Ways to deal with no HMIs

Steve Laramie

Steve Laramie

Veteran
I am shooting a short mellow drama monday and tuesday and it is mostly interior day of a house. I couldn't talk the producers into renting HMIs so we are stuck with the following gear list...
(3) Arri 1k fresnels
(2) Arri 650 fresnels
(2) Arri 300 fresnels
(2) Lowel 500W fresnels
(3) Lowel 750W open faced toltas
(3) Britek 1k softboxes
(1) Lowel 1k softlight
(1) Lowel 250w vip

My plan for motivating window light during the day time was to put a silk up against the window and blast the 3 1ks onto the silk for a nice window fill with no double or triple shadows. Do you guys have any other ideas to make this work? I really don't like my idea because I want the sun to be a hard source coming through the window but I don't think this will happen unless I put the sun motivated light/s in doors. I cant guarantee I can fit them indoors because I do not know the layout of the rooms yet.
 
You need to remember that daylight is a dramatically different color temperature than tungsten. So if you took those 3 1k's and pounded them through that silk, you'd just have this big gross orange glow coming in.

If you can't fit the 1k's indoors, I would just take shiney boards or mirrors and push them through the windows. Then maybe take a 2x3 silk and use that as a topper so that the hard portion of that light only comes through on the bottom. If you look at daylight interiors where the sun is directly coming through the window, you'll see that it's VERY rare for the hard sunlight to be hitting an entire person who isn't standing right next to the window. If they're in the room it may only go up to their waist or knees. Depending on the suns position of the sky of course.

The bad thing about that option is the sun moves, and when the sun moves, your boards have to move. So if you can get some full CTO and ND, I would consider bringing the windows down with that as well as making them orange. That way you can use the full power of your 1k's and keep things outside from blowing out as well.

If the place has too many windows or something then you can always just put full blue on your lights, that'll take each light down two stops though, but man...it's sort of a lot of light when your biggest light is a 1k.

The third option is talk them into renting some divas. That could definitely help you out, although it would be a softer source.
 
Well I would obviously CTB the lights for daylight I guess my concern is how much power those 3 1ks can realistically give me after having them gelled. However I like your idea of the mirrors.
 
Can't you make some trades? Surely a bunch of those fresnels counts for a couple of decent HMIs with a rental house. Faking day exterior without them in a house with more than one window is going to be really hard unless you actually shoot all at day.

Noah
 
I tried that. The rental house is pretty ridiculous. They wouldnt allow any trades "They never break up kits" So we only had the option of a kit with 3 1ks or a kit with 2 650s and 2 300s so we went with both. They are the cheapest rental house in my area and now I see why. Also the key grip lives within walking distance of the rental house. I guess I need to figure a way to make this work.
 
With full CTB, your 1ks will give you about the equivalent of 250w. I think gelling the windows with CTO/ND may be your best starting point. Then augment the light with your tungsten fixtures.

Good luck.

~~Dave
 
If the 'sunlight' just isn't bright enough without getting in HMIs (and I'd dump this rental house) then colour correcting them would be even more wasteful of light - however, why not colour correct all the others and work with a lower colour temp, and level from the internal sources, and leave the 'sunlight' as open white?
 
Davdo said:
With full CTB, your 1ks will give you about the equivalent of 250w. I think gelling the windows with CTO/ND may be your best starting point. Then augment the light with your tungsten fixtures.

Good luck.

~~Dave
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think this may be your best bet. Another idea to make your life a bit easier though is to just put tracing paper on all the windows and just reaaaallly let them go. That way you'll have a soft light filling in the area and you can just augment inside with your tungsten lamps. This way you won't have to worry about keeping your levels inside and out similar.

Of course this only works if it's consistent with the story, but it's always an option.
 
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