Would using a star filter for cinematography be too weird?

[Brian Drysdale]

It works better at night because there's a logic to it, otherwise you need to be in buildings with no or very small windows during the day.

You may not have the lighting rig needed for this or the time to rig the lights for scenes like the crow or even Ms office, which was shot in a studio. You have to be practical about this.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Ryan - get a grip. I know you take things literally, but you're making huge leaps with what we're saying.

Your entire film making philosphy is to watch as many movies as you can and then pull out strands for your rule book. Can you not see this is NOT, in any shape of form a route to success? It's failure positive. Things happen because they work within the movie's context. They do not translate well.

Copying? For you it's disaster. You would be copying an end product without any data whatsoever on 'why' it was done. This is sheer folly! It doesn't work in movies and it doesn't work in music, or performing arts. Actually, this area where I have plenty of experience is a good example. Comedy. Comedians steal jokes from each other. I've heard the exact same joke delivered by perhaps 10 people in a 6 month period. Some modify the joke to their own personality and it works, sometimes better than the original. Other deliver it exactly as the original and it's not so funny, and some just deliver it badly. The exact same joke. Exactly the same happens with magic. Penn and Teller do the same routine as hundreds of magicians. Do they all get the same response? Hopefully, this sideways jump might make you realise that the product at the end is everything.

Pete says you have already decided. Please prove him wrong, because I too figured the same thing. You have made a decision - something you always need support for - and this time, none of us think it's a good move. I get the feeling you think that it will allow worse technique to be acceptable because of the genre - and that's the trouble with Film Noir - it does not really have a specific genre. It's undefinable - like RnB in music. The old Rhythm and Blues origin completely distorted. Nobody knows what RnB actually is any more, and this has happened to film noir. I always privately thought about the noir as meaning dark in content - NOT dark in lighting, but this is what happens in terrible film noir. The watch five minutes and switch off type.

You ask for examples and I can never give them, because I am not a film buff. I watch movies as a consumer for entertainment. I remember the good ones and forget the bad. I don't remember actors or director's names of anything other than ones I like. I can't imagine trying to develop a new product my using movies as metaphors, which is kind of what you do.

You have no confidence in your own ability to create a product, so you use others as your ingredients and it never, ever works. Each scene, tagged with 'inspired by One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest', or 'Pretty woman' or 'Mad Max' or Lawrence of Arabia' is doomed to failure.

For once Ryan, abandon this idea - you just don't know how to do it.

Alright, what if I did this... What if I came up with a completely original lighting style that I have never seen before in another movie, as well as come up with original shots, that I have never seen in any movie before? Would that be best?

I could just come up with my own rules and be my own boss and it's my way or the highway, but I feel that if I do that, I will come up with a style that might not be accepted cause it's too strange maybe.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

It works better at night because there's a logic to it, otherwise you need to be in buildings with no or very small windows during the day.

You may not have the lighting rig needed for this or the time to rig the lights for scenes like the crow or even Ms office, which was shot in a studio. You have to be practical about this.

Oh okay, can I use the same lights that I would in a studio compared to a location, or no? I don't have to have it exactly like the M scene, I am just trying to use it as an inspirational starting point, unless I shouldn't.

[Brian Drysdale]

Yes, you can use the same lights, but since you don't seem to have seen a film set, they often don't have a ceiling. This allows you to quickly rig lights from the top, something that's time consuming and requires specialised grip equipment when on location. in a real room.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks. Well I am currently trying to think of a way to light a scene completely originally, that I haven't seen before, if that's better than using inspiration from other movies.

For the police station office scene, the Inspector's office to start, I could have keylights pointing towards the actors from the sides, so the background is not lit too bright, and then have back lights on the actors as well.

And a light that is dimmer for lighting the background, but dimmer than the foreground. The keylights will not be diffused, but the lights, lighting the background will be. Not sure about the backlights yet. This is what I have so far, going by my own thoughts, and not thinking of other movies.

[Brian Drysdale]

I suspect that has been done before.

You should be discussing all this with your DP, who may bring their own ideas to the table, not in a forum.

