DP Lights in Large space with windows

[Dennis Size]

I REPEAT…..
What the hell are you shooting? AND Why? (What’s the point of the shoot?)

Until you establish what the goal is, you can’t establish a concept. Until you establish a concept you can’t determine the “look”, and how you will light the piece.
As several people have said, it’s dance, so you can run wild conceptually. You MUST have a clear cut idea of what your look needs to be however, before you can use whatever’s at your disposal to make it work.

As regards shadows, I’ve never been one to think they’re bad. In deference to my friend John, whose work I ALWAYS admire, I think mutiple shadows could work for you in this situation. I once had an assignment to do the same exact thing you are doing (although I have no idea what you are supposed to be doing).
My assignment was to “theatrically” light a dance piece. There was no need to analyze feet or faces; nor was there any interview or discussion. I was just artistically lighting the performance.

I colored the overhead lights blue (with gel). I put my 3 uncolored lights (which were fresnels) right on the floor — evenly spaced along one side of the room — shooting up at the dancers. There were a few mirrors along the wall I was shooting at so I had 3 more lights (in the mirrors bouncing back at me). Where there were no mirrors I had incredible, huge moving shadows of the dancers climbing the walls and onto the ceiling. The lights shooting back into the cameras from the mirrors were broken up by the constant movement of the dancers through the beams of the lights, which had artistic “stars” flaring the cameras (as I had put 4 pt star filters into the cameras). I did add gain to the camera …with the iris wide open.
The end result was very “artistic”; and the director was heard to use the word “genius” in describing what I had done.

DS

[Karyn Barnett]

I really like your idea here and I think I will attempt to be artistic with the tools I have instead of going to great lengths to try and make something happen that might not. This shoot can certainly be artistic and interesting lighting could really add something to the footage I am capturing tomorrow.

Thank you so much for your advice! I think it is so awesome what you guys do for people on these forums. I am a grad student and study whenever I can on my own, but there is nothing like being able to reach out to trained professionals for personalized advice on this. Thank you so much again.

[Karyn Barnett]

Thanks for the tips. This shoot is for my documentary on a dance crew. There isn’t any established artistic concept…yet. That’s why I didn’t write anything about it. I am really just trying to light the space in a way that will brighten the room and ensure the shot doesn’t look like a bad mix of natural and tungsten light on camera. I am going to take down notes of all these great ideas and run with them! It’s all about experimenting to learn what works best, right?

Thanks again!

[Karyn Barnett]

Thank you so much for your advice. I am breathing a sigh of relief because I feel like going in prepared and trying a few different ideas you all have listed on here will ensure I find the right balance for my video. I really appreciate your help!

Thanks again 🙂

[Karyn Barnett]

Thanks so much Rick! Really helpful! I am relieved after reading your advice. Thanks again..

[Bob Cole]

So many good ideas here. I have to thank and congratulate Karyn for eliciting such interesting solutions from some people whose work I am in awe of. (How can I say that so my 7th grade English teacher would approve? “from some people in awe of whose work I am?” nahh)

The dialog between some of our industry’s giants reminds me of why I love this business: you can do great work in so many different ways – there is no one formula. The only thing I can add is some advice from my late, lamented photography mentor, Rodney Boyce: if you are going in a certain esthetic direction, go there all the way. As with Dennis’s lens flares, a tiny bit might have looked like a mistake, but allied with his overall vision, it was wondrous.

In your case, alternating between very utilitarian lighting (for rehearsals, dialogs between the dance director and the dancers, warm-ups and drills) and very extreme lighting (to evoke an actual performance) might work well for the storytelling. I don’t think the “artistic” lighting solutions here would be good for rehearsals – the lighting has to make sense with the story. If it’s a doc that you’re working on over a period of weeks, you can experiment. Oh, and add a dolly (or a little red wagon or a wheelchair or something) to your arsenal so you can move the camera back and forth, even go amongst the dancers.

Above all, Karyn: STEAL. I hear there’s a pretty good movie about dance up for an Oscar.

[Mark Suszko]

We want a complete report after this is over, with pictures!