Lighting suggestions needed

[Lee M]

I am trying to light up a set in a warehouse. It is to appear as a one take that moves around about 400 sq feet. I want it to look like a dark basement however I do not want to underexpose so am thinking of just shooting bright and darkening in post. Even at a 1.5 t stop and a couple 1k Fresnel, I am still getting some red on the goal posts. Would it be a bad idea to add even more light? If so will LED panels do the trick or do I perhaps need to some 2000w Fresnels? What about Kino-flo? I kind of want to walls and certain areas of the basement set to be less lit than where the subject is.

Here is a test shots with my current lighting setup (1k fresnels):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwsCXosGsXI

Added a 1000 LED panel behind the camera (hense the shadow) to play with it on a higher shutter speed, actually came out better, I would probably want mount the LED's in front of the camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib_kO9bjick

New to all this, been self learning the past 6 months, any help would be appreciated.

 

[Denton Adkinson]

Maybe try bouncing the 2k into a beadboard to increase your ambient fill, then focus your 1ks to the path of the subject. You can always pick up a roll of cinefoil to control the spill on the walls. You will have to experiment with the contrast ratio. the 2k may prove to overpower as the bounced fill, but you may need to scrim the 1ks - it depends on the placement of your subject relative to the lights.

I hope this helps

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

If you want to create the effect of a dark and creepy basement, then I think you should re-consider your overall lighting approach. A dark room should have shadows. So instead of broadly illuminating the whole area and then reducing exposure, the trick is to create small pools of light within the dark frame that illuminate just the areas that are important to the story. This is how you create contrast and planes of depth to an image.

One way to begin is to think about where the logical light sources would exist in the story. Perhaps there is a staircase leading up to an illuminated doorway. And maybe there is a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Or a sickly green fluorescent tube mounted on one of the walls. Or a halogen work light on the floor. Maybe there are even harsh slits of sunlight filtering through the floorboards above.

Use these imagined elements to build up your basement set and balance the colors and light levels from each source to taste. Then you can consider whether you need to augment the existing light with additional lights to increase exposure in certain areas of the set, or to add more fill light generally. For example, you may want to illuminate an area underneath the hanging light bulb as if lit by the bulb, which does not have enough output to do that on its own. So you could hang a 650w fresnel with a blackwrap snoot above the bulb and out of frame to create the illusion of a basement lit by a single light bulb and achieve enough exposure for your scene.

The fill light would be the very last thing to add, sort of like a little pinch of salt to taste before serving a dish.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

For example, here is a dark attic scene that I shot for a short film:

GBHavana_07 by satsmura, on Flickr

Because it was meant to be dark, I only added one main source light to the scene and left the rest the room dark. There is an Arri M18 HMI about 8' outside the window and smoke added inside to show the beam of light. The ambient bounce from the HMI does the rest of the work. I added a bounce board for the tighter shots. So sometimes it really can be that simple.

 

[Lee M]

If you want to create the effect of a dark and creepy basement, then I think you should re-consider your overall lighting approach. A dark room should have shadows. So instead of broadly illuminating the whole area and then reducing exposure, the trick is to create small pools of light within the dark frame that illuminate just the areas that are important to the story. This is how you create contrast and planes of depth to an image.

One way to begin is to think about where the logical light sources would exist in the story. Perhaps there is a staircase leading up to an illuminated doorway. And maybe there is a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Or a sickly green fluorescent tube mounted on one of the walls. Or a halogen work light on the floor. Maybe there are even harsh slits of sunlight filtering through the floorboards above.

Use these imagined elements to build up your basement set and balance the colors and light levels from each source to taste. Then you can consider whether you need to augment the existing light with additional lights to increase exposure in certain areas of the set, or to add more fill light generally. For example, you may want to illuminate an area underneath the hanging light bulb as if lit by the bulb, which does not have enough output to do that on its own. So you could hang a 650w fresnel with a blackwrap snoot above the bulb and out of frame to create the illusion of a basement lit by a single light bulb and achieve enough exposure for your scene.

The fill light would be the very last thing to add, sort of like a little pinch of salt to taste before serving a dish.

This is all really good advise! My main concern is should I be concerned with the goal post for the shadows (showing underexposure)? What if I lit the background enough to not cause underexposure then added a 2k fresnel overhead the subject (as if a lightbulb) in order to light the subject significantly more then bring down the darkness in of the scene in post?

Since the scene walks around 400 sq foot of the basement set I am thinking that appearing that the light is coming from overhead bulbs would be ideal. Would I place the frensels directly downwards or would they be better on an angle?

 

[Daniel Stilling]

Your issue, the way I see it, is the lack of contrast. No matter if you light it bright or dark, and turn the overall brightness to what you want in post, you will have a flat shot. You need to have lit areas and unlit areas, much like Satsuki's great example. You can also use color contrast as well, say blue light from a window (or perceived window) and warm light coming from a practical. If you are building the set, you need to do it with that in mind. Leave an opening for light, use practicals.
But, the way I do it, is to have the look at least 90% on set and not counting to "save it" in post...

