Lighting large night interior

[Luke Rihl]

Hey guys, first time lighting a night interior this big. I have attached a photo of the location in question (don't mind the construction materials and messed up ceiling). It's a bank scene that takes place at night with the lights out. The toughest shot is a profile dolly of two characters walking from one end of the bank to the other, from that same angle. As there will be no practicals in the scene, i'm worried about not having enough exterior light coming in. I was thinking a large sodium vapor source coming in the front door to augment a street light that is seen in the front exterior, and HMI's as moonlight in each of the three large windows. I am also playing with the idea of throwing some smaller tungsten sources directly over the main bank floor that could play as emergency/energy saver type lighting for when the bank closes. My question is, how big of sources do you think i'll need for the windows and front door? I have easy access to Arri 575's for the windows, but i'm thinking those will leave it too dark. Shooting dragon standard OLPF and trying to stick to 800 when I can.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

What's the mood of the scene supposed to be? Is this action, comedy, thriller? How stylized and dark are you allowed to get with the scene?

I would think more about what other motivated sources could be in the room. Possibilities could include a red security light, green exit sign, passing car headlights outside, flashlights, strip lights on the floor, soft toppy ambience. It sounds like you may not have enough firepower to do a sodium vapor look from outside the windows if you are going to frame this wide and light to 12fc (800ISO @ f2.8 and 24fps). If you could shoot at f1.4 then you would only need 3fc and could get away with much smaller sources like tungsten tweenies which have the benefit of already being close to the orange-green sodium vapor color that you want.

Personally, I would smoke the set and try to backlight through the windows and silhouette the actors with the reflective sheen on the floor. But that may not be appropriate for the look you are going for.

 

[Luke Rihl]

Thanks for the response Satsuki. The scene is action/suspense with comedic moments..mix of everything. Good notes on other possible sources, strip lights on the floor is something I hadn't thought of. I do have the speed to go 1.5, though I was trying to avoid it for sharpness reasons. I should have mentioned, I'm going to frame just at the top of the Windows. That's how I was thinking I could rig smaller tungsten emergency lighting type sources above the floor. So I can probably also use something on the ceiling inside to add punch to the HMIs if it proves cheaper than getting bigger units. I just have to get them to the same temperature. Backlight from the windows with haze behind the counter was my initial thought as well.

 

[Simon Schneider]

I'm a big fan of Kino 4x2 from drop ceiling clamps for nice toopy soft light and maybe an octodome with egg crate for your primary key.

 

[Chris McKechnie]

All good suggestions. You could also just bounce a larger source off the ceiling to bring up ambience then use smaller practicals in key places to help sell that bounced/diffused source. Lighting is all about motivation...and for the viewer to believe it's real for that specific scene. It's often better to use less sources than over-light and make it feel produced as that will tend to pull your viewer right out of the scene and moment.

 

[Luke Rihl]

Ended up doing the color temperature mix and shooting the HMI's straight at the windows. Wish we had the cash to spring for bigger units, a soft push from larger HMI's being reflected would have been more effective, however I still like how this came out.

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[Mihnea Bi]

What did you use after all (out and inside)? Those where tungsten units or daylight with cts? Cause it doesn't have that magenta tint of tungsten...it looks really good!

 

[Luke Rihl]

What did you use after all (out and inside)? Those where tungsten units or daylight with cts? Cause it doesn't have that magenta tint of tungsten...it looks really good!

Thanks! Outside in the front are several tungsten units of varying size with Urban, the blue is diffused HMIs shot straight in (didn't have big enough units to reflect for that soft push, which would have been nice). Emergency lighting is par cans rigged to the ceiling on dimmers

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

I can only see one frame, but it looks really good to me! Nice work.

 

[Mihnea Bi]

Thank you!