Q for you Lighting Experts: How did they do this?

H

Homunculus

Carbonite Member
hi guys check this trailer for a film called Never Let Me Go

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/neverletmego/


looks like a really touching movie and one of the better trailers I've seen.

A few questions on the trailer taking it scene by scene for some of you lighting guys so I can learn a little something:


1. at the 0:12 second mark you can see the shot of the girl throwing the softball.
then the whole scene follows for a few seconds where they hit the ball.

This scene seems to obviously be in over cast conditions and I know that overcast infamously creates "flat" gray images with no contrast or good modeling on the face. The face of the girl at 0:12s in particular looks very flat and I am just wondering what in your opinion is this

1a. Deliberate DP lighting choice? The film seems to have a gray sort of 'theme' to its lighting with a lot of scenes being over cast it seems, to set the tone and mood of the film.

1b. bad lighting? is this simply lazy or bad lighting? does this image look flat and unsightly to you or is this an acceptable shot?

Lastly, how do you think this scene/shot was shot? Was there just big bounce boards providing a little bit of light or do you think this was shot completely without anything, bounces or lights or anything and thus why the facial modeling seems very flat with no contrast between highlight and shadow?


2. The scene at roughly 0:19 is particularly beautiful to me with its very natural light setting. The young girl is beautifully but subtlely illuminated on her face and her eyes have a striking reflection. It seems pretty obvious that there's a huge white reflector in front of her (behind the camera). Is this how you think this shot was made or can someone tell me how else they think this lighting was done?
It seems there's no backlighting and no real key and fill or adherence to 3 point lighting, it just seems to me like nothing more than a big bounce board/reflector in front of her. Can someone share their opinion of this shot?

The whole film just seems to achieve a remarkable look of 'natural' light. I don't even see a single scene where there are even practicals in the shots. Just take a look at the scene starting at 1:28 where they're in the big dining hall, it seems to be lighted all by natural light from the huge windows, but can this really be? How would this shot be done?
Would there be any types of lights with CTB/CTO gels somewhere in the room to help aid the natural light look, or do you t hink this was really light just from the windows with maybe some bounces going on for fill on the side?
And do you think that those windows were completely covered in a diffuser material of some sort because it does look almost blown out'over-exposed from the daylight outside. What are your opinions??
 
For the first, I think it's deliberate, and not bad. Notice that the clothing is all dull colors as well; the scene as a whole makes sense. I think it would make more sense seeing how the scene plays out in context. It looks good to me, but what really matters is how it tells the story.
 
Cassius said:
For the first, I think it's deliberate, and not bad. Notice that the clothing is all dull colors as well; the scene as a whole makes sense. I think it would make more sense seeing how the scene plays out in context. It looks good to me, but what really matters is how it tells the story.
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I agree I think it's deliberate because if you know the story behind this film they're supposed to be living a very 'drab' life style and as such the clothing, the lighting, everything has to feel hopeless and drab and that's why I think they deliberately shot in overcast conditions and perhaps flat light ... I was just wondering if other people disagreed or had a different opinion etc.
 
I wish I knew how this was lit because it's really lovely. The overcast baseball scene looks great as well. IMO.
 
Gawd, I wish I would have a recipe to get pictures like that baseball scene - I just love that look.
It´s so wonderful rich in the midtones like a dutch 17th century painting and lovely skin tones.

Frank
 
Homunculus said:
Lastly, how do you think this scene/shot was shot? Was there just big bounce boards providing a little bit of light or do you think this was shot completely without anything, bounces or lights or anything and thus why the facial modeling seems very flat with no contrast between highlight and shadow?
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This is narrative filmmaking. On anything with a budget, you'll never have it be completely natural lighting on anything besides a wide shot exterior. And even then, there might be some small gripping they could do if they even have a modest budget. So I'd get that idea of just shooting what's there out of your head in most cases. If it was a doc then maybe that would be true. But narrative filmmaking is all about creating a world that doesn't exist.

Anyway the exteriors, I see more them taking away light with some negative fill. So possibly flagging off or large frames. The whole trailer shows a lot of large sources for soft lighting. Those windows probably have 12ks (or other large heads) outside of them. In that auditorium location, it's hard to tell how much the warmness is due to wardrobe/set design, lighting, or post work. But a mixture of all three I'd think.

About the low contrast look, that could be done in camera or in post. Depending on the formate there are a number of ways of getting that look.

With the window stuff it was hard to tell. Blown out windows can either mean they were on some sort of sound stage so they can't easily show outside them, or that they just dif on the windows on location. Either way similar result.

I sort of just went through the trailer with some things that stood out. It's tough to say on some things because there are a lot of ways you can shoot a film.
 
It reminds me of something old, my first thought was that it would be a flashback or something like that (based on the shot before and watching on mute).
 
Drew Ott said:
I wish I knew how this was lit because it's really lovely. The overcast baseball scene looks great as well. IMO.
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I pretty much agree...it's just that I sort of am perplexed because "theory wise" flat images are supposed to be a no no for lighting but yet they make the whole movie look great with drab low contrast lighting. And like Phil Jackson said I think they did such a good job with artificial lighting it makes it look so amazingly natural but in reality I'm sure there's a lot of lighting work going on behind the scenes, I too wouldn't be surprised if that hall scene was on a stage with huge hmi's blaring through the diffused windows.
 
