happy to pay for it.

I also use gels on my softboxes. I have a few large rolls of ND3 and 6 that I can throw over an entire softbox, its actually quite useful.
 
Shooter said:
Likelihood and realistically... the OPs shoot is probably somewhat "indie" and therefore these suggestions are just not going to be doable or practical or affordable.

Worth him knowing about for the future though.
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Depending on how much this will cost us it may be a big issue. But this isn't a big budget shoot, it is more of an indie shoot. So it may be.
But its good to know its possible to do such a thing.
I'm wondering, if it was done, how much power would I be able to get roughly? Like, how big of an HMI would I be able to power?

We have two budget breakdowns; equipment & misc.

The equipment budget is a big budget, so I can rent out bigger HMI lights and other accessories if needed for a day or two.
But the misc budget is small. And this budget includes everything but equipment rentals.
Because the misc budget is small, having hundreds of dollars worth of gel up on those windows (which will probably be taken out of the misc budget) will cut down a severe amount of our budget, and that wont be possible. If its equipment budget (which I doubt) then it may not be THAT bad of a problem.

The over exposed look may not be that bad of a problem though. In other parts of the film there will be times where we will want to push highlights a big giving it more of a contrasty look, so if the windows are a bit blown, it may not be so bad. But then again, we could always block off the windows for a night scene or interior scene as if there were no windows. But, were hoping to have them if possible.

*Im not saying this is government meeting, or something secretive. It was just an example i used. Its that formal, and that important, but its not actually government stuff where its secretive and should be kept indoors or whatever. Its as formal as a government meeting, but more of an unveiling of a product? Its hard to explain, but it doesnt really matter really.
 
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