What is the character of this light?

[combatentropy]

Can anyone help me understand the kind of light that was used in this shot? I can't tell if it's hard or soft. It seems to have characteristics of both.




Anyways, I've seen it before, like maybe in the work of Gordon Willis, and I like it. This one happens to be from American Gigolo, cinematography by John Bailey.

It looks like a hard light, from some distance away, but maybe with some kind of mild filtration over it. The shadows are sharp, but it doesn't seem as harsh as a bare hard light.

 

[TheDingo]

The shadow from the tipped fruit bowl on to the green vase is well defined, which indicates the lighting is relatively hard where Richard Gere is standing. But the reflection on the curved brown wall behind richard looks like a fresnel light shot through a large scrim, which gives you a combination of hard light directly from the fresnel combined with the softer light from the large scrim. ( i.e. the fresnel behind the scrim is close to the scrim so it gives a relatively hard bright spot in the center of the scrim, but the scrim is also passing dimmer and softer light, so you end up with a combination of hard and soft light )

Given that the shadow on the green vase is not black, it's being filled in by a light pointing from the direction Richard Gere's face is pointing, so it' face on to Richard Gere. If you look at the three bright specular highlights on the green vase, you can see the reflection from the large scrim + fresnel in the center, then on the left you can see a smaller reflection from the fill-light that is pointing directly at Richard Gere's face ( I'm going to guess that this is a smaller and dimmer fresnel light ), and lastly you can see a small reflection on the right which is likely another fill-light opening up the shadows on the right side of the scene. ( again probably another smaller and dimmer fresnel light ) The bottom left section of the vase also shows another light positioned low to the ground that might be another fill-light.

This is not my favorite lighting at all, but if you're trying to duplicate it it looks like you're going to need 4 fresnels ( one larger and brighter than the other three, and a large scrim to shoot the larger fresnel through to get that hard/soft combo light )

Good-luck.

 

[jcs]

If you zoom in on the green vase it looks like 7 light sources. 5 small sources and 2 big sources close together. Looking to the right it looks like perhaps two more medium sources reflecting off green and black objects.

 

[TheDingo]

If you zoom in on the green vase it looks like 7 light sources. 5 small sources and 2 big sources close together. Looking to the right it looks like perhaps two more medium sources reflecting off green and black objects.

I think some of those sources are reflections.

 

[jcs]

I think some of those sources are reflections.

Yeah the big spots on right could be replication of the combined two main sources though zoomed in they look round (low res., hard to tell). The vase shows two small sources left, what looks like two overlapped rectangular sources center, and a small source right. Below center could be a reflector or weak source, right, below small source could be another weak source or reflector. Left side of vase is interesting reflection- clear coating reflecting directly back to camera vs. typical reflection/incident-angle specular reflection (which would imply another source or sources)?

 

[TheDingo]

I'm also guessing that the top left reflection is right beside the camera given how it's almost dead-center in the vase.