Tricky Scene

[Juhan Malmstein]

Turn off everything possible in the room(the less light in there, the fewer reflections), try not to shoot low angles(the more you see the ceiling in the reflection the worse it gets probably), don't go very wide if you can, and last but not least, get a gaffer who knows what he's doing.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

If the camera is low enough you could put some shiney board or white board on the surface of the bar to kick some bounce up in the talent's faces. It would help flatten out the light. That is assuming you are going with overhead kinos. Also don't place the kinos directly overhead or the shadows will be bad, bring the kinos a little in front of the talent and it will also keep the light off the talents backs reducing their reflections in the glass.

 

[Jason Joseph]

Thats a really good tip peter. i think the surface of the bar counter might actually be shiny enough to do the trick.

 

[Russell Calkins]

like everybody else said...i would:

1) keep the light off the window
2) shoot out from behind a duve curtain
and if that's not enough, 3) polarize...(but i'd try everything else first so i didn't have to throw away a couple stops)

 

[Jason Joseph]

thanks for all the help guys, shoot is on thurs. will post results as soon as i get them

 

[Marcos_D]

How to light like that Damon scene

How to light like that Damon scene

I would have a large HMI outside the window scrimed down. Then I would use a 1200 par inside bouncing off a deflector at 50 feet. Always remember daylight outside daylight inside. Some guys are using daylight out - tungsten in to achieve different looks.

Hope that helped:smiley:

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

The scene in Lost In Translation looks like very dim and very soft source (bounced, diffused and bounced?), it also looks like this scene was shot at ~40mm and pretty wide open.

Also notice that they are far from the window.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

Jason,

A former AC of mine and now operator DP, was the AC on Lost in Translation and I asked him how they pulled off that shot here is what he had to say...

I was with every shot for the film.
I remeber, It was very simple and not much light. We were using actual location of Park Hyatt Tokyo bar on 90~st floor. I forgot the number. The night skyline was all real.

We were using Vision stock 500T and rated around 800ISO, but we did not push process. We just up print the neg. The negetive records more light than my eye. Anyway, we just use available light around and re-aimed the spots lights above or put some diffusion on them to control. Then, we add few kino 2X2 or 4X4 sometime to fill in the face. The set was so dark that I was having hard time writing the report.

 

[Jason Joseph]

wow peter thats a great story, many thanks. i was going to use the location lights that were overhead unfortunately they are not dimable or can they be moved, they're basically down lights the kind you get in a office.

think i'll get a mini flo to get some fill for the CUs

i've also been taking reference from the GF Experience and seeing how SS used creative lighting to shoot in lo light conditions.

as a last resort i think the wide will be locked off. so if have to we can erase something in the background with a plate that we will shoot with the lights off.

thanks guys!