How you would light this car garage space?

[Ben Scott]

I'm shooting in about 5 weeks in this garage as they undertake a really cool supercar build and just popped down to check it out. Probably around 6-8 days shooting in there.

Aside from having a single Arri Skypanel or similar on a stand to roll in and out as required we'll need the floor clear for people to work so going to need to be lit from above.

I've already said we need to be able to black out the roof skylights. At the moment the strip lights reflect like mofos on the reflective car surfaces but I was thinking to maybe swap the bulbs out for Kinos or Quasar Science ones and diffuse them somehow. Any suggestions as to the best way to deal with this environment greatly appreciated.

 

[Richard Thompson]

considering the white ceiling you might bounce floods off it, could be placed around perimeter walls

 

[Ben Scott]

Yep that's an option. Might not be the sexiest but would get us a base level of exposure. Thanks.

 

[David W. Jones]

12x20 overhead above the main car build to avoid the multiple light reflections. A pair of 8x8 solids which can be moved in or out for negative fill. 6x6 grid butterfly which can be rolled in for fill as needed. Small diffused LED's lighting the interiors of the background vehicles to provide atmosphere, as well as individual Fresnel or Source 4 lights highlighting the lines of each background car controlled by dimmer pack. Depending on how stylized, maybe RGB streaks on the lifts. Or not. ��

Dave

 

[Tom Gleeson]

Ben,

The first question should be what do you want your final product to look like? What type of show are you making and what is your brief? Is this a TVC or a reality/dock style shoo? I believe you will need to consult with your subjects because if they are doing an actual super car build they are going to want bright high key lighting so they can effectively work. To what extent can you control the work and space ? Its a real bummer if they wont allow any floor lights. Your in a bit of a pickle as I assume they will do work all over the floor. Its such a large space if you black the skylights you will need to put a serious amount of light into it. Think big HMIs. Luckily there may be three phase power in the building and you could bounce of that ceiling and you would get a softer broader source than the skylights and strip lights but you will still see the roof reflected in the cars. If you have the money a 20x20 hanging off the roof with at least 4 skypanels above would do a nice job. With cars make sure your rag goes right to the edge of the frame or your will see reflected in every car panel the gap between the rag and the frame.

Unless this is a TVC style shoot or you have a lot of resources I would be tempted to go with the natural sources. Something to consider if you can't control the light is to control the contrast by darkening all the walls. Ideally paint the walls a dark tone. I like grey but a dark colour may suit your production. You probably only need to paint the first three meters. If your not allowed to paint possibly dark cloth pinned to your key walls?

 

[Terry VerHaar]

In general, I am the first one to hate this kind of response but here goes...

given the likely stakes - "supercar" = $$, 6-8 days shooting = $$$ - why not hire a top notch gaffer to help you get the look that will serve your end goals?

 

[Ben Scott]

Terry that's what I'm pushing for but so far the Producers have fixated on other areas of the show and I'm not sure how much love/budget this part of it is going to get.

Our last chat was that we were shooting on Cooke anamorphics and other areas of the show were going to be quite stylised and that this is what it is - within reason.

Tom, I think your suggestion re skypanels and diffusion is the most workable unless we get some proper gaffer time in there.

Thanks again all.

 

[Mark K.]

I'd consider blacking out the skylights, then swapping out the fluorescents for Kinos/Quasars, then using full rolls of diffusion to turn each of the three rows of overheads into big long sausage lights. Could yield some nice reflections of the bodywork.

 

[Björn Benckert]

To me the sky lights are perfect. Without them you would get dull boring reflections in the car. So if it was up to me I would extend those and work with them. Normally they put skylights in car shops for the one reason, to show the shape of the cars when they work on them. Stripe shaped light sources shows the bumps/shapes of the body work. So possibly you can enhance it even more with blacking out around them and put a light box on the roof so you also have it night time if needed / have control over the outside light. That way you also dont get any disturbing light fixtures on the floor / inside the garage.

Then ad light tubes to the contrsruction of the walls etc to enhance the reflections even more.

 

[Ben Scott]

Those skylights were just part of the unit before it was sold to become a car shop. There will be huge continuity issues shooting stuff out of sequence and picking up parts of the build at different tims of the day if that daylight is part of the key and well, if you're used to our beautiful English weather every 5 secs will be 2+ stop difference due to cloud cover/blazing sun/biblical flood.

