lighting when you are forced to motivate with flat, direct sunlight

[Jay Cowley]

I recently shot a scene in a cafe set early morning with direct sunlight spilling in through the windows.
I was happier with the lighting on my 3 first shots, shooting into my fake sunlight for a nice backlight effect, with a 2k blonde placed outside and a 1k baby on the actors.

But then I had to shoot the last angle with the sun directly into his face. I tried experimenting with diffusion, softer light, cutting the light of his forehead with a flag to create some shadows, but in the end it looked really bad.
Can any of you see from this picture what I was doing wrong, or have any tips for making hard light look good when motivated so close to camera in these scenarios? Any stills or video samples where you've seen similar lighting motivation done well?

 

[Marc Wielage]

Very nice looking!

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

negative fill on his right side..(camera left)

make your light slightly more sidey on his left side..(camera right)
maybe give him a little more of a hair kick..

that could help make it a little more interesting

 

[Cameron Chin]

so why didn't you light the last shot the same way as the other shots, this was a close up? Just flag the sunlight from the subject and light him with the same angle as the two shot and fill to effect.

 

[Ramesh Jai]

In my humble opinion there's nothing wrong with the way you've lit it 'coz you've already established the position of the sun in the previous shots and you are maintaining continuity. It just looks natural to me to as I expect this kind of lighting after the establishing shot. My 2¢. Thanks.

 

[Mark K.]

I'm with Zakaree, some negative fill on the left side of his face would have given you the contrast you were looking for, and matched the opening shots better. Still, the first three shots are very nicely lit.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Your shots do look nice and I agree that adding negative fill would help you match shots from earlier in the day however, I also agree with Ramesh. This is the way I would expect this shot to look. I would point out that your actor's eyeline is different in this grab from the two shot you posted. He has turned into the light here. Once again, it looks right to me. I would only add the negative fill if you preferred higher contrast for reasons other than continuity.

 

[Yinka Edward]

Amazing look. The shot looks very good. I guess it is all about your preferred choice of look. I think Roger Deakins used lots of negative fill in "True Grit". The other thing i will do if I needed more contrast on the face and i don't have big black to create a negative fill will be to cheat. I will make him seat where the same guy you shot is seated and make him look from left to right of screen. with a little bit of set tweaking behind his background, it gives an entirely different look. Also what makes it more interesting is that on your master the audience has no idea how the coffee shop looks behind your subject. But this can be sometimes tricky so you need to be careful. Other than that, your picture looks good.

 

[Jay Cowley]

Yes I definitely see what you are saying about the negative fill, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Nathaniel Haban]

so why didn't you light the last shot the same way as the other shots, this was a close up? Just flag the sunlight from the subject and light him with the same angle as the two shot and fill to effect.

I agree. I think you might have made things more difficult for yourself than you needed to by trying to incorporate sunlight into the close-ups. Flagging it off, and then using the 1K baby - as you used in the wide - would have worked fine and given you a bit more control and consistency. I'd also suggest moving the 1K towards the actor's back shoulder, to deepen the shadows on the left side of his face. But this is nitpicking, since your shots do look nice.

 

[Bob Gundu]

Many times, when you can't move the light, move the actors. A tight shot like that would be easy to fake.

 

[Jay Cowley]

are you guys talking about doing away with lighting continuity and just cheating it?
Do you think it would look odd if he was lit from that angle in the wide, but then in the closeup, the sunlight was coming from a different direction?
I actually had total control of the light, there was no sun that morning, everything was faked except some ambient light

 

[Nathaniel Haban]

I'll risk speaking for Bob and say that we are both talking about keeping lighting continuity throughout your shots. If, for the wide, it was a 2K on the background, a 1K on the actors, and ambient lighting from the windows, then it'd be my suggestion that you keep that formula for the rest of your shots, and that's why I suggested completely flagging off the sunlight from his face, and using the 1K to light him. (I'm pretty sure) Bob was talking about moving the actors out of the sunlight, in lieu of the possibility of not being able to completely flag off the sunlight. Since you never see the background in the wide shot, it's easy for you to fake if you have to, and then you can light with the 1K as you see fit.

