One lighting setup from the film we are shooting right now.

Yours soft lights become hard lights by the fact that you place those relatively far away from those windows - a more "proper" way of lighting if going for a soft light feel would be to set-up frames (say 6x6 or at least 4x4) with some kind of strong diffusion and light those frames with a bit more powerful source - such as an HMI or some kind. Of course on low budgeters people try to achieve things any way they can and it's understandable - just pointing out more "proper" way of doing things.
 
Yes sir and I agree with that and plan to. I just wanted to throw these up for people who had questions before we were done with the project.. We have 3 more nights and then this sucker is wrapped.. But I plan to cut in or add a few links to the footage that was taken so be looking for it.
 
Hey if I had some HMIs that would be great but as this film had a budget of "0.00" and I just brought my own equipment and we make it work. You mentioned the "Proper way" of lighting for a look and this is something that I learned many years ago, if it looks like you want it to on screen then it passes as a "Proper way of doing things" For our night stuff I would much rather have a Condor and a 12k to be my moonlight instead of those same boxes out on the permitter always getting in the shot etc...
 
Looks good, I probably would have just use foam core to bounce soft light in the windows for day stuff and try to get more hard light coming in. If it was sunny I would have used reflectors/mirrors over even big hmi's. I think hmi's have an ugly color.
 
Foamcore with that silver hammer finish **** will bounce sky light really efficiently. Also works well for splitting hard lights, turning one light into two because of the high reflectiveness. I cant remember what the material is called though.
 
Looks good, I probably would have just use foam core to bounce soft light in the windows for day stuff and try to get more hard light coming in. If it was sunny I would have used reflectors/mirrors over even big hmi's. I think hmi's have an ugly color.
Ah, nah, there's no disputing taste but it's the rare movie you love that wasn't lit with some HMIs. Try warming them up a bit with eighth straw. :)
 
Foamcore with that silver hammer finish **** will bounce sky light really efficiently. Also works well for splitting hard lights, turning one light into two because of the high reflectiveness. I cant remember what the material is called though.
It's called silver lame. Rosco 3803 and the softer 3804 are typical. Grips put it on one side of a 4X4 beadboard for a fairly punchy but still somewhat soft reflector.
 
It's called silver lame. Rosco 3803 and the softer 3804 are typical. Grips put it on one side of a 4X4 beadboard for a fairly punchy but still somewhat soft reflector.

Yeah, see, not a grip over here :)

Thanks dude, im gonna have to get some of that stuff, its amazing.
 
Yeah, I know about HMI's, ive worked on dozens of big movie sets to know how to correct them. But no amount of correction will get rid of their less than perfect CRI or the fact that they change color drastically over the lamps lifespan. Movies ive worked on here in ATL most DP's dont even bother correcting HMI's anymore, its all done in timing, for the most part. A few I've worked with use them only on day scenes and only as an absolute last resort when you just cant bounce any light.
 
Yeah, I know about HMI's, ive worked on dozens of big movie sets to know how to correct them. But no amount of correction will get rid of their less than perfect CRI or the fact that they change color drastically over the lamps lifespan. Movies ive worked on here in ATL most DP's dont even bother correcting HMI's anymore, its all done in timing, for the most part. A few I've worked with use them only on day scenes and only as an absolute last resort when you just cant bounce any light.

You don't need to correct HMIs. Thee ones requiring correction are when bulb is close to its death and its starts showing greenish tint (the correction in this case is to change the bulb) or when * inexperienced* people fire up the light and assume they get a regular daylight without knowing that you get closer to cool daylight - so a bit of warming up is required to get it more natural "sun look."
 
The sun wasn't nearly as consistant as we needed it to be to just bounce and bouncing from a light wouldn't make sense because I didn't have any fixtures that were powerful enough.. I am going to have enough time in the next few days to finally get some footage up. Tonight is our last night so I can start looking at good examples..
 
Last edited:
You don't need to correct HMIs. Thee ones requiring correction are when bulb is close to its death and its starts showing greenish tint (the correction in this case is to change the bulb) or when * inexperienced* people fire up the light and assume they get a regular daylight without knowing that you get closer to cool daylight - so a bit of warming up is required to get it more natural "sun look."

Thats almost exactly what i just said.....

They change color temp throughout life span starting around 15000 in the first few hours of lamp life, then 6000k and dying near 5000 or less. It usually has a slight greenish tint throughout that gets worse as the lamp gets older.

The issue is less the color temp and more the CRI.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top