Lighting help and ideas on this location...

[Noah S]

Hey guys,

I have a music video shoot coming up at a local Catholic Church. It is actually more of a performance video than a traditional music video. Basically two cameras cutting back and forth between the singer, pianist, and cellist. The music is powerful and spiritual.

I would love for this to have streams of fog filled light rays coming down in a heavenly way. Kinda like the first image below. BUT budget is very limited and I have never lit a location this large before. We don't have the budget/manpower to have large lights shining through each window. Plus, with it being so large not sure we could fog it up enough. :/ How would you guys approach the lighting set up? Any ideas on how to make this visually stand out but not be so dark that my Scarlet-x sensor struggles to get enough light? Thanks!

(these photos, were from my iphone artemis app)

 

[Marc Wielage]

Depending on what your post budget is, it's not impossible to create VFX shafts of light from windows like this. I've done it quite a few times in the last year or so.

 

[John Brennick]

Depending on what your post budget is, it's not impossible to create VFX shafts of light from windows like this. I've done it quite a few times in the last year or so.

A good suggestion. If you compose your shots for the shafts of light to not require any roto, you can art direct the volume rays till your hearts content... Or till you're tired of looking at it. We're doing a bunch of these right now on a film and it's pretty common to pull off in post. It can get to be a bit of a headache if there is a lot of roto to deal with but again, if youre mindful of your composition and you design your frames with the volume rays in mind then I think it can work in your favor. Camera movement is ok, it's just going to require someone who is good at tracking. Nukes 3D tracker is pretty amazing and I think you can pull off what you want in DI with post volume rays just as Marc said. Good luck!

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Or if you've scouted and determined that the sun will be in the right position to fill the side windows with unobstructed sunlight, then why not rent two DF-50 hazers and shoot it for real? Underexpose a bit to make the shafts of light pop and have one big soft daylight key available to model the talent. Something like a Kino Image 80 through an 8x8 frame. Then maybe have a few Source 4 Lekos up on the balcony. You can always keep the VFX shafts in your back pocket if the weather doesn't cooperate.

 

[Noah S]

All great ideas guys.
I like the idea of trying to get what we can on set with the sun and then do VFX as a back up or to enhance them. Do you think if I put 3 Source 4s outside on combo stands outside those balcony windows they would have enough punch to shine through those stained glass windows? Otherwise I may put them inside and just let them be in the frame. I really want to the haze this place up, I will see if we can sell the location on letting us do it.

I am also going to reach out to our VFX guy and get his thoughts on adding the rays in after. Thanks Guys!

 

[Justin McAleece]

Source 4's will definitely help and probably work, though they will obviously not spread much. But maybe that's better. Lowering the overall light levels by netting or silking the other windows from outside could be useful. Also, smoke or haze is absolutely necessary.

 

[Eric Santiago]

Depending on what your post budget is, it's not impossible to create VFX shafts of light from windows like this. I've done it quite a few times in the last year or so.

Anything is possible with time as far as CG but the windows in the test shots show that they are considerably lower than the example.

That changes the look of the (pardon the pun) godrays.

Ive done of a ton of these in the past using EIAS and now almost do-able in After Effects.

But now you have to ask, how do you want the rays to show up since the windows are high and low in position.

Depending on how you want the film plate to interact, transfer mode can help avoid any mask/tracking.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Plan the shoot for a time of day when the light is brighter one side of the church and try put a lot of frost on the other side of the church windows. Fill up the church with crack smoke and then grade everything accordingly.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Do you think if I put 3 Source 4s outside on combo stands outside those balcony windows they would have enough punch to shine through those stained glass windows?

No, the Source 4's will do nothing when competing against real daylight. You will not even see them if you try to punch them through stained glass, which absorbs a ton of light. I'm afraid the only realistic options are to either use natural sunlight, or get a row of 18K HMIs on scaffolding or condors.

My suggestion for using the Source 4's was to augment the key light with them from inside the room by splashing little hotspots around the performance area. Placing them up high on the balcony would allow them to stay out of most your shots and get that realistically high angle.

