Theatrical lighting

[James Emory]

Check out this thread with plenty of demos to view. This play was shot with existing theatrical lighting. It contains all kinds of various lighting conditions.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=17557

[Gints Klimanis]

>Wayne Orr wrote:
>All spots should have the same color temp, usually 5600K or >corrected to 3200. Certainly different colors can be used for an >effect, which should be obvious to the viewer in the theatre, or >on tv.

and
> Tell him you are setting your exposure and white balance to >this level and hope he will maintain it throughout the show. This >light should be color corrected to 3200K.

For video, is it really necessary to "come correct" to specific color temperature ? Is 3200K traditional due to film culture, or is there some other value.

Thank you for any wisdom.

[Mark Sasahara]

It's easier if you get it right in the camera to begin with. Less time f-ing around color correcting individual scenes in post and trying to get everything to match. You have factory presets for 3200K, 5600K and manual WB. Most likely the theatrical lights are 3200K. To be on the safe side, most people will do a manual white balance of the lights to take into account that the lights may have changed color temp, due to vitrification. Some follow spots or moving lights are HMI's which are daylight flavored. So you may get a little mixing of colors, but that's where you have no choice and have to correct the scene in post and bring it closer to 3200K. Depending on the mood and intent, it may stay blue, or not. Check with the LD.

Generally it's a good idea to white balance :~) It's not a film thing it a color temperture thing. If the predominant light is 3200K you want to have the camera white balance match it so that the colors are correct. If you are outside, in daylight, you would use the 5600K preset, or manually balance, because rarely is the sun at 5600K. I manually WB with tungsten too.

[Wayne Orr]

The great thing about having your key light source color balanced to 3200K, is that all the color light effects will appear correct as intended. For example, if you are balanced to 3200k, and the lighting designer uses a booster blue to create a feeling of moonlight, you will see the blue as intended.

However, if you balance to 5600K, the blue will not have the desired effect because the camera is already balanced to blue light. Hope this makes sense.

But certainly it is possible to balance to 56K if necessary. If you don't know the Kelvin temperature of the follow spots, a manual white balance is desireable. As Mark pointed out, follow spots can change their color temperature by degrees as they get older, and the manual white balance will correct for these changes.

Obviously, you want to white balance all the cameras to the same light.

[Mark Sasahara]

I gave the long, rambling answer. Thanks Wayne, for putting it so succinctly!