Sorry I never got to respond to this Charles.
Thanks for all the info, I've learned alot from this thread and from watching your films.

Hi Charles,

Where can the film be seen now? The ifilm link did not seem to work.. would love to see this to gain beter perspective on what you wrote regarding your lighting setup.

Thanks,

Hi Dennis,

I won't even ask how you dug up this relic of a thread...!

Sorry to hear that iFilm has killed the link. I'll ask the director if it is online anywhere else (the iFilm version was pretty rough looking anyway by today's streaming standards)

Try doing a search for "First Born".

This link might work: http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2413801

Great stuff.

Thanks Glenn. I will check it out... I've probably already watched it but forgot which short is was.

Charles I was searching DV info for lighting up master shots and this was one of the threads that popped up.

I'm going to be shooting a feature next month with the XL2/mini35 and I will likely be involved in lighting some of the scenes. I'm particularly interested in knowing the best way to light a wide (aka master) shot using lighting that will match the close ups.

One scene for example will be interior night bar/lounge scene where two main characters are introduced and meet each other for the first time. The male is sitting at a table while the female is at the bar. They are about 15 feet apart, male in the foreground and female in the background. Eventually the female joins the male at the table.

The location is narrow (12 feet wide) and as long as about 70 feet. For the establishing shot we will be shooting down the length of the area. I've thought of picking out the actors with fresnel ARRI's since open face will likely spill and not work as well from far distances. There might also be the possibility of overhead lighting the male in the foreground. But where I'm stumped is the female in the background - who then makes her way from (correction made 10/14/05) the bar. Overhead lighting is not possible, and underneath lighting would be captured in the scene.

Any ideas?





Dennis

Dennis:

This is tricky to advise on without pix of the bar itself. Can you hide a backlight deeper in the set that will create a hot rim on the actress (try colored light for this)? Or a side light from behind the bar that can be rigged in the barback somwhere and thus not be photographed in the wide shot? If you have the DVD of "Swingers", check out the scene shot at the Dresden room (where the guys prompt Favreau to go after a girl at the bar like the "R-rated guy", and he ends up getting her number). A sidelight (looks like a Kino) picks out the two at the bar nicely, although a little bit hot for my taste; there was very little supplemental lighting being used in this scene.

Speaking of which, Kinos are a great tool for lighting bars--you can put them under the bar itself for sparkle on the glasses, or hide them behind banquettes for texture, or even tape them to the walls with colored gel and photograph them as if they are neon.

As far as matching wide shots to closeups, you can always cheat the lighting between the two as long as they are similar. So if you have to use hard light on the girl in the wide, you can bring in a diffusion frame for the closeup, just amp up the intensity of that light so that the ratios match between the shot (i.e. have a scrim in the light in the wide shot, then pull it for the closeup when you add the diffusion closer to the subject).

Thanks Charles.

Here's a hand drawn pic of what the bar looks like top view. www.starcentral.ca/dvinfo/bar.pdf

For the master shot I'm thinking since she doesn't move in it at all I can shoot a pepper light from behind her for the rim. Her body would block the stand, but still not sure how to give her some key or fill.

As for the male actor at the table.. where would you suggested the "practical" light is coming from? For the master shot I obviously can't place the key light in the scene, but somehow imagined for the close up shots of the actors (and some medium side shots of both) that the key would be between them and the bar, and then I'd use reflectors for fill/bounce on the opposite side.

Dennis,

Thanks for the pic, that helps.

Tons of opportunities here. I would recommend pulling his table a bit camera right to come off that wall, that shouldn't affect your background composition all that much. You can key him with a low crosslight, positioned between his table and the next one upstage, which is good because the woman will not cross in front of it. Depending on the type of bar, if you were able to put a little pratical lamp on each table, this will motivate this type of lighting beautifully. You can add another unit for her seated position also. Alternately you can use a high key from far camera right which the woman will cross underneath, this will give her a little backlight when she sits down.

For her, I'd hide the rim light between the far edge of the bar and the next table; given that the bar is going to have a fair amount of dark areas you can probably just put a solid (black flag) in front of it to keep it hidden, and you'll never notice it in the shot. Or there may be some set piece around or a jacket hung on a peg or something that you can use to block the light from the camera. I like the sidelight idea still, that can be positioned off camera left (remember, we moved his table camera right and this gives you some room for that light) which she can move through on her way to the table. A 4x2 vertical Kino with egg crates would be great for this, but a straight tungsten unit will work also.

The washroom gives you a nice opportunity to place a unit that can rake the camera right side wall, use a good size tungsten unit with color gel to taste. This will also rim whoever is in that aisle area by the bar (just keep people from crossing close to the washroom door).

Are you planning on shooting through the front window at all? Feels like a good possibility to get some nice long lens stuff happening--if there are interesting details to the front of the building or signs in the window, having a few soft bits of that might make a much more interesting frame. It really helps that you will have the Mini35--you are so close to the actors that it would be impossible to get the background to drop off with a straight DV setup. Definitely get your camera jammed back against the glass window for the longest focal length possible otherwise.

Are you planning to shoot coverage of the two seated (i.e. over the shoulders or singles)? If so and you think this is a lot of how the scene will play out, you might want to rethink how you have them placed--you will be shooting into two walls and losing all of the production value of the bar, or perhaps this helps because you don't have to keep all the extras around! If that's not a consideration, think about placing the guy facing camera and the woman would have to come around and sit with her back to the window--this gives much more interesting backgrounds in both directions, assuming that you can shoot out of the window (i.e. you aren't shooting day for night at the location).

Hope this helps!

Thanks for such a detailed response. Changing their seating may actually work better technically, but in the script he looks away from the bar towards the window and when he turns back he's eye level with the lady's navel, (a moment of surprise) then she sits down. The director might feel more comfortable having the male distracted momentarily by the window so I don't know if he'll go for it - but I'll run it by him.

I appreciate all your input to this and understand how hard it is to offer advise when there are so many variables and situations you haven't been made aware of. Having said that you've given me some great ideas, some starting points and things to consider. I really do appreciate it.

We're scheduled to start shooting next month, the principle cast will be finalized this weekend. This is my first feature length film with the mini35 and I'm quite looking forward to it.