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How to light subject (interior shot) and expose for background through window (exterior)?
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If you only see one window, can you just gel that and hang black cloth/duv to block the light from the other windows from spilling onto your scene? If the remaining window is large but you never see all of it then you can flag off the parts you don’t see and reduce the amount of correction you need even more.
Mark D’Agostino
http://www.synergeticproductions.com -
Now that more information has been forthcoming, I’d consider using the off camera windows as the key source and 4×8′ B&W Foam core to control the negative or positive fill and other unwanted spill. Maybe use the one tungsten light with daylight correction and diffusion for eye lite or scratch lite. Just a thought.
You’ll still need the proper amount of ND window gel (likely ND.9) to see out the on screen window. Mount it on the outside to eliminate reflections.
In some cases, available light is the best and most elegant solution.
JS
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ND the windows and light the subject to match. If you don’t have sufficient equipment rent what you need and be done with it. OR . . . light your subject with what you have and then ND, or double-ND the windows to match. . . and be done with it.
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[Steven Belcher] “Unfortunately I think I’m stuck with correcting the tungsten.”
THis is trivial and minor, but might be useful as you approach this.
Don’t think in terms of “correcting” the light when you’re using gels. Always think in terms of “filtering” it.
The subtle distinction is that all gelling is subtractive by nature. You’re removing light at specific frequencies. There is no correction possible using gels without loss so the term filtering helps you keep that in mind.
The more you filter, the more light output you lose. Period.
Again, it’s just terminology – but our words define our thinking – and the only “correction” you can do with light that doesn’t involve loss is when you’re mixing active sources. So a light that mixes daylight and tungsten LEDs in a single unit can, in fact, “correct” the light as to color temp. But gels work differently. They are always first and foremost, filters.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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Yeah I think there will be plenty of available nat light… I just want to be ready for any and all possibilities. Between using flags and one or 2 gelled/chimera 1k’s and NDing the window, I don’t think it will be that much of a hassle.
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My friend Lou used to have a saying: “Stepping over dollars, to pick up dimes.” What you “save” by not renting the HMI lights, you will “spend” in the post-production hell, burning long hours of trying to color-correct the blue daylight from the orange tungsten and salvage some detail out of the over-exposed exterior view the client seems to think is super-important.
The day I got my phone interview for the job I have now, over 20 years ago, the boss asked me a qualifying question:
“Pop quiz, hotshot: Large office with bigwig behind a desk, and there’s a huge picture window with an impressive view behind him. How do you light that?”
“My choices would be: gel the window with ND and color-correction, get an expensive and power-hungry HMI daylight colored light, bring a bunch of tungstens and gel those to match daylight (hope the air conditioner and power are good), or I ask the bigwig if we can shoot from another angle without the window.”
“How soon can you come down here?”
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What Mark said . . . GREAT, unless there is a window in every direction.
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Well, sometimes that “other angle” you suggest is in a different room. Or floor. Or building.
… or city.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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OR, if you are on a limited budget you shoot where you can and light the subject as best you can then ND the window to match . . . after all it may be the clients own office and wants it shot there. . . and save it in post.
Whew!!! -
P.S – Or shoot at dawn, or twilight, or night (if you have a pretty cityscape out the window), and forget the ND. Just watch out for reflections from the window glass.
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