• ✅ Technical and creative solutions for your film.
    ✅ Screenplay formatting help, plot and story guidance.
    ✅ A respectful community of professionals and newbies.
    ✅ Network with composers, editors, cast, crew, and more!
    🎬 IndieTalk - Filmmaking and Screenwriting help site and community.
    By filmmakers, for filmmakers since 2003

lighting Question about colour balance - shooting in a room with windows using lights

A

ArcadeFire

Hi all,

I'm shooting a film on Monday which is an interview with someone, set in a front room. The room has large windows and so will have a good amount of natural light, however it can still be a bit dim, so I wanted to use some artificial lighting as well. In this situation, should I be adding blue filters to the lights to