Flashlights

[Eric Ulbrich]

Hey everyone,
Curious to know if anybody has played around with shooting dark INT scenes with the motivation for the lighting being only flashlights? I want to set a base level of ambiance and then rely on the flashlights as the primary source of illumination.
What types of flashlights have you all experimented with?
What should I be thinking as far as exposure and how powerful the lights must be?
LED or filament?
how much does haze help to illustrate the beam vs smoke or dust?
Does filtration help at all?

Thanks.

 

[jhodges]

The color temperature of the lighting from a filament flashlight might be nicer looking, I think that LED flashlights tend to be made with whatever is brightest so they always go for quality lighting.

 

[Nick Gardner]

Blocking has a lot to do with lighting with flashlights. Depending on whats going on, give the actors reasons to light themselves. If one person is following another, have one of them wear a white shirt , the other points the flashlight at the shirt. There's your bounce. Looking at papers or a clipboard same thing. Smoke helps lower the contrast and you get to see the shaft of light from the flashlight. D cell maglights work well.

Nick

 

[David Mullen ASC]

An even light haze is a good idea, to see the beam but also lift up shadow detail.

Lighting a sequence by flashlights is certain doable (look at the climax to "Jennifer Eight", shot by Conrad Hall), but you have to understand that how bright the flashlight has to be depends on what you are trying to expose by it. If it's just a light pointing into a lens, or a lighting shining on an object in the dark, it doesn't have to be super powerful, but if you are trying to get the person holding the flashlight to be exposed by the beam bouncing back off of objects into the face, then it has to be pretty bright. It helps to have off-camera white cards and whatnot for the flashlight to hit, and if that's not enough, pan a second small off-camera light into a white card at the right moment to augment the effect. Many people use the high-powered flashlights made by Surefire or Streamlight:

http://www.surefire.com/
http://www.streamlight.com/

It doesn't hurt to add a very dim, very underexposed, soft overall ambience in the room as a constant base light level during the sequence, unless you want really dramatic contrast.

 

[Klas Persson]

American Cinematographer has an article of I Am Legend in which Andrew Lesnie lit a scene almost entirely with Will Smith's flashlight. They used additional flashlights in a few shots to bounce some light on his hair.

 

[Eric Ulbrich]

thank you everyone for the great advice!