Django, Inglourious and Pulp Fiction signature lighting effect?

[David Mullen ASC]

When we are talking about a "bounce" we aren't talking about a separate bounced light, we are talking about the top light bouncing back off of the table and up into the faces. In that photo, you clearly see a hot top light hitting the table and bouncing back up into the actors' faces, but there are more top lights in other parts of the room also bouncing up, which is adding to the general fill / ambience.

 

[Scott Welsch]

which is adding to the general fill / ambience.

That's what I meant, thanks David!

Edit: Also I'd like to thank everybodys input in helping me play with new looks and styles of lighting.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Sometimes a young sous chef needs to learn the chef's recipe before trying to make the dish themselves and making it their own. In the meantime, encouragement and guidance is appeciated.

As a wise Jedi master once said, you must 'unlearn what you have learned.' Which is a process that requires study, imitation, failure, and finally, invention.

 

[Miko Meloni]

Thanks for the link!

Take a look at Stephen Murphy's new document of Richardson:
http://www.stephen-murphy.com/dop-documents/

 

[Scott Welsch]

Sometimes a young sous chef needs to learn the chef's recipe before trying to make the dish themselves and making it their own. In the meantime, encouragement and guidance is appeciated.

As a wise Jedi master once said, you must 'unlearn what you have learned.' Which is a process that requires study, imitation, failure, and finally, invention.

It's the only way to learn, nobody is entirely original. I learn what I can from the greats or what I consider the greats, take that into the pool of info swimming around in my head and make it my own the best of my abilities.

 

[Rodrigo Prata]

Here's a few frames of a shot film I've shot. I wanted to share it here because I was greatly inspired by this thread when planning the lighting.

Almost all the fill light is coming from the bounce of the backlight (there's one more small bounce of frame). Since it's coming from a very big area, the fill is rather soft. We are currently on the editing process.

 

[sam windell]

Rodrigo,

Awesome looking imagery. Your blacks look super clean. Did you ETTR to achieve this look without a lot of noise?

 

[Rodrigo Prata]

Thanks for the compliment Sam.

Actually there's a bit of noise on the image, but as I`ve shot it in 6K and this is a scaled 2K extremely compressed jpg, the noise kinda vanishes. ETTR is a nomenclature that I think it's more aplicable for RGB cameras, but on RAW recording cameras, I prefere to lower the ISO as much as I can and visualize the image the way I want it to look. It's the same principle, you feed the sensor, as much light as you can but when you over expose a bit when shooting on a 5D or Black Magic camera for instance, you are visualizing the image brighter then what it will look, and I think that is a bit distracting.

In that particular shot, for some reason I shot with 320 ISO and - 600 Flut, (I think I might have accidentaly pressend some button) but I had to develop it at 800 ISO and 0 Flut to get to the exposure I wanted (I didn't have stronger sources and was wide open on the lens, so there was not much I could do). This was shot with an Epic Dragon with the STH OLPF and although there's a bit of noise in the file, I don't think it;s problematic at all and after graded, it's almost unnoticeable. I used tungsten sources and the STH OLPF tends to perform better with warmer lights.

Heres a coulple of R3Ds so you can take a look for yourself: http://we.tl/X3IcbgQYzY

 

[Linda Barzini]

While I like his films, I personally dislike Tarantino's hot spot table lighting. I found the lighting on the glass of milk on the farmer's table extremely distracting from the actual story.

Can someone explain to me why an enormous foreground table hot spot is supposed to be nice?

 

[Bob Gundu]

While I like his films, I personally dislike Tarantino's hot spot table lighting. I found the lighting on the glass of milk on the farmer's table extremely distracting from the actual story.

Can someone explain to me why an enormous foreground table hot spot is supposed to be nice?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I think it can look nice, I don't think this is something that is right or wrong, good or bad, it's a matter of taste.

Certainly one questions it less when it is clearly motivated, a slash of sun or an overhead spot from a fixture with a spot globe like in a bar. But I'm not someone who cares about strict motivation for a lighting effect as long as it creates the right mood for the scene.

The hot top lighting probably worked great in "J.F.K."... I think in that movie one could say it symbolized the search for truth in a dark world, bringing things into light.

 

[Lou Murrall]

It is a matter of taste, I like this shot

 

[Bob Gundu]

Aside from the obvious hot table, it certainly has a functional purpose. When watching the film, it didn't bother me, but it set the mood for an uncomfortable devious situation. Ballsy for sure, but I wouldn't expect anything less.