How to get light into a corner?
 

On a recent shoot I had an issue that was difficult to resolve. Several shots needed to occur at the front door of a house and our location had the front door in a corner of the room. How in the world do you do 3-point lighting in the corner of a room? The only thing I could do to get light on the background and get an accent light was to open the door and let in the sunlight. This worked on a few shots where the script was accommodating, but without the door open I couldn't get any light over there except for a straight-on key light. With just a bright key, it looks like a news crew showed up and turned on a big camera light. The only thing I can think of is a boom, but I did not have one or the time to improvise something.

I'm guessing this won't come up often, but I was perplexed. Any ideas?

There would be many possible solutions.Depending on the mood of the scene the best one would be your call.
Why 3 point lighting? You could use softbox and flood the area.
How about using bounce card or maybe shoot a light thru a white reflector which will give soft direct light and bounce.Is it possible to use low watt flo's in close?

Or bounce a hard light off the ceiling to eliminate all the shadows and stuff, then use a softbox for some natural shadows maybe?

I say 3-point lighting but that is just a generic term. I was trying to figure out how to get some kind of backlight and do something to make the plain set more interesting. It was an off-white house with a dark brown door that almost disappeared. The real problem was probably the lack of curtains on the living room windows about 5 feet from the door. The director (in charge of location and decorations) put sheets over the windows and that helped a bit. Unfortunately, the assistant director and I remembered 99 of the 100 things we had to bring and forgot the blankets. We had about half a dozen blankets intended for sound absorption and cutting down light that we left by the door as we left. Unfortunately, it was a 45 minute drive (each way) back to the house so we had to do without. I think I need a light grey/dark grey blanket to permanently include in my grip equipment.

Duvetyn...

Try www.rosebrand.com for a lot of that kind of stuff.

Have you seen the Mathews putty knife?
http://www.msegrip.com/mse.php?show=...ducts_ID=24158

Very handy for unusual placements, takes little space for storage/transport.

Jam it between the door molding and the wall, sometimes (especially in Hawai'i) there are seams between wall and ceiling, etc.

Lowel also has some interesting mounts, I always carry a Big Foot which can be used like a baby plate, or even taped to a window, hung from a cup hook, etc.
http://www.lowel.com/clamps.html

Seth, that putty knife looks handy, but I'm thinking this spot on the set was just bad. I don't think I could have put a light in there without a cord showing or having it look totally unmotivated (is that the right word for a light coming from out of nowhere?). I think the idea to just blast the area with soft light is the right solution, but I didn't have enough to combat all the sun coming in. Really soft light requires so much power to blast through the diffusion that even the Coollights CL-455 wasn't enough. I probably should have tried to set up some reflectors, but I didn't have enough grip equipment with me. I think I need a mirror to send a beam of light into a building onto a big soft source.

BTW, the CL-455 was extremely helpful. I can not stress how helpful a bright daylight fixture can be during a daytime shoot. When the sun is knocked down just enough that it can be useful instead of an exposure nightmare, lighting is much easier. We were able to shoot with mostly the CL-455 as both a key and fill by bouncing it off walls and ceiling as well as letting a bit directly spill on the actors. I used a second daylight fixture as an accent light on the other side and let the natural sunlight take care of the rest. I only wish I also had the CL-655 for when I needed a huge extra-soft source mixing with sunlight. If Richard wasn't able to get the CL-455 shipped over to Maui so fast, we would have been in a pickle. Shipping my softbox over there would have been more than my plane ticket and it isn't nearly as bright as the CL-455. The flat-mounted tubes seem to be oriented much more efficiently than my big CFL that has the tubes perpendicular to the direction of the subject.

I think our biggest problem was in the front room that was dimly lit before noon but got really bright after noon due to a lack of trees on that side of the house. Unfortunately, the dark front door acted as a weird negative fill that kind of stumped me. We just moved a character motivated to be near the door inside the doorway to hold the door open.

Gelled flourescent scoop light in a PA's hand.

