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

[David Mullen ASC]

Here are some examples of a scene that I lit for "The Astronaut Farmer" where two characters are facing the sun and one has his back to the sun.

The wide shot had a 2K or 4K Xenon shining through for the hard sun effect, the rest of the soft light was mostly real daylight:

For the closer shots of the two men facing the window, I flagged some of the natural daylight off and used a Kino Wall-O-Light to their right to create more of a 3/4 soft key rather than a frontal key. I had the Xenon creating a window pattern to keep the feeling that the sunlight was coming in:

The reverse was backlit by the Xenon, plus all the real daylight (blown-out because I couldn't ND gel all those windows, being rushed for time) and keyed with the Kino:

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

The reverse was backlit by the Xenon, plus all the real daylight (blown-out because I couldn't ND gel all those windows, being rushed for time) and keyed with the Kino:

even if you werent rushed for time.... im kinda a fan of the blown out window look

 

[Jay Cowley]

interesting how subtle that kino is in the 2nd picture, it looks more like bounced light than a direct source.
do you think a similar effect could be achieved with a big enough diffusion frame and an hmi shining through?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

interesting how subtle that kino is in the 2nd picture, it looks more like bounced light than a direct source.
do you think a similar effect could be achieved with a big enough diffusion frame and an hmi shining through?

The Wall-O-Light (10-tubes) was probably put through a 4'x4' frame of Lt. Grid or something, but what makes it look softer is that I still had some frontal window light coming in so that was wrapping the Kino light around. Today I probably would have clipped an 8'x8' or 6'x6' piece of bleached muslin on the wall and bounced an HMI Source-4 Leko into it. But I've always liked the look of using the big 10-tube or 8-tube Kino through a 4'x4' frame of diffusion up close on a close-up, it's a pretty soft key light but with a lot of fall-off being close.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I dug up another example from "Astronaut Farmer" (just because, by coincidence, I've been going through the movie again)... I had a scene inside a barn where we got a wide shot just at sunset of the car pulling up, with two FBI agents getting out, but it meant that I had to shoot the actual dialogue scene at night and avoid seeing the entrance to the barn after the establishing shot. I used tungsten lamps and daylight balanced film for a warm sunset color effect, then filled with daylight Kinos for a two-toned effect.

Wide shot, in available light -- the two men walk past the camera:

Coverage, shot at night, the men are backlit as if by the setting sun:

And the people they are talking to are facing the setting sun:

The tricky part was actually just covering the outside of the cracks of the barn with diffusion so I could blast them with some HMI light, otherwise you would have known it was shot at night.

 

[Mike S. M.]

Very nice David! Totally sells the effect.

 

[Sam Goldwater]

Damn.. That's how it's done.

 

[Paul Harb]

Awesome!

I dug up another example from "Astronaut Farmer" (just because, by coincidence, I've been going through the movie again)... I had a scene inside a barn where we got a wide shot just at sunset of the car pulling up, with two FBI agents getting out, but it meant that I had to shoot the actual dialogue scene at night and avoid seeing the entrance to the barn after the establishing shot. I used tungsten lamps and daylight balanced film for a warm sunset color effect, then filled with daylight Kinos for a two-toned effect.

Wide shot, in available light -- the two men walk past the camera:

Coverage, shot at night, the men are backlit as if by the setting sun:

And the people they are talking to are facing the setting sun:

The tricky part was actually just covering the outside of the cracks of the barn with diffusion so I could blast them with some HMI light, otherwise you would have known it was shot at night.

 

[Patrick Wieland]

So awesome seeing insight on movies!