How to light subject (interior shot) and expose for background through window (exterior)?

[Bob Cole]

Ah, the window shot. There is brute force, and there is the high IQ solution, as in Mark, John, and Ken’s approaches. (Move the executive, use natural light, or wait for a darker exterior.)

I love John Sharaf’s idea about natural light. Really. The best lighting I ever did was when I sat a farmer down on a bale of hay near the big door in his barn and … just shot! Clearly the way to go if you can. If it was good enough for Rembrandt…

[Ken Maxwell] “Or shoot at dawn, or twilight, or night”

Night – great idea. But dawn and twilight might only work if all the shooting can be accomplished within a few minutes; the lighting outside might change so fast that the background will be different from one ten-minute period to the next.

As for brute force: Putting gel on windows can be a real PITA. You can, of course, go to extremes and achieve perfection with polarized gel (RoscoView?) and a filter on the lens, but I can’t imagine doing that, unless this is going to be a regular set.

In daylight: Unless the window view has to be pristine and beautiful (tropical beach) I wouldn’t be so worried about color temperature; 1/4 blue on the tungstens is fine. Or, use a couple Kino Flos with daylight tubes! If you don’t own a Joker, of course.

I’ve tried Todd Terry’s Harbour Freight version of ND gel – it works. No color correction, of course.

I’ve never tried window screen, but I’d like to. One prep day at an NFL stadium I noticed in the tv announcer’s booth how they must do that iconic first shot, where the two announcers look into the camera with the field behind them. There are a couple of small HMI lights mounted in the booth facing the field. Mounted above the big window is a large roll of black window screen. So I assume they unroll the window screen for the one opening shot; the window screen visually disappears but darkens the background. Looking at the set-up, I could swear it wouldn’t work because the announcers are so close to the screening, but apparently it does. No worries about reflections as with ND gel, either. (One question for Todd: mounting the ND outside the window, you say, helps with reflections. But what about the wind shifting the gel – wouldn’t that cause reflections or distraction of some kind?)

[Todd Terry]

[Bob Cole] “I’ve tried Todd Terry’s Harbour Freight version of ND gel”

Well actually what I use is from Hancock Fabrics… but maybe they sell it there, too…

[Bob Cole] “One question for Todd: mounting the ND outside the window, you say, helps with reflections. But what about the wind shifting the gel – wouldn’t that cause reflections or distraction of some kind?”

Did I say that, Bob? I didn’t remember advising that (maybe I did, who knows…). Actually I’ve used it on both interior and exterior sides, just depending on which side was easier to access and apply. The fabric-store gel I use is actually window cling tinted gel, so it clings and sticks right flat to the glass… wind’s not an issue.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Bob Cole]

[Todd Terry] “actually what I use is from Hancock Fabrics”

Right! I’m so used to hearing about the wonders of Harbor Freight here that I transposed that. I got it from Hancock Fabrics too: “Window Tinting Film,” $3.97/yd, 54″ wide – the opposite end of the price spectrum from RoscoView ($700 for 56″x9′)!

And there is also the camera itself. You can select a camera with wide dynamic range, adjust your camera’s picture profile, and use a lower knee setting to bring that bright window into a better exposure. (Alister Chapman’s video on XDCAM Gamma Curves and Knee, which I believe is on the COW as well as his website and YouTube, has a great before-and-after comparison of how dropping the knee to 85 by itself allows you to see detail in a blown-out window.)