Wow, I shipped one to Kula, HI last month. I didn't know that was for you Marcus. Glad I could help and glad to hear it was what you needed. We'll have some special offers coming up soon that will include the CL-655's again along with some portable flo products and the new, lower cost HMI products. This may have been one of those times it would be nice to have someone holding something up like Cole said for that extra fill here or there. I bet the 150w daylight metal halide fresnel would be perfect for what you were doing. And so small too.

Richard, Gabe is a good friend of mine and I made him buy the light since he doesn't have any pro lights. My softbox kit is too large to ship affordably (until the superferry gets here). I don't think his wife would talk to me anymore if we bought the two we really needed, but just one of those is a big help. It's self-contained package saves a lot of time as it packs instantly by closing the barn doors and the yoke creates it's own handle.

The more I think about it, that location was the real problem. The walls in the corner were fairly glossy off-white so the perimeter of shadows were punctuated by highlights. Most of our lighting felt very natural until I set up for that area. Additional front fill wasn't the only problem. I put diffusion gel over the CL-455 but that wasn't large enough to spread out the source (though it made highlights more attractive). Add to the equation the light that a 35mm lens adapter eats and it was a real nightmare scenario for low budget movie making. We only had about 7 hours at the location, so I had to make snap judgments and it mostly worked. I guess I'm having afterthought jitters as I always want everything to go perfectly and it never will.

I again can not stress how much hassle a big daylight fixture eliminates. All houses are almost completely backlit from every camera angle during the day since many rooms have windows on more than one side. It just isn't practical to shoot with the windows at your back all day. Even if you do, the far side of the room starts to go dark. Using a daylight fixture for fill and the windows as accent light fixes a lot of problems and I think it is more attractive.

That's a great testimonial. Thanks for the kind words.

Reflectors... no one’s mentioned them, mirrors can move a lot of light around.

Had I known about it in advance would have used a wall spreader, all your lights wires etc. are above the shot.

Bill

Bill, what's a wall spreader?

I'm not sure I could have thought of an excuse for a light being in that corner. The ceiling also wasn't very high. It would probably need to be an actual household fixture that looks like it belongs. It also would need an excuse to be on during the day.

The mirror probably would be a good idea, but all we had were collapsible reflectors. It was really too windy to use those outside. I would like a mirror system, but I'm not sure how to go about getting one. I've been thinking of making a plywood base with 12"x12" mirror tiles for the reflective surface. I've even tried to figure out if I can make one that folds, but I haven't figured out the yoke system and how to make it easy to aim.

For relectors that fold use RoscoFlex M 3801or like product.
Inexpensive wall mirrors work well and do not break the bank if they break. (You still get seven years bad luck though.) ;-)

Wall spreaders, this one is for 2x4s
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...eader_For.html

I made mine much cheaper but if you do not have the time these are the best.

Bill

Hang Kino bulbs from the ceiling. Take the tubes and harness out of the shell and use 2" black photo tape (paper tape) to tape up everything including the header cable. Run the cable down a wall that's out of shot, or hide it behind a curtain. I often cover it with white 2" white artist's tape and make it look like it's part of the window molding.

I do this a lot on Don't Sweat It, the show I'm gaffing, for HGTV. You can hang Duvetyne teasers and diffusion to shape the light, otherwise it's pretty flat and poopy looking.

As someone else mentioned, wall spreaders are great, as are autopoles/polecats. Autopoles are nice because they are light weight and spring loaded, so you don't have to screw/nail them into the wall. They may not have the same weight capacity as spreaders, but they can hold a fair amount depending on the span. Use a pancake (a 1/8th apple box, which is 1" thick) on both ends to prevent going through the wall. Try and line up on the studs inside the wall. There are several different types of wall spreaders that use 2x4's, or aluminum speed rail.

If you are paranoid about things falling, then you can use wood under them and then have the art department paint, or stain them the appropriate color so they blend into the set. I've stained 2x4's to match the furniture, put them against the wall and that works very well.

Furniture clamps can be clamped to a door frame and then a light can be hung from that. This should pretty much be out of the camera frame. Use wooden cribbing, or pancakes, so you don't mar the surface.