Postmaster said:
Gawd, I wish I would have a recipe to get pictures like that baseball scene - I just love that look.
It´s so wonderful rich in the midtones like a dutch 17th century painting and lovely skin tones.

Frank
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well the recipe I would think perhaps other than 35mm film which has richer color information, is an overcast sky with big reflectors sort of just lighting the subjects up evenly not just acting as fills to a key light. Despite being 'flat' you can tell the talent is slightly 'popped out' from the background because they're illuminated very subtlely by what I'm assuming is gigantic white reflectors possibly diffuse ones to make it much more subtle, but I'm just a noob so don't trust me.
 
It was all shot in the UK, and they have a much different weather than most of the US. It mostly overcast there during parts of the year. Looks like they really just shot the outdoors shots during "magic hour" or thereabouts.
 
Jimmy Moss said:
It was all shot in the UK, and they have a much different weather than most of the US. It mostly overcast there during parts of the year. Looks like they really just shot the outdoors shots during "magic hour" or thereabouts.
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The 'Baseball Scene' in the first "Twilight"(2008) film has similar lighting qualities. And one can see the cloud/overcase on some of the shots. (In fact quite a few of the scenes had similar overcast sky lighting... but that one is similar to this example of the kids at play). The 'problem' with the "Twilight" film, is there's more 'futzing' up of the image, such as the 'blue' cast of the 'baseball scene'...

I believe the shooting for Twilight took place in the Pacific Northwest, either in the US state of Washington, or in Canada's British Columbia.

We in Sunny Southern California call this 'May/June Gloom'... while along the coast this sort of overcase is more frequent, inland it becomes pretty rare during the spring through fall months... This year this sort of condition has lasted into July...


"Twilight: Baseball Scene"

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I AGREE
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
The 'Baseball Scene' in the first "Twilight"(2008) film has similar lighting qualities. And one can see the cloud/overcase on some of the shots. (In fact quite a few of the scenes had similar overcast sky lighting... but that one is similar to this example of the kids at play). The 'problem' with the "Twilight" film, is there's more 'futzing' up of the image, such as the 'blue' cast of the 'baseball scene'...

I believe the shooting for Twilight took place in the Pacific Northwest, either in the US state of Washington, or in Canada's British Columbia.

We in Sunny Southern California call this 'May/June Gloom'... while along the coast this sort of overcase is more frequent, inland it becomes pretty rare during the spring through fall months... This year this sort of condition has lasted into July...


"Twilight: Baseball Scene"

IMPORTANT NOTICE: No media files are hosted on these forums. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website. We can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. If the video does not play, wait a minute or try again later.
I AGREE
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what .......the...............f..........


that was one of the most atrocious "scenes" i ever saw. i never watched twilight or bought into that crap but wow..that was like a bad low budget music video.
 
Homunculus said:
what .......the...............f..........


that was one of the most atrocious "scenes" i ever saw. i never watched twilight or bought into that crap but wow..that was like a bad low budget music video.
Click to expand...


I only offered it as an example of shooting on 'overcast days'... I don't particularly care for the 'blue' cast, nor some of the other weirdnesses... and I'll not comment on the "Twilight" series at all...

But the thing to note, is how 'easily' eyes become sockets, deeper than desirable shadows under the ballcap bills, etc...

In the kick off example, the faces were much better lit, so I suspect 'big white sheets' to kick light into the eyes, although children usually have less deep sockets in the first place...
As for the 'magic hour' shooting... that's sort of like banking on sunsets or sunrises... they work great... if the sun/clouds cooperate... and sometimes there are lucky lottery winners...


While shooting in bright sun has its problems... shooting on overcast days have certain deceptive qualities as well... there's a fine balance between luminous lighting... and mud...
 
Homunculus said:
what .......the...............f..........


that was one of the most atrocious "scenes" i ever saw. i never watched twilight or bought into that crap but wow..that was like a bad low budget music video.
Click to expand...


uh wow. just wow. I'll second that notion. That was some of the most terrible shots I've ever seen glued together to form some kind of scene.. I've seen student films much better than that..
 
Yeah, the baseball scene is beautiful stuff and is definitely by choice. It appears, from the context of the trailer that this scene and one at 00:41 are very similar, and probably represent the "Good times" part of the story. They were very careful to control the contrast, and saturation in those scenes. Besides using large reflectors and large overhead silks, I would imagine some serious diffused HMIs were on hand. I swear when I first saw that, my first reaction that the footage had been flashed, to bring down the contrast and saturation, but I don't think anybody is doing that anymore. They could have also done this with filtration, but I suspect there was serious manipulation of contrast and saturation in the DI process. There are changes to contrast and saturation through out the trailer, so it looks like this was part if the visual design. While most of the lighting looks to adhere to a "Naturalistic/Realistic" motivated light design, I would be willing to bet that very little natural light was used (except for exterior long shots of course) and the light from the windows were from very large lights, shot through silks. The shot I dig is the long shot in the auditorium at 00:36. Now you know they did not wait until the sun was in that position.

Another thing to note about the baseball scene is the choice of lenses, which appear to be on the longer side, except the last shot where the ball goes over the fence. While the lighting was flat, the use of DOF, on longer lenses, seems to focus the attention on the subjects and add a sense of depth.
 
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