[Ryan Elder]

For sure, it was just said before that I should come up with my own lighting ideas, rather than being inspired by other movies though. But I will keep trying to look for a DP and PD, and tell them what I want and try to make it as original as I can, without any previous movies I have seen, if that's best.

I guess I am just worried if I am too original people may think it's too avant garde for their tastes, but maybe that's a good thing, and I should learn to embrace, it even if people say it's the way the things are suppose to be done?

[Brian Drysdale]

I haven't seen anything avant garde about your stuff to date.

Your lighting for the office is pretty utilitarian, not unlike what news crews used when they had a lighting kit (unlike today) and an electrician.

Show some visual references to the DP, (paintings photographs etc) don't give them a lighting plot, because, if they're any good, they won't want to work with you.

At the moment you're sounding more like Ed Wood.

[Paul R Johnson]

The snag is that many viewers have never been near a film school, and will possibly view your movie using their common sense, and see your carefully crafted well researched brand new style as something truly horrible. Why reinvent the wheel? If I see a movie with a Police station room filled with officers being briefed, then in real life it will have institutional colours, lit from lots of fluorescent tubes. Hardly any shadows, very bright, probably allowing the usual grubbiness of the space, and the feel, to come through - the wanted pictures on the walls tell you it isn't a prison, even without uniforms. The same room with bars on the windows is a prison. The same room with work benches and safety posters becomes a factory. Shooting it with Key light and fill, and perhaps some nice areas in shadow will just distort reality in a way that confuses.

REAL PEOPLE DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT AVANTE GARDE EVEN MEANS!

You're not in film school - this is the real world and people like the signposts you place in the scenes to guide them towards your goal. If you confuse them, you've lost them. We've now had every conceivable way of shooting your police scene, bar the obvious ones you reject, because it's too hard, too expensive or (and I think its the real one) or just what you've already decided and you just bang away hoping one of us will say your idea is good, when we think pretty much it's bad. We've gone through changing the colours in post way back, but we've still arrived back at the police station scene. Look through your collection of movies. Police stations feature in lots. How many look like they are shot in a wrong room, badly dressed to make it try to be a convincing one?

Many years ago I realised that making anything about organisations who wear uniforms is out - the cost of uniforms is crazy. I hired once three military dress uniforms. It worked fine once I made sure I booked actors who had been in the military. Very few actors can convincingly play military - police is much better they can be quite normal. They still need to act well though because if they are wearing plain clothes, for movie purposes they still have to behave/move/react like Police. Worth thinking about if you want to engage the audience.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Ryan what everyone is trying to say is you should be working with the DP to light your movie that best tells your story and makes sense and works with your scene locations. So you film a police station which the viewer will expect soft fluorescent light but instead of using lighting that’s makes sense you decide to impose hard lighting from a movie you’ve seen.

No one is asking you to invent a new style of lighting we’re saying you shouldn’t be trying to reverse engineering another movie lighting. Most if not all of your questions and topics revolve around how do recreate the final product of big commercial movie you watch without out having budget, knowledge of how it was done, expertise, or equipment. Then you come up with a detailed plan and show up to a location to find out it won’t work. No good dp wants to be handed a blue print of a lighting setup from some inexperienced crack pot director.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

The snag is that many viewers have never been near a film school, and will possibly view your movie using their common sense, and see your carefully crafted well researched brand new style as something truly horrible. Why reinvent the wheel? If I see a movie with a Police station room filled with officers being briefed, then in real life it will have institutional colours, lit from lots of fluorescent tubes. Hardly any shadows, very bright, probably allowing the usual grubbiness of the space, and the feel, to come through - the wanted pictures on the walls tell you it isn't a prison, even without uniforms. The same room with bars on the windows is a prison. The same room with work benches and safety posters becomes a factory. Shooting it with Key light and fill, and perhaps some nice areas in shadow will just distort reality in a way that confuses.

REAL PEOPLE DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT AVANTE GARDE EVEN MEANS!