Look at the Matthews catalog, or other mfr's catalogs to get ideas of what gear is out there, that may help you solve your problems before they happen and give you an idea about what gear to use to solve your Gripping/Lighting problems.

Another idea is using a leko to precisely bounce light of the ceiling. The leko has a lens and shutters that projects and shapes the beam. K5600 has an ETC Source Four head and the Joker Bug head plugs right in the back. Voila, instant daylight flavored leko.

Using a larger stand and a lot of sandbags, you can make a menace arm. A length of speed rial, or 2x4 is held by a clamp on the stand and then arms out over the set. You can hang your light(s) anywhere along the length, or at the end. Be sure to gusset the arm to prevent falling, or sagging into shot.

I suggest hiring a good Gaffer and Key Grip with a lot of knowledge to help you out of situations like that.

I thought of overhead lighting, but I felt it would look too unmotivated. That corner showed up in an earlier shot so I didn't want it too look completely different. Unfortunately, I WAS the gaffer on that shoot and there was no budget and I didn't have most of my kit available due to the location being out of town. Overall, I was happy with the results, but that one area was tricky. I guess if I had more time and equipment it would have been simpler.

I think I'm one step away from being a pro. I just need access to more equipment and a few more shoots before I would be comfortable charging strictly for my lighting skills. As it is, I understand how to get most scenes lit but there is no substitute for experience. It is experience that will expose me to the challenging situations that would bring me up to being a pro some day.

You mean you don't have an "art department" or key grip and gaffer to help you out? LOL. I think you're doing pretty well too from the exploits I've followed. Keep up the good work.

I recently had a scene with a setup very similar to the one you describe, Marcus, a front door set in the corner of a living room. As I recall we brought the light source (a 1200 HMI Par through diffusion) as far to the side as possible, then topped it with a solid to give a little shape and falloff. Because of the proximity to the walls, the actors were filled plenty from the other side. I never had a thought of putting a backlight on the scene because, as you noted, it has no motivation to be there and the actors provided enough separation. I believe that I used another 1200 direct raking across the opposite wall to give a sense of sunlight and give the shot a little more dimension--this partially hit the actors from chest level down, but was tightly boxed in with flags so that it didn't splay everywhere (suggesting a window pattern). It was probably 1.5 stops over key.

Our door was not dark however. If there was an issue with the actors getting buried against the door, I might have use a low-wattage soft source or large piece of beadboard positioned to create a good-sized soft reflection/kick in the door. The trick here is to keep the output down so that it does not act as another light source on the actors, but just reflects in the dark door.

Richard, I didn't even have anyone to help move lights and camera until more than halfway into the shoot. This big local guy that is friends of the director showed up after work and was very helpful. He jumped right in and filled in a pothole of labor shortage on the set. All small shoots need someone to run around and fill in where there are shortcomings. As it was, we had a crew of Director (John - Soil Analyst), Assistant Director/Boom Pole Operator/Computer-monitor Operator (Gabe - Excavation Equipment Operator), Camera Operator/Gaffer (Me - Event video/Handyman), and finally we got a Grip/Dolly (Shem - Road Paving Worker). That's a small crew to get everything done right. The Director was even cast as one small role so I ended up directing a few of the cutaway scenes. Did I mention that it was really hot and between 7AM and 7PM all I had time to eat was one piece of pizza? Dehydration is not good for the creative process. I like the challenge of wearing many hats on a shoot but that doesn't stop me from nitpicking the footage later.

Thanks for those tips, Charles. I think if I had a budget large enough to include two 1.2K HMIs that I would have had less trouble. I still think it would have been tough as there were no windows nearby that could have been the motivation for light across the back wall (perpendicular to the door). There was a dark hallway then the kitchen on that wall. I suppose if I had enough lights to have something more coming from the hallway in the other shots, I could have used it as the motivation for light back there. Unfortunately, we also had trouble with one of the renters at that location so our footprint had to be minimized and our time was cut short. Its those kind of constraints that help me stop kicking myself when I see average-looking footage. We did a decent job considering the location and time issues. With a little study and advice, it will be better than decent next time.

