suggestions for a noir short

OmaR

OmaR

Active member
I'm going to make my first short, a noir in black and white, and I'm very worried about the light setup.

At the moment I've got:

- 2 redheads with 300/650 W light
- 1 fresnel with 300/650 W light
- 1 cone 30-50-70 mm
- 1 5-in-1 reflector

I'll shoot internal (in very small locations) and external (probably in a sunny day).

These are my questions:

1) since I'm shooting for a b/w postproduction, am I suppose to take care of the colour temperature?

2) I would like to obtein that noir-look: should I use the cone on the fresnel to have a very hard light?

3) I'm going to buy dimmers: they are all identical or there are any difference should I consider?

4) Have you any suggenstions about shoot in external? How could I obtein a noir-look outside?
 
1) yes
2) depends, try it and choose what looks better
3) dunno
4) shoot at night ;) maybe shoot day for night, stop down a LOT and use the sun for edge light, bounce to expose properly
 
1) I don't know what Cheese is talking about. If your shooting black and white than there's no reason to worry about color temperature. That only matters when shooting color.

2) Well as you know, noir uses very hard light, so I would stay away from the fresnel. The fresnel lens gives the light a softer feeling, I would say to stick with the redheads, and maybe use the fresnel for rim.

3) Just make sure that they can handle the wattage you plan to pump through them. Be aware that the dimmers will screw with your color temperature, which won't be a problem now. But down the road you'll want to take that into account.

4) I would say to put the sun behind your subject (not in the les of course) or to their side. Don't have it hit their face evenly. Either use it as your key, and don't do anything for fill OR use it as your rim, and use the reflector as your key (again, no fill.)
 
Omar, I did a DV noir 3 years ago. Check out http:/www.thefirstperson.com there is a trailer there. That was done on a PD150, before my great days of 24p, but I still think the look came out strong. The key:

Dedolights.

They're bad! as in good bad. They are expensive, but if you look around, people will cut you deals. they are small, but their lenses allow them to cast a lot of focused light very far distances. Perfect for slashes of light on walls, eye light in the classic noir style, etc. I had my own seminar with Mr. Dedo himself, and his observations were simply stunning!

Also, you can get a kit of 4, they use much less power than traditional film lights, you can mount them in many places (even with a special suction cup to a wall!) and they all plug into a ballast that lets you adjust each one independantly by 4 stops.

These are the true noir light, because of their versatility and compactness.

If I sound like an advert. I am not. I am just very picky when it comes to lights. And these are just about the only light I would purchase to put in a kit.

For a day scene, get yourself lots of flags, and shoot in the shadows. They exist during the day! Shoot at anytime but noon hours, so the shadows are long and noir-ish.

To have hard light, anything with a lens is better, that allows you to focus the light to the spot formation. Also, the further away you are from a soft source, the harder the light will become, though you will have significant light loss.

Finally, get a monitor, old TV, anything that you can turn down the chroma on to see what you are shooting in BW. Do not use any BW modes on the camera unless you are really pressed for time in post. Remember, BW is all about contrast. Unfortunately, with color mediums, most of the contrast comes from the chroma channels, not the luma channel, so you're going to want your R G and B channels in post to be able to have more control over the BW look of your film. You may also want to invest in a DPs black and white viewing glass, when you look through it, the world becomes sepia toned and more contrasty. On the bright side, color temp matters much less to you! Tungsten and Daylight won't matter as much, except for small amounts of noise in particular channels depending on the camera you are using.


check out DF 35mm or magic bullet. Or if you have a strong understanding of color, skip all that and do it yourself in shake :)

aside from Dedolights, if you are truly going for noir, and the lack of spending that it implies, try regular shop lights, tungsten lightbulbs dangling from ceilings. Remember, the mark of the noir, is that they were war and post war films done with not a lot of money but a lot of soul, and a darkness that filled peoples souls after a devistating time in the world.

hope this helps!
 
Omar, you can go ahead and put the sun in your shot, it's up to you :) Remember digital has less latitude than film, particularily in brightness. So watch out and don't blow out anything.

And to expand on one thing... the more I think about it, color temp CAN be important when shooting color for BW. As I mentioned above, it has to do with what chroma channels you are going to use in post. For example, HDCAM tends to pick up noise in the Blue channel. So if you used more tungsten color temps, you would have to rely less on your blue channel in post. Etc.

DV has all the chroma channels at 4:1:1, which stinks, because all the channels you will want to use for contrast will be blocky at a 4 to 1 ratio, so experiment there, etc.