 

[Mike Wing Ho Kam]

I think it is fine too, and there are nothing wrong with flat lighting with the geography you've established in your first shot. I would also say negative fill at camera left is the fastest way to add to your ratio consistency, but again, maybe he is the character you want to have more emphasis on, maybe that works for the story of who he is and what he is doing, as long as there is a reason for it, when I look at the pictures, I quickly think that it is an Umberto scene. The only thing that really caught my attention is the color temperture differences between the outside world and the girl at the third picture, i thought it was suppose to be dawn or dusk, but some secondary correction there would get it right. By the way, I'm from vancouver too, I recognize Umberto and Kent there, haha. Good job!

 

[Peter Strietmann]

In your first 3 shot the actor with the t-shirt has perfect 3/4 lighting on his face so when you push in for the cu I think the easiest thing would be to flag the flat sun light and recreate the 3/4 lighting with a baby. You can control the ratio simply by increasing or decreasing the volume of light. You could also have used the baby for a little edge on the actor in the dark blue sweater. However I do think it looks pretty great as is.

 

[Bob Gundu]

cinematography isn't about shooting what's true, it's about making it look believable. For it to make sense sometimes you cheat the truth.

 

[Tyler Black]

Bob is 100% correct. You're not shooting a documentary. Light it so it looks good, not "right," to the extent that it will cut naturally with the rest of the scene. You'd be surprised how far you can stretch the truth and no one will notice. I would have flagged the light as a first choice (fastest option). If you couldn't flag it for some reason, then move him out of the direct sunlight and light him to look good (as Bob said).

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't have a problem with the actor facing the sun in a 3/4 angle if it looks believable and works dramatically, especially an actor you aren't trying to make glamorous (and a hard frontal key light can actually look glamorous sometimes....)

My general concern would be whether the actor would be uncomfortable staring right into the light. If the light was meant to be sunset and thus orange and low, it doesn't have to be blinding for him fortunately. If the sun is supposed to be a bit higher then generally I might have a soft topper on the light so that the hard slash is below the face, and brighter, and softer light on the face.

The only issue I have with the closer shot of the guy is that it seems a bit over-lit, not because of the frontal sunlight (which would be better from the more 3/4 angle of the master) but the other lights also hitting the face... the general feeling should be of the dominant key, the close-up seems a bit over-filled or something, there is less of the feeling of that single warm light hitting his face compared to the master angle, which is cleaner and more dramatic. If someone is staring into the sun in the master, it should feel like that in their close-ups, unless you are only shooting overs and can get away with flipping the sun so that it is backlit in both directions (only would work in a space where the sun could come from either direction, not a space with only windows in one direction like that cafe.)

But I've done many scenes like that, have one actor facing the setting sun, front-lit, and the reverse actor being backlit... it looks natural. Sometimes I might soften the frontal sunlight effect slightly in the close-up like with a frame of Opal or 250 to take the edge off of it.

I would have just lit the guy more from a 3/4 angle and not so directly, and let it have some contrast.

 

[Jay Cowley]

Yes there were some large windows to the left of the actor in that closeup that were probably filling in his face and taking away all the contrast. During shooting I somehow never thought to flag all that off, thanks for pointing this out, next time I will know exactly what to do first!

 

[Marc Wielage]

The other thing you can do is to just bring in a power window to essentially put a flag on the side of the face you want darker, creating a negative-fill effect. I've done this many thousands of times in post, particularly in cases where the DP had no time to fix the flag on set, or the actor just didn't hit their marks. Not that hard to do, provided we're talking something subtle and not drastic. The lighting clearly has to be there in the first place or we don't have enough to work with in color-correction.