Shooting with fire light?

CareyB

CareyB

Active member
I'm setting up to shoot an historical short film soon where the script requires shooting almost exclusively in firelight--candle light, fireplace light and bonfire light. Does anyone have experience/suggestions that might prove helpful in this scenario? I can see candle light won't light enough for much of anything, unless it was one huge mother lovin' candle--fat chance (is there any sort of augmentation possible, artificial/reflecting?). The script has some of each source. But fireplace and bonfire light I think might work okay, with due care in camera positioning, bonfire in particular. I come from a still photography background and have seldom of ever used artificial light. I'm accustomed to moving the camera and object to take advantage of natural lighting--sort of the tail wagging the dog viewpoint. I'll be doing test setups here soon, but I'm no lighting expert and am still hopeful of pulling this project off using night shots as written. Shot daylight it wouldn't be the same story, but if all else proved undo-able (is there such a word?), to save the project, it could be rewritten for solar illumination (shucks).

Will be using my HVX. The P2-P2Store-FCP workflow has been working great, and using 720p/24pn is giving me something like 120% greater P2 capacity. I'll be doing some overcranking on this project too.

Got some cannon footage at a Civil War reenactment the other day using an AT4073a mic and it really came out cool (the mic showed no signs of being overwhumped like my ears were), although the black powder smoke afterward sort of negated the HD effect. Still cool and very real.

Anyway, any sage advice on firelight may pull may buns out of the fire, and would be much appreciated.

Carey
 
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Fires, Flames, and Fresnels

Fires, Flames, and Fresnels

Carey,

I worked on a shoot a few weeks ago, and we used this device:

http://www.magicgadgets.com/mg_ol_04.htm#Shadowmaker

We hooked up three 150w mini-moles and gelled some of them with orange, (for the fireplace scene) and blue (for a TV set glare) and let the box do it's magic.. it has presets on there to emulate a fireplace, candle, TV set, etc.. it looked pretty darn convincing on the final footage. You can also make your own preset too.

We rented the lights and shadowmaker from our local rental house fairly cheap.. if your whole shoot revolves around fire-type sources, I think this is something that you almost couldn't live without.

This box has dimmers on it, so it it looks much better than people waving lights, and turning them on and off trying to emulate a flame source.

The trick with candlelight is going to be enhancing it without overdoing it, but I feel confident you can boost your light levels, and set a custom flicker that will work for your situtation with the Shadowmaker. I would do tests with it first, figure out the settings, and distance, and then you can set it up and not have to worry about it on the shoot, and can concetrate on other things.

-Brad
 
I don't know if that will be enought light. I would strongly suggest getting some real lights to help you out. You could up the gain a bit in the camera but I personally think that looks like crap. You could lower the shutter speed but that'll give your motion a strobe quality (remember the end of the first battle scene in Gladiator? They lowered the shutter speed because they were running out of light and that's why the motion looks like that).
 
bradvr4 said:
Carey,

I worked on a shoot a few weeks ago, and we used this device:

http://www.magicgadgets.com/mg_ol_04.htm#Shadowmaker

We hooked up three 150w mini-moles and gelled some of them with orange, (for the fireplace scene) and blue (for a TV set glare) and let the box do it's magic.. it has presets on there to emulate a fireplace, candle, TV set, etc.. it looked pretty darn convincing on the final footage. You can also make your own preset too.

We rented the lights and shadowmaker from our local rental house fairly cheap.. if your whole shoot revolves around fire-type sources, I think this is something that you almost couldn't live without.

This box has dimmers on it, so it it looks much better than people waving lights, and turning them on and off trying to emulate a flame source.

The trick with candlelight is going to be enhancing it without overdoing it, but I feel confident you can boost your light levels, and set a custom flicker that will work for your situtation with the Shadowmaker. I would do tests with it first, figure out the settings, and distance, and then you can set it up and not have to worry about it on the shoot, and can concetrate on other things.

-Brad
Click to expand...


Brad,

Thanks for your suggestions. I found a rental outfit near me, in Kansas City, that'll rent the mini's for $18/day and the shadowmaker for $65. There is some hope afterall. I'll let you know what I wind up doing.

Carey
 
The idea is use to candle/fire as your on screen practical, and it also gives you a source.

You then augment that with real lights. To use some kind of a flicker effect is entirely up to you...but if you watch how some of the big dogs do it on major features, most of them do NOT use flicker effects. flickering in some cases can causes an annoyance or an interuption that will bring the audience out of the story.

Either way, hope it helps, and good luck.
 
The Sarlacc brings up some good points.

Definitely at least establish the "source" on screen, and if at all possible have the source appear in some of the shots as dialouge and such are played out.

And agreed with your other comment Sarlacc, about not bringing the audience out of the mood. I think you can enhance the mood with flickerboxes, but there is a small threshold that is easy to cross if you are not careful, always good to test test test. Candles will need the least amount, and fireplaces, and campfires you can boost it more if the pratical sources don't read on screen.

One thing we found that it was useful for was when the fireplace started heating up the set too much, we extinguished the fire, and set the flicker lights up in place once we had the establishing shots of the fire done, and it was close up dialogue with the extra heat of the fire.

In the end, it all comes down to what suits your tastes.

-Brad
 
Thanks guys.

Seems now I'm going in the right direction. I'll test first. Thanks a bunch.
You've been a big help.

Carey
 
I also think you'll need supplementary lighting, and the more sensitive to light the camera is in the first place, the better. I'd suggest leaving the camera white balance on tungsten preset, and using half orange filters over any lights, maybe experimenting with 1/4 or 3/4 to taste.
 
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