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Crazy lighting plot… any better ideas?
Forgive the duplication, but I will post this in Lighting Design as well…
I’m trying to decide if I am crazy with this lighting plot…
I have a commercial shoot with talent walking down a long hallway (a college dorm hall), dollying backwards in front of him as he speaks to camera. The entire :30 spot is one continuous shot with talent also interacting with passersby coming in and out of the rooms.
The only way I can think of to light this (and get the look that I want) is with a big boom pole attached to the dolly suspending a Chinese lantern with a big flo bulb in it as key and ambient light, and even possibly extending the boom far enough to get a small backlight (which I think would really be helpful). This would require mounting a junior receiver on the dolly (Fisher10, would have to use studio wheels since track would show) sturdy enough to hold the whole thing up. I’m trying to limit the crew as much as possible as the quarters are tight. I could even put a boom mic on the pole, I don’t really want to use a radio mic and quarters are too tight for a boom operator.
It would look something like this (sizes and proportions aren’t even close)….
I also have a daylight fluorescent ring light that can go around the lens for a little more kick, but it has a rather odd glamor look when used alone as a key. Shoot is 35mm, haven’t 100% decided on the stock yet but will probably use Kodak 5207… possibly 5219 but I would rather stay with slower and daylight-balanced.
Is this crazy? Anyone have any better ideas? Most grateful for any suggestions.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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9 Replies
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Of course you know the first thing I am going to recommend is use a steadicam and get rid of the dolly. 🙂
Otherwise (w/dolly or steadicam) I would recommend the ring light around the lens. We sometimes will strip kino flo lights to bare bulb and walk right next to the operator holding them (5600K) since they are cool to the touch and use them as fill.
If it wont be obvious you can pull the fake ceiling tiles and place angled (towards talent, away from camera) soft lights (rifas w/X65 bulbs or kino’s).
The boom op can reach over the steadicam operator. (did I say you should use a steadicam?).
If you use the dolly you could additionally mount a sunbouce reflector and put a 500w for softfill?
The problem is if your key is too close and the hallway is not lit too well is dealing with the dark tunnel look. Your diagram gives the impression you might not be able to have too much separation.
Can you post some pictures of the location?
Emre Tufekci
http://www.productionpit.com -
Ha… Emre, thought of that, of course… sadly our Steadicam has not been out of it’s case in about two years, and that was just to show it to someone.
While I used to be a pretty darn good Steadi op, I’m afraid my now 47-year-old spine is a little too aged for full-size Steadi work anymore. In fact, I’ve been thinking of selling our rig for quite a while… the downside is that it has depreciated so much that I just hate to take such a loss on it.
I’m a fan of good Steadi work, but this shot I saw in my head fairly specifically as a NON-Steadicam shot… more of a really solid track shot (although with studio wheels, not real actual track).
I’m thinking of also mounting some fill Kinos right to the dolly, similar to your suggestion.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hahaha…. that’s about the way I FEEL after only about 30 minutes strapped in.
In my younger days I could wear the same rig all day and barely feel it… I think I might have even not unharnessed for lunch once. Now, not so much.
I think Garrett Brown designed the rig out of some kind of space-aged other-planetary metal that has the unique property of getting more dense and heavier with passing time.
That’s the only conceivable explanation I can think of.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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not sure if you shot this already but does the hallway have a few doorways you could put lights in? Do you have BG walking in hall?
are you shooting so wide you couldn’t put a few lights on skids to bounce?
but more important. why do you need a constant backlight?
also how about a 1×1 light panel with a snoot on a dimmer that you could control. i think it would look quite staged if you have a constant source of light on your subject as they walk in a hallway.
fwiwTodd McMullen
Flip Flop Films
Austin
http://www.toddmcmullen.com -
No Todd, not too late….shoot is Thursday…
Yes, plan all along is to have lighting coming out of all the “dorm room” doorways… or at least those on one side.
I’ve test-built the rig already, and yes scrapped the backlighting part. The hallway has scads of flos in the ceiling… too many to replace on our meager budget so we are planning to poison the Kinos with the same tubes when needed. The semi good news is that the existing flo lighting looks quite warm, so I think I can get away with 3200° additional flos (for Kinos and I have a 3200° tube for the Chinese lantern), a little gel on the one 1200w HMI that I was going to put in deep background, and maybe now I can get to use a few small tungsten fresnels here and there as specials. I’m sure this won’t look nearly as good on screen as it does in my head…. ha.
The biggest issue I’ve been wrestling with lately is finding a darn dolly. As I pointed out in the Lighting Design forum I was anguished to learn that every Fisher 10 or 11 within a 200 mile radius of me was booked solid this week. Arrrrgh. I should have reserved earlier, but they’re never not available in this area. I was just contemplating dragging our bigass 700lb crab dolly onto location when I learned there was a grip guy (whom I didn’t even know existed) that has a Cameleon that literally lives a MILE from the shoot location. I must be living right. Not the Fisher I wanted by any stretch, but it solves a lot of problems and should be ok since I don’t have to boom up or crab in the shot.
Thanks bro,
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I promised an update… this went pretty well.
I posted about it over in the lighting design forum…
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/47/858156
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Putting Mole 750 Soft (1/4 Opal) on stand in back of Dolly, instead (?)
Extended eggcrate will protect the walls. Eyes will be lit.janusz
https://www.lightextreme.com*It’s quite about Light*
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Perhaps…. but the shoot was a couple of months ago. 🙂
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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