Motivated light doesn't have to be as literal as it seems sometimes. If you have other shots that show windows in the background as you indicated, the audience doesn't start trying to figure out whether or not daylight could possibly penetrate at the given angle etc.

I remember when I was on "The West Wing" how fascinated I was with the lighting style that played direct sunlight on characters in the Roosevelt Room, which was a conference room that was several rooms away from any windows on set, thus none were seen in shot. It seemed tremendously contrived that daylight could have leaked that far into the environment. But watching the show, you never notice or question this.

And you don't need HMI pars--your daylight source that you described could have worked. I did a few shots in that area that didn't have the splash of sunlight and they worked fine. As long as you have a bit of contrast in the frame (i.e. you are not flat-lighting everything into oblivion), you can get away with a lot. Of course there's nothing worse than having to shoot into corners, but they are unavoidable sometimes; and other times you just have to be creative and find ways to stage the action so that you can get away from the walls.

The large daylight source we had was a life-saver, but the ambient light was overpowering except for in that corner due to the door acting as negative fill. Where the actors stood the light was okay, but the shadows in that corner screamed Cheap Home Video! What got me is that I never before thought of corners as being difficult. I guess I never ran across that situation and it suddenly really stood out how odd the light looks in a corner.

I guess what you say about motivated light is going to be what saves me. I got rid of the ugly shadows and that is probably all that matters to the audience. Where I should have put more effort was in understanding the script. I read through it, but it just didn't turn into a picture in my mind. We visited the location before the shoot and that helped, but I still wish I "felt" the movie before we started shooting. We should have rehearsed some scenes in their actual location so I could have prepared mentally for where the light needed to go.

While the 455 is a great daylight source for sure, any fluorescent can't fight the sun too well when it's present. That's where the HMI's come in and they still have their place. The earlier poster that mentioned two 1200w units, that definitely may be overkill for a lot of situations but I bet Marcus could have used at least one 575w fresnel or par for instance.

I think I know what I should have done with the type of equipment normally available to me:

1. Don't forget the blankets or scrims to knock down the excess light from the front window!

2. Use the 4-bank (55W each) CL-455 daylight fixture with a bit of diffusion.. Put a diffuser over it and fill the whole area with soft light but put it off slightly to the side a bit opposite the door.

3. Bounce some of the light coming in the window off a reflector to supplement the CL-455. I didn't have my reflector holders. That was a mistake. Reflectors without holding arms are not very useful as they take up an entire crewmember.

4. I think I also need to make some sort of mirror to send a beam of light deep into buildings. If you know sunlight is going to be in your shot, a reflector/mirror will vary their intensity along with all the other sunlight in your scene. Collapsible reflectors on arms are handy outdoors without wind, but indoors there isn't much for them to reflect. A mirror can handle wind as it is rigid and it would send in a beam of light

5. Put a bright but fairly hard daylight fixture way off to the kitchen/hallway side (opposite the door). I'm thinking something like a 150W HID or a 1K tungsten with CTB would be appropriate. I hate high-wattage tungsten, so I would opt for an HID.

What all this would accomplish would be burying the hard shadows of the talent in the dark door and it would put a light across the back wall to give it texture. I might even gel the hard light with a touch of color to make things more interesting. The big soft source would not cast significant shadows on the back wall as they would be soft and mostly overpowered by the hard source coming from the side. Since the soft fixture and reflector would be slightly to the same side as the hard source, the soft shadows would at least be on the correct side.

Even though the hard light from that side is not entirely motivated, it would match the way I lit the kitchen. There is a window on the right side of the kitchen that is directly opposite the front door (but about 25' away). I put an 85W fluorescent out that window to fake a sunny window. If the living room was lit the same way, it probably would not bother the audience because there would be a sort of continuity with the lighting scheme. I think the reason I didn't do this was that the 85W was just a 6500Kelvin bare bulb and the soft source I had was overpowered by undamped sunlight coming from the wrong direction.

Or use the classic cookie window pattern on the back wall instead of the colored gel. That might look even more natural and add even more interest. And you'll be able to do that with a daylight HID really well too.