soft backlight issues

J

Jay Cowley

New member
I'm shooting this corporate series with a HMI bouncing off a 8x4 styrofoam bounce above and behind the subjects head, see below.

The Dilemma: to get the soft light, i need a large bounce surface. And to keep this out of the frame, It has to be quite high.
But as a result, it ends up becoming 'toppy' and hot on the subjects head.
How do you guys deal with this, do you net the top of the head (possible shadows lines)
Obviously if could use a hard light with diffusion paper but then it's not soft and won't wrap as well.
Ideally im looking for a nice light that is even on shoulders, side of head, top.

Thanks for any advice.

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Raise the card for the wide shots as in the pictures. For the close ups you can move the card back (up stage) so it is not so topi. To reduce the intensity use a scrim in the 1200.

For blond people. You could use a flag. You have to have the flag very far from a soft light in order to get a hard shadow, so you will be OK. You could use a solid and it would work as a soft cut just reducing some intensity on the head.

For bald people I like to get a 2x3 silk as close over head as possible. This spreads the light making it very soft. Specular highlights become almost not existent while still putting light on the head. If you can get the 4x8 close enough it may do this already.
 
How about menace-arming in a Joker with Strip-Box attached?

Or a 4' 4Bank?

Or a 2x4' bead-board, & hitting it with an HMI? A Joker attached to a Source 4 should be sufficient, especially if one side of the bead-board is silvered.

Or...
 
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I like to use a dimmer. Just shot a bunch of interviews on a black background. Different subjects needed different amounts of back light. Dimmer came in very handy. If I got a bald person I just dimmed down to acceptable level in seconds.
 
Somewhereinthewoods said:
I like to use a dimmer. Just shot a bunch of interviews on a black background. Different subjects needed different amounts of back light. Dimmer came in very handy. If I got a bald person I just dimmed down to acceptable level in seconds.
Click to expand...

I use dimmers as well, but the issue is that dimming usually changes the color characteristics of the light, while a scrim does not.
 
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