Overexposed windows, scrims, gels and tungsten lighting

[Todd Terry]

Yep, the windows on that setup are the big factor… can be both a big asset (lending interest, and light) and a big hindrance as you have found… blowing out the scene.

One way to cut the “hottness” of the windows is an extremely cheap fix. Go to a home improvement store (Lowes, The Home Depot, etc.) and buy a big roll of black fiberglass screen door mesh. Then just cut big pieces of it and attach it (gaffer tape, or tack it, whatever will get it tight) onto the outside of the windows. That will cut the output without affecting the color temp.

For the interiors, if the budget will at all allow it, I would strongly suggest going with HMI lighting rather than tungsten. Their extremely high output and daylight color balance should do a nice job of combatting the windows. I don’t know what you have available in your area, but here the local rental house has available 1200w PAR HMIs for $275/week, or very nice 800w Joker-Bug kits with nice Chimera boxes for about $300/week.

Barring that, you are definitely going to have a color discrepency that will have to be dealt with in one of two ways… you can either adjust the color of the windows or the color of your tungstens. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

The first way would be to gel the tungstens blue, as you suggested. Probably 1/4 (maybe 1/2) CTB gel would do it. The big advantage to that is that it is cheap and easy, and you don’t need much gel. The big disadvantage of it is that your tungsten instruments are going to be very puny compared to the windows to start with, and the blue gel is only going to make matters worse by cutting their output… a lot. You are probably going to have to start with some pretty beefy tungstens and some pretty serious netting or mesh on the windows to get an adequate output balance.

The other way is to adjust the output (or is it input?) from the windows. You would gel them so that they are tungsten balanced, this time with 1/4 (or maybe 1/2) CTO gel… which is orangish in color. The advantages are that it doesn’t cut your tungsten output and will make it easier to balance the output levels. The disadvantage is that (depending on the size of your windows) could take a substantial amount of gel… either big pieces or a lot of little ones. And they need to be affixed to the window so that they are very flat and tight with no wrinkles that will show.

HMIs will probably start looking more attractive. More expensive, yes… but if you weigh against that the time and effort needed to get a good lighting plot using just the tungstens, it might be worth it.

Let us know what you decide to do and how it works out.

T2

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

[Mark Suszko]

I have faced this situation often and would prefer to go with ND and CTO gels on the outside of the windows, because all my lighting is tungsten and blue gels on tungsten just choke them into irrelevance.

HMI’s work but they are expensive, make a LOT of heat, and draw a lot of power. Scrims can work but you want to be careful you don’t get Moire’ patterns showing up in it at various focal lengths, this is more of a possibility with the cheap hardware cloth than the real Rosco scrims which have a different shape to their hole patterns.

When attaching the gels outside, you want them snug so the wind can’t make them ripple, which can make noise as well as distracting flickers outside the glass. You want the gel as close up against the glass as possible to reduce reflections. Some folks knock together a wooden frame with a staple gun, gel the frame, then attach the frame to the window with staples, nails, gaffer tape, whatever they can get away with. But what if you can’t get at the windows outside?

With some care and good hand-eye coordination, you can use razor blades to trim gels and attach them to the inside glass panes of the windows with water or static or clear tape. If they fit tight and clean enough, it shouldn’t read as anything but regular glass after you white balance.

I don’t like to cut up window gels if I can help it because I prefer to re-use the stuff as much as possible. We can’t afford to throw it away, I got rolls a decade old.

[Todd Terry]

[Mark Suszko] “HMI’s work but they are expensive, make a LOT of heat, and draw a lot of power.”

Two-thirds correct. HMIs are very expensive, and draw a lot of power (make sure you have a lot of dedicated circuits). However until you get into the really really big instruments (say 12Ks or 18Ks) they are not nearly as hot as many people fear. Lumen-for-lumen they are not nearly as hot as tungsten instruments. An 800w Joker-Bug, for example, is going to run a fair bit cooler than the equivalent 3500 watts or so of tungsten. The 1200w fresnel and little 150w PAR HMIs that I use every day run almost cool enough to put your hand on the housing while they are on. Almost, but not quite.