This is clearly an area that could use some testing and research.

or you can just desaturate and increase the contrast curve! That's the easy way :) Then color temp wouldn't matter.
 
Hi Omar:

I produced a short-form documentary for Fox-Pathe' in France last year on the 1944 Otto Preminger noir feature Laura, it's on the new 2-disc special edition that is only available in France, I believe?

I studied the film a lot and I think it might be an interesting film for you to look to this film, largely because it was lit by Joseph LaShelle, who won the Oscar that year for his beautiful cinematography. It's a different style of film noir than the rest of them and I like it easily as much as any other noir I have seen.

I would also point you toward possibly using red filters for your outdoor shots or possibly looking towards infrared photography (I think you can emulate an infrared look pretty well in video).

Lastly, make sure that you have a great makeup artist or your talent will end up looking pretty bad with the hard lighting of noir. Every skin imperfection and wrinkle is amplified by hard light and a skilled artist can compensate. Do camera tests for sure, you will need to develop your look, it is fairly rare to shoot B&W with hard light with digital video.

Best of luck,

Dan
 
TC said:
2) Well as you know, noir uses very hard light, so I would stay away from the fresnel. The fresnel lens gives the light a softer feeling, I would say to stick with the redheads, and maybe use the fresnel for rim.
Click to expand...
Well I was stunned when I read this. Especially since no one else commented on it. I started to doubt my sanity, not mention past purchasing decisions, but I contacted an old DP friend in New York, and he put me back together again.

• There is nothing remotely soft about the light from a fresnel. In fact, it is focussed hard light, so I guess you could conclude that it is the hardest of lights.

• Most classic noir from the 30's to the 50's was shot using fresnels. Only very occasionally, was some type of softening (gels/nets) employed for the female actors.
 
I didn't mean that a fresnel is the equivalent of a softbox or anything. :grin:

I meant that a fresnel is softer than an open faced light, but hey, I may be wrong on that one. If your buddy is a DP, than he probably knows better than me, I have very little experience with open-faced lights, but it was my understanding that they are the hardest light you can get.
 
Okay, I'm no expert either, but I think the idea that an open face being the hardest type of light comes from a slight confusion about the idea that the hardest light comes from the smallest source (i.e. a bare lightbulb.) A fresnel, of course, has a lens in front of the globe, and the lens thereby acts as the light source (by the same principal that a frame of diffusion or a softbox works.) An open face light is not simply a globe though, they all (or at least I think all of them do) have a rounded reflector behind the globe that, along with the globe itself, act as a light source. Now, as far as practically getting the hardest source you can on set, I've heard that removing a lens from a fresnel (leaving you with the globe and small reflector) gives a very hard light. I've never personally done this as I've only had the fresnels about a month and the need simply hasn't come up, but it works in my head...(Oh, but then so much seems to be perfect in my head ;-)
Anyway, as I think Rogue pointed out earlier, the real matter of hard vs. soft light is the distance from teh subject. Even a 10K Big Eye six inches from the subject will act as a soft source (just a reaaaaaaaaly bright one.) Anyway, I hope that clears up some confusion and please feel free to correct the mistakes I'm sure I've made.
Peace,

-Harry
 
TC said:
I didn't mean that a fresnel is the equivalent of a softbox or anything. :grin:
I meant that a fresnel is softer than an open faced light, but hey, I may be wrong on that one.
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Whatever...

Omar, only zoostory mentioned the real source of the noir look - shadow. He said,
"For a day scene, get yourself lots of flags, and shoot in the shadows. They exist during the day! Shoot at anytime but noon hours, so the shadows are long and noir-ish."
I have to say that this is even more true for you interiors, especially since you said they would be tight interiors. You will have light bouncing all over the place, so use as many cutters and flags as you can support. I am partial to black foamcore, which is available at places like Office Depot, OfficeMax and some supermarkets.

You won't need many lights either - a key, very little if any fill, and since the spaces are small, a small (2-300W) backlight, perhaps with a cookie, to give your talent separation from the wall behind them.
 
Thank you guys, you are great! I have no time to answer just right now (I have to get to work), but as soon as I can I'll write a few question too.

p.s.
Yesterday night I saw The First Person trailer: amazing!:love4:
About Laura, it is one of my favorite movie: here in Italy is going to be distribuited by Fox in a 2 disk special edition... I'll get it!
 
ok, I'm back with a few question:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

just a little recapitulation:

1) use dedolights;
2) shoot in the shadows;
3) don't shoot at noon;
4) use an old tv like monitor;
5) put the lights far from the subjets;
6) use make-up.