You're not in film school - this is the real world and people like the signposts you place in the scenes to guide them towards your goal. If you confuse them, you've lost them. We've now had every conceivable way of shooting your police scene, bar the obvious ones you reject, because it's too hard, too expensive or (and I think its the real one) or just what you've already decided and you just bang away hoping one of us will say your idea is good, when we think pretty much it's bad. We've gone through changing the colours in post way back, but we've still arrived back at the police station scene. Look through your collection of movies. Police stations feature in lots. How many look like they are shot in a wrong room, badly dressed to make it try to be a convincing one?

Many years ago I realized that making anything about organisations who wear uniforms is out - the cost of uniforms is crazy. I hired once three military dress uniforms. It worked fine once I made sure I booked actors who had been in the military. Very few actors can convincingly play military - police is much better they can be quite normal. They still need to act well though because if they are wearing plain clothes, for movie purposes they still have to behave/move/react like Police. Worth thinking about if you want to engage the audience.

Oh okay, well it's not that I want to re-invent the wheel, it's just I was told to go with my own look rather than using looks of other movies.

The thing about soft fluorescent tubes, is that it doesn't look cinematic, and will look like a made for TV episode of The Office, it sounds like. Shouldn't I go for a more cinematic look? This is an example of what I mean though. I am told to make up the look and have the guts to do it my way, rather than copy other material, but then when I try to come up with my own, I'm told it's wrong and it will confuse people. So should I come up with my own, or follow a standard so that people are not confused?

The thing about using fluorescent tubes as lights, I have used those before, but they posed problems for me in the past. One thing is, is that they are not near as bright as halogens so I have a problem, using the light to separate the foreground from the background, when they are not near as bright. So I didn't think that fluorescents were very good to use therefore. They are also much larger than halogen lights, which makes them trickier to fit into locations since they take up more space. Wouldn't this be a problem for fluorescents compared to halogens? Oh course I can talk to a DP about this too, I just thought that a DP would prefer the halogen lights, since they are brighter.

If we are to use flourescents though, what if I we did a similar lighting set up, where the fluorescent lights are the keylight and they are hitting the actor from the side more so, to separate the backround? And another flourescent as a back light on the actors. Would that be better?

[Brian Drysdale]

Given the ISO ratings of modern digital cameras, florescent lights shouldn't be an issue There are film lights that use colour accurate florescent tubes, so the light levels are sufficient for this type of work. The DP may decide to use additional lights, but .as the director, you should communicate the overall look you're going for and let the DP work out the mechanics from there. The top lights usually separates the actors background.

DPs work with florescents all the time, including on feature films. It's how they lit the Washington Post newsroom in "All the Presidents Men".

You do seem to stuck in making a pastiche of 1960s films.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, well a lot of movies I like are from the 60s, and I like some of the looks of them. All The President's Men looked a little documentary-ish style for my taste. But I can watch it again. But if we are allowed to use other movies for inspiration, what about this kind of police station setting scene, lighting wise?

Favorite R. Lee Ermey Moment from Seven (1995) - YouTube

They don't have back lights for the actors to separate them more from the background, which I like, but if I were to use backlights in an office setting, would that look too weird?

[Brian Drysdale]

You can use back light, but it needs to be subtle, many of the DPs in the 1960s came from shooting black and white, where you needed the back light for separation. You don't need that in colour.

There's not much back light in Seven

[Paul R Johnson]

This is EXACTLY what I tried to explain. Where on earth do you get these rules - you bang o0n about separating the actors from the background as if this = cinematic, or not doing it =TV or documentary. It's all context driven. That picture could be a police station, or a newspaper office, or the call centre for a big insurance firm.

Nobody suggested bringing in loads of fluorescents - we thought that you'd use a space that already has them. You don't have the budget to rent a four waller, build a set and light it do you?

Why do you believe that cinematic doesn't mean natural light, or real artificial light. There must be hundreds of examples where lighting augments what's already there.

In an office, strong key would possibly look like sunlight, but what if there are no windows? Strong key in a room that doesn't need it looks really odd. Backlight would need to come from somewhere. Do you have backlight in a real room. We're not making a sit com, or a morning TV show.