I think we'll hopefully take the finished car into a studio for a properly sexy lighting setup but for the build section we just want it to be cleaner and consistant. I think *


* Subject to change.

 

[Mike Finegan]

Or put a large light in each corner pointed up at ceiling with large bounce card in the corner and use entire ceiling as a broad illumination source

 

[Ben Scott]

Yep that is the more rough and ready solution I'm considering if I don't get what I need in terms of gaffer/kit. Thanks for chiming in Mike.

 

[Erich Roland]

To me the sky lights are perfect. Without them you would get dull boring reflections in the car. So if it was up to me I would extend those and work with them. Normally they put skylights in car shops for the one reason, to show the shape of the cars when they work on them. Stripe shaped light sources shows the bumps/shapes of the body work. So possibly you can enhance it even more with blacking out around them and put a light box on the roof so you also have it night time if needed / have control over the outside light. That way you also dont get any disturbing light fixtures on the floor / inside the garage.

Then ad light tubes to the contrsruction of the walls etc to enhance the reflections even more.

I agree with BJorn. The sky-lights are a big plus and would cost a lot to try and re-produce, yet its free. The down side it the inconsistency with weather and off hours shooting, if you can lick that issue then your in good shape (shoot close ups when its off hours, etc). Swap out the Floro bulbs and maybe just use the ones above the car. The floro's are also in your favor as they provide a base level exposure and actually do needed reflection work on the car, specially when the skylight is not cooperating. Some amount of set mood might help the cause by turning off the floro's closest to the walls or skirting them. Maybe also judiciously cover a few of the skylights closer to walls or further from your car to help create mood and lesson the overall impact for when the clouds roll in. Add a few soft lights on rolling stands with chimera's and grids (to control those reflections) for the people working and a small harder (controllable) light to get in on a close up of engines etc.

 

[Ben Scott]

The skylights 100% have to go. There would be 2-stop changes in exposure every 2mins due to our lovely weather English Autumn weather and anything we'd shot out of sequence or at night would not match up at all. A shame I know.

The rest of your suggestions could work very well and certainly I've asked about having whatever lights we end up going for in the ceiling all individually dimmable from a master board.

A Skypanel on wheels to roll in and out at the very least is a must I think. Will see what happens re diffusion and pairs of hands available when it's finally settled.

 

[Ulf Krentz]

Or put a large light in each corner pointed up at ceiling with large bounce card in the corner and use entire ceiling as a broad illumination source

Looks like these are dark colored cars, be prepared to see the entire roof construction if you just bounce from the ceiling. Get a large frame as suggested before, have some flags to "cut" the reflection where needed and also have a number of clean smooth white boards to use it instead of the reflections from the floor. Think about the car as if it would be a mirror, unfortunately it is also a bend mirror so you often need to be very close to the subject, just out of frame with the boards / frame. Looks like a cool and fun task!

 

[Ben Scott]

Yes Ideally we are going to cut down the reflective nature of some of the cars by swapping them out for other things in the garage but it will be a constant battle.

 

[Ben Scott]

Looking like due to budget and the live action version of Disney's Dumbo using about 90 Sky Panels at the moment, that we are having kino-based grid built plus a couple of lights on the ground to bring in and out when needed.

Will post images once the shoot takes place.

Thanks for all your help everyone. It's great to explore various solutions with you all.

 

[Bill Totolo]

I'd go the other direction. Embrace the reflections in a stylistic way.
Black out the ceiling and suspens]d 8' Kino tubes to form squares above each work station/car. You'll get a moody look w/ pools of light and the cars will have a slick looking shape reflected in them.

Or take some inspiration from this Under Armor commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSEOq0C-8Ug&list=PLj7o1nm5KVP2U63nGZbcIRodB-7JU2nnc

 

[Ben Scott]

As an update to this, we agreed on Skypanels. Then the live action version of Disney's Dumbo commandeered all the spare Skypanels in the UK.

In the end at the very last minute after another solution fell through 2 days before shooting we got 8 x Kino Celeb 250s appropriately spaced around the garage, wired to a dmx board for colour temp and output.

Worked very very well. Truth be told they were a tiny bit underpowered for what we asked of them and when/if we do it again I'd ask for the 450 versions and I'd skirt them but in terms of quality of light they were great.