[Mark Suszko] “you can use razor blades to trim gels and attach them to the inside glass panes of the windows”

That’s probably the best idea yet.

Part of the logistics will have to do with the duration of the show. Is this a one-time thing? Or a setup you will be using again and again, say once a week for several weeks? That might determine the best way to go. If it is a one-time shot, something like Mark’s suggestion of carefully gelling the inside of each pane might be best. If it’s something to be repeated again and again, you’d probably be better off taking his other suggestion of building a frame that can be placed outside the windows so you don’t spend tedious hours working on the glass before every shoot.

Or, if you want to get REALLY crazy…. shoot at night. Put tungsten instruments outside to illuminate the curtains or blinds or whatever is in the windows.

I also just recalled a shoot several years ago where we tacked up big black sound blankets outside windows, and put a C-stand between each window and the blanket so that it made a little sorta tent… with enough room in there to put a small tungsten instrument that created fake sunlight streaming through the blinds.

T2

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

[John Sharaf]

HMI’s make little or no heat and draw about 25% of the power of a comperable tungsten unit, not even considering the color temperature issue. It’s true that they are more expensive, but in most cases are the best, most efficient and elegant solution to day interior shooting.

JS

[Richard Herd]

My $0.02: If the entire lighting setup is keyed only by the exterior light coming in, I find it looks flat and boring. Instead, use it as “fill.” That is, expose for the exterior light (so you can see outside), but raise the luminance inside the room and shape it properly so the subject is perfectly lit. How you go about raising the ambient light can take many forms. How you shape the light on your subject can also take many forms.

[Michael Palmer]

HMI’s generally can produce double the amount of light output of tungsten units based on the wattage of the lamp. I would not say that HMI’s have much less heat than tungsten units as the lamp head is in some cases is much hotter than tungsten units and then you have a ballast that creates heat as well. Older magnetic ballasts create a large amount of heat and need to be properly placed with sufficient ventilation so that the ballast circuit breaker doesn’t fail.

You really get what you pay for in production and so many of these posts here are from people looking for miracles when they should be hiring experience crews to produce there shows.

Good Luck
Michael Palmer

[Richard Herd]

[Todd Terry] “a little sorta tent”

Tents are awesome. I made mine out of fabric from the fabric store. The fabric is completely opaque (and next I’d like it dyed black), but it hardly matters because it’s not very reflective. Nonetheless, the fabric was cheap. The best part about using tents is the sun doesn’t move–what a miracle!

[Rick Wise]

One little detail: do not try to balance inside levels to outside levels completely. The results will look false. The outside should look hotter, up to two stops hotter (for film — less difference for most video, but it depends on which video camera you are using and how good your techie is, if you have one. Best to judge with a very good monitor.)

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Tim Ryan]

Hey Mark,
You and the other posts have provided some amazing advice. Thank you for providing suggestions based on the tools I have on hand (i.e. Tungsten lights). I’d love to use HMI’s, Kino Flos or whatever else makes sense but need to stick to what’s already available.

I like the idea of creating a wooden frame with CTO’s stapled and then posting/taping it to the exterior window frame. This is a weekend type of project and I hope to continue shooting over several weeks. This means the kitchen goes back to a residental kitchen when I’m not shooting. So, a quick gel frame on the windows makes the most sense. I can then WB my camera to the Tungsten lights and call it a day.

Can you recommend a vendor and a basic Gel kit that will give me the various CTO’s as well as other staple gels all in one kit?

Thanks again,

Tim

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[Tim Ryan]

Re: Overexposed windows, scrims, gels and tungsten lighting by Michael Palmer on Dec 11, 2008 at 10:29:10 amYou really get what you pay for in production and so many of these posts here are from people looking for miracles when they should be hiring experience crews to produce there shows.

Sounds like you’re not a fan of us low-budget DIYers that are both naive and trying to learn without always paying others to do it for us? How dare we post on Creative Cow in search of lighting miracles!

MacBook Pro
Mac OSX version 10.4.11
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB DDr SDRAM
FCP 6.0
G-Raid 2 Tb external hard drive