1) I'm out of money!!! :crybaby: I've already spent all my money to buy DVX100, lights, wideangle attachment and microphones!! Uh, anyway, I was thinking about an extensive use of the wideangle in order to create a certain look... what do you think about it?

2) 3) 4) ok, no problem!

5) unfortunately my interiors are very small, I have to find a solution...

6) my sister has a beauty farm, she will help me: have you any suggestions in order to do the "right things"?

I'm going to shoot on the 2nd of june (the next fryday), as soon as possible I'll post a few picture, so we could discuss on my work (if you want) :dankk2:
 
Omar, thanks for the kind words on "The First Person' that was on a freakin PD150, so it's proof that anything is possible.

If you are on a budget, you may have to forgo Dedolights, they're a costly rent.

In terms of this long Fresnel debate. they are basically the tried and true old-school film light, you can open them up (it's called open-facing) to get the hardest, brightest light out of them. Short of that, you can also spot and flood them, focusing the beam of light to make it harder or softer.

Also, remember this rule of thumb, the further away a light source is, the harder it will be. So if you have a light on someones face, and it's not hard enough for you, walk it back, you'll lose light intensity, but you'll gain light hardness. In this way even the softest lights can be made hard. Just look at the shadows as you walk away and you will see the edges become harder.

Now, if you need to go seriously cheap. Then use tungsten bulbs. You can go to a photo supply store and get photo-flood bulbs for about 6 bucks each. They come in regular tungsten, or cool blue (not that it matters for BW). You can get them at 500W or 250W. You can open source them near your subject, but I would try and put them in a shop clip lamp of some sort, because the one thing you REALLY WANT IS CONTROL of your light beams. You don't want light spilling all over the place. In fact, you want beams of light.

My suggestion, go rent a bunch of DVDs of noir films you like, freeze frame shots, and analyze them. Map them out on a floor-plan. It's a good exercise. And it will help you figure out your lighting before being on set, you'll be less frustrated, and have more time to work on performance, which is ALWAYS the most important thing for a director to focus on, even in a stylized piece.

If you analyze a frame, you can tell where the light is coming from on an actors face by looking at the shadow of their nose. On women in noir, the light is usually up high in front of them, creating what is called the "butterfly" shadow right under their nose. In more contemporary cinematography, the key light is often 45 degrees off to a frontal side, making a diagonal nose shadow.

Avoid white rooms. they'll kill evrything and make it look like a student film. Trust me, I am a student in film school lol! And have good production design. PD is so underused and I don't understand why. It's EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE FRAME other than the actor. So that's a lot of visual real-estate!

Have Fun!
 
thank you again, you are great guys!

tomorrow is the big day, I can't wait!!!

I've already studied all the noir movies I've got: Double Indemnity, The Big Heat, Sunset Boulevard, Detour, Kiss Me Deadly, Touch of Evil, ... I hope to succeed in hemulate them!!!!

:dankk2: :dankk2: :dankk2:
 
ok, I shot almost all the interiors...

I think that, as my first experience, is not so bad... I'm really proud about 2 or 3 frame... as soon as I have my iMac at home, I'll post some grabs

:thumbsup:
 
Yesterday I finally bought the iMac, so, as soon as possible, I'll show you a few grabs.

But today I have another question for you... I'm going to shoot, this sunday, the exteriors: a few of them will be shot during the day, but I should like to obtein the night: ok, day for night. But, do you remember? My short will be a black&white...
I need to do something like white balance on a yellowish colour or just to underexpose a little bit?
 
just want to defend my statement that color temperature matters when shooting b+w. Basically, changin color temperature DOES change color, and different colors DO show differently in b+w.

Anyone listen to the commentary on Sin City? They discuss how they needed to be sure that they wanted the dress in red, because they couldn't decide to later make it black and white because Rodriguez didn't like the density of red in b+w. Same thing with Dwight's car, it was supposed to be b+w, but the only car of that model they could get was red, which freak out Rodriguez at first, but he ended up loving keeping it in color.

Anyway, same concept: red, blue, yellow, they all look different in black and white, so yes, take the moment to correct the color temperature when you normally would.

And besides the SC commentary, I actually first learned that here. Someone else asked the same question and another user gave an explaination much more elequent than mine. If I find it I'll post it.

:D
 
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