 

[Mark George]

Satsuki, that is a great-looking image.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

This is all really good advise! My main concern is should I be concerned with the goal post for the shadows (showing underexposure)

This is not something to worry about because you are going for a darker look.

From the way you phrased this question, it appears you may not fully understand what the left goal post does. The left goal post is not telling you if your shot is under exposed, or properly exposed. All the left goal post is telling you is that there are parts of your frame that have informationless blacks. Meaning, that if you tried to make it brighter in post, all you are going to get is noise, not signal.

However, if the goal post is telling you that something is black, and you want it to be black, (like the deep shadows of a warehouse at night) than there is no problem. Let your left goal post go as high as you want it too, just make sure that whatever you want to see clearly IS NOT in the left goal post. The scopes and tools can only give you the information. They can't make the creative/technical decision for you. Ultimately, you as the DP have to take in all that info and then decide what the "correct" exposure is.

Mr. Mullen offered me a great explanation of this premise when I was trying to grasp the concept a few years ago. He said if you are standing in a well lit room and you are shooting someone with a black shirt 20 feet away, you probably won't have any red in your left goal post. However, as the subject walks closer and closer to the camera, to the point that their black shirt covers the lens, eventually your left goal post will fill up to the point of being completely full. Now the question is, did you do anything wrong exposure wise? No. The goal post may have filled up, but that's because more and more black filled the frame.

TL;DR - The left goal post (combined with false color overlay) shows you what's black in your frame. As long as you are cool with it being black, it's a non issue. If you want to see what's going on there, add light or open your iris.

 

[Lee M]

I think I got bad advise previously to always stay out of the goal posts. If thats what required to get a dark shot then that is what I will do.

What are your thoughts on having everything lit up but the subject lit up far more and then making it darker in post, allowing for greater detail of the background?

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

I think I got bad advise previously to always stay out of the goal posts. If thats what required to get a dark shot then that is what I will do.

Marcus's advice is on point. The important thing is to make sure that you have enough exposure for the areas of the frame 'that matter', that is, the areas that you want the audience to be able to see or pay attention to. The rest can blow out or fall into complete shadow, if that happens to be the mood and look that you're after. The goal is to direct the audience's eye within the frame using selective framing, focus, contrast, and exposure.

What are your thoughts on having everything lit up but the subject lit up far more and then making it darker in post, allowing for greater detail of the background?

My approach is that if I want to see shadow detail in a certain area of the frame, then I add more light to that local area rather than adding more light globally. For example, in the attic shot from above if I wanted more shadow detail then I would probably hide a small fresnel lamp on camera left behind the vertical pillars and edge light the boxes on camera right. Or spot the lamp and bounce it up into the ceiling for some soft toplight ambience in the foreground.

I should mention that after going through this process, I do often add more exposure globally by shooting at a lower ISO, effectively overexposing by 1/3 to 1 1/3 stop (depending on the camera system). But this is a consistent thing that I do for a whole project (or at least for an entire scene), rather than on a shot-by-shot basis. If you do the latter, you would end up with inconsistent exposures shot-to-shot, with some shots needing to be pulled down and others to be pushed up. It would be a nightmare to color correct.

Overexposing like this has the effect of creating an image with richer tonality in the midtones and less noise in the shadows, at the expense of some highlight detail. Of course for some projects or special scenes, you want the opposite effect so in that case I would think about exposing at a higher ISO or even underexposing to get the right look. Whatever it takes to get the effect.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Satsuki, that is a great-looking image.

Thanks Mark!

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Since the scene walks around 400 sq foot of the basement set I am thinking that appearing that the light is coming from overhead bulbs would be ideal. Would I place the frensels directly downwards or would they be better on an angle?

This really depends on the look that you want to achieve.

Here's what Robert Richardson, ASC would do: http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net..._Kruger.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130815103852
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDR.../large/large_inglorious_basterds_blu-ray7.jpg

Notice that he keeps the room dark and overexposes the beam of light, effectively using the ambient bounce light to illuminate the actors. The shadows are deep and inky black because of the high contrast. Since the intent is to bounce the light off the table, the light is aimed more or less straight down.

This is a different approach by Harris Savides, ASC: https://ibfilmsas.wikispaces.com/fi...330/Screen Shot 2014-04-15 at 11.03.33 PM.png
https://ibfilmsas.wikispaces.com/fi...338/Screen Shot 2014-04-15 at 10.51.36 PM.png

Savides also keeps the room dark but doesn't overexpose his overhead lights, preferring to shoot in very low light and add smoke to the scene to increase shadow detail. Consequently, the shadows are low in contrast with lots of subtle gradation. Since the intent is to light the actor directly with the overhead light, it has to be aimed precisely. In this case, I would guess that the light is probably a real incandescent light bulb and that the actor has been instructed to stay underneath it for this key moment.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

What are your thoughts on having everything lit up but the subject lit up far more and then making it darker in post, allowing for greater detail of the background?

Yes, that's exactly the way to do it in my opinion. As long as adding more light doesn't mess up your contrast ratios (which means you built your lighting design with this concept in mind.) So either bump up each of your lighting units to one size bigger, or get faster lenses and a better focus puller hahaha.