TV as light source

[Tim Sutherland]

I'm going to be shooting a short in a hotel where the TV will be used as a light source, wanting the tv to cast a glow on the person sitting on the bed watching from about 5-7 feet away. We don't need to see the images on the TV.

They want some of the video to feel warmer and I think some can feel cooler as well. We'll be shooting daylight balance to let the tungsten lights make the white walls go warm.

So here are my options that I'm thinking of, which ones will work best?

Use the TV as is, putting lighting gels on to change the color as needed.
or
Make my own DVD with content pushed warmer or left alone to control the coolness/warmth
or
Fake the light as if coming from the TV, but I'm not quite sure the best way to do it.
or
Shoot more at 4300 or 4500K so that the TV and other lights can go bluer and the tungsten lights will go a bit warmer without using as much gel.


Is any of this making sense? Or is there a better way I haven't mentioned?

Tim

 

[donatello b]

from what i recall ..TV's are more daylight ... on a wide shot with person 5-7ft away i don't think the TV will be enough ... most gaffers know "tricks " to give you the pulsing light effect of a TV .....

last year i did a test using a digital projector & DVD player for playback with actor approx 6 ft from light source ( diffusion/bounce card ..using Red build 13 (no longer have clips from build 13) ...
tried bouncing projector off 4x4 white bounce card ... then projector directly aimed at 4x4 216 diffusion ... and projector (out of focus ) aimed directly at actor ... from what i remember preferred the 1st 2 methods ( though projector aimed at person with image in focus can be interesting) ..which one depends on how much space you have on set .... if you have access to projector you might do some test ...

 

[Simon N]

tv effect

tv effect

I generally use a diva which you can gel & balance dependant upon the final look desired - I tend to add 1/4 or 1/2 ctb to differentiate it from any practical tungsten in the scene. If you watch any scene on TV you'll notice that the light level doesn't jump up and down frantically, it more holds steady for a few beats then will dip up or down for a few beats.


Get your gaffer to set a high point and low point on the diva then vary its level throughout the scene to replicate the type of show the character is watching. Don't be afraid of dropping it to nothing for a beat... it's what happens in real life!

If a diva isn't an option, then whatever lamp you choose (i.e. 650w) that you can dim up & down, make the source as big as you practically can

Len

 

[NateWeaver]

Just the light from a 20" CRT wouldn't be enough to make exposure, unless you're ok with 1600 ASA (or worse).

I'd get a 1K with small chimera, a flicker box, and an assortment of ctb/cto.

Your idea about splitting the K balance is probably wise. It's cool to make the hotel practicals go warm, but you probably wouldn't want them quite as warm as they'd be.

 

[Ryan Sims]

Diva

Diva

As 53North said, a KinoFlo Diva 400 works very well for this trick.
It has a built-in dimmer that you can turn up and down to simulate the light changes of a TV. It's the right size. You can gel it or change out bulbs to get the color you want (most real TV's tend to be daylight balanced in color to look right in real sunlight, that's why they tend to look blueish at night)
Most people use a blue tint to simulate the TV screen look for the same reason that simulated moon light is blue in films.
It's just common film language. Is moonlight blue? I'll let someone else answer that.
See this post: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=30097

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

How about a projector shot though very light diffusion? Could that work?

Otherwise for the light deal wouldn't you also need some stuff to cast shadows and change the pattern with besides plus the gels?

Aside from that I would definitely use whatever along with a DVD of where you could burn your clip of choice in a loop. I'd also grade it in various ways pushing it in a few different luminosity and color combination so you can pick whichever the TV/Projector works better with, giving you more control since their controls can often be garbage. You can easily make them different clips in the menu and it might work later on down the road.

 

[Harva Raj]

connect 42" plasma screen to laptop as a second screen. open photoshop and create new project. fill canvas with single desired color. see how the color reflects in actors face. change color as needed. (then) create as many projects and fill with color as desired.
resize the windows such that its overlapping with each other. when actions begins, a operator clicks the window randomly, example, blue,yellow,green,light blue,red,pink.
if clicked randomly and frequently it (should) create TV illusion.


change the TV to desired or best effect. Plasma,LCD,CRT,OLED?,

 

[David Mullen ASC]

If you never see the TV face, can you get a unit with the CRT removed so you can put lights inside it?

Truth is that this effect is somewhat theatrical -- in real life, someone several feet away would be rather dimly lit by the TV set, and if your eyes adjusted to that level, the TV would be extremely bright. You can do a long exposure still photo of a room lit by a TV and see what I mean -- the TV becomes a soft light source the size of the screen, hot and blown-out, spilling light into the room.

If the person is close to the TV set, it's a little easier to get a level on their face that seems realistic, but when you start talking about things across the room keyed by the glow of a TV set, it becomes a bit theatrical, a movie convention, though it happens in real life. It's just that in real life, we'd sense that it was an extremely dim source, whereas in a movie, we need enough exposure to see what's going on, just like in a moonlit scene. The levels that feel realistic are often too dark to see the action effectively. So it becomes a dramatic theatrical effect rather than strict realism. Which is fine.

As for shifting color and pulsing, you could put some lights gelled different colors through the same diffusion frame, to blend them, and have them all on different dimmer / flicker boxes. You could also try projecting a video image onto a face, but it would need to pass through some light diffusion, and even then, it's a bit of a harder source than reality. But that may look cool, project an out of focus video source onto the actor, maybe putting a frame of Hampshire Frost of Half Hampshire in between the projector and the actor to soften it. But you need the room for this rig.

 

[Tim Sutherland]

Thanks for all the responses, you guys are all helping me to get a better idea of how to do this. I think this is becoming one of my favorite subforums here on Reduser.

The TV in the hotel room is a Plasma, so I'm probably going to fake the edge of it with a flag for shooting from behind it.

I think if I can get my hands on 2x 2' 2 Bank Kinos, that might work to get two different colors. It doesn't need to be too strong, it's just to show the character being drawn in by the images he's seeing. We have a small crew and not a ton of time, so I don't know if the projector is feasable, although it's good idea. I'll probably put some images on the screen on dvds with different brightness levels, and use that to add a bit of change to the kino source.

A related question for my scene, how 'blue' of incandescent-style lights can I get to put in a china ball? I'll call bulbtrnoics tomorrow, but I didn't know if I'd be able to get anything to match a Kino with daylight tubes gelled about 1/2 ctb? I was thinking I might have trouble finding an incandescent even to 5600K.

The reason is that there will be bluer light coming in to the room, and then when the character enters and turns on the lights, then there is a warmer source from inside, with a little blue still coming from the windows. I thought I could use a combo of a Diva or similar maybe with some blue gel in combo with a China ball for CUs to serve as the blue light coming in from the window.

Thanks.
Tim

 

[Todd McMullen]

Tim,
Get your hands on a 1x1 lite panel. I use this lite all the time for tv ambiance.
The beauty is that it has a built in dimmer, as well as a remote dimmer, and the new model can vary the color temperature. It also runs off battery. You will love this light for many applications. I will try to vary the color temperature of the Tv to the overall color temperature of the scene.