 

[Ben Scott]

Very interesting conundrum and as other have said this is one of those points where you can't really avoid the laws of physics.

Big space needs big light.

The only ways to do this on a budget are getting lucky with the perfect natural lighting lasting long enough to get the shot, or to do it in post which is then wholly dependent on your AE skills.

 

[Noah S]

Thanks for all of your input guys. I think you are all spot on.
On the top image with the light coming through the windows...I was a grip on that shoot a few years ago. If I remember right they had Par Can lights shining down together with the natural sunlight. They might of had two per window on some of them.

I was on another shoot that had like 7 mirror boards outside a building bouncing the light through the windows. Yet with it being winter I am betting it will be cloudy here in Utah. May have to get several source 4s for interior use, some shiny boards, and see how it goes with the natural light.....

Oh and a hazer. I read that a water based one like the Rosco v-hazer does not leave residue like the oil based ones. I would not want to ruin this church built in the 1800s. :/ Anyone have experience with hazers like that?

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

1K Parcans would be much punchier than 750w Source 4 Lekos for sure. If you ganged enough of them together and shot at night, that might work. At that point, it's basically a 9-light Maxibrute! Mirrorboards would work as well, since that's just natural sunlight. However that would be a huge pain to tie them all down and to keep repositioning them as the sun moves.

Here are the spec sheets for the DF-50 and the fog fluids it can take. You can get non-oil based fluids for it: http://www.reelefx.com/index.php?c=product.view&id=1

You could also use something like a Mole Fogger which uses the Rosco fog juice but you won't get an even haze with one of those, just billowing clouds of fog that never really settle. For the effect you want, a hazer is the better option.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Also, with a space that big it might be a good idea to get 2x hazers and place them at opposite ends of the room so you don't have to wait as long for the haze to fill the space. It would really suck to lose the perfect sunlight because you're waiting for the hazer to do its job...

 

[Noah S]

You're the man Sutsuki. Thanks for all the tips.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Cheers Noah, good luck with your shoot! Let us know how it goes.

 

[Mark Wuerthner]

Not sure if these scale properly for you but you might think of 4 Joker 200 shining down without any lens in front of the beam. According to the photometrics on K5600 website the joker 200 will have a beam of about 1.3 x 1.3 feet at 20 feet, so going on from there at 40 feet the beam will be about 2.6 x 2.6 feet and so on. The brightness at 40 feet will be about 369 footcandles so at 80 feet will be 92 footcandles, which is about 3 stops over if you are shooting at 800ISO/t2.8. At 3 amps a light you can plug them all into one 15 amp circuit. I don't know how bright it is with the natural light in there so you have to make the calculations based on your scout. (Actually, that would be a cool bit of info for the Artemis app to be able to do along with the other info)

 

[Nick Gardner]

1K Parcans would be much punchier than 750w Source 4 Lekos for sure.

Very true. However, source four PARS with 750 globes are much punchier than par64 cans. In fact S4 pars with 575 globes have more punch than a par64 1k. And they are cheap.

Nick

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

However, source four PARS with 750 globes are much punchier than par64 cans. In fact S4 pars with 575 globes have more punch than a par64 1k.

Funny, I haven't noticed that to be the case, but then I've never lined them up side-by-side so I guess it's possible. The Source 4 Pars are certainly more compact than the Parcans and it's convenient that you can switch the lenses without also changing the globe. Then again, if I'm using Parcans I'm almost always ordering NSP or VNSP globes anyway...

 

[Audy Erel]

In case you need some awesome samples on how to do it in post. This is so far the best volumetric light tutorial done inside After Effect by Andrew Kramer from Video Copilot, realistic 3D space and organic looking lights (not the fake one with solid masking/gradual opacity trickery, see how the window effect done at 17:07) without any third party plugin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frXQxwMKh6c Hope this helps!

 

[Ulf Krentz]

These windows look kind of frosted? If the are not clear you will have a hard time creating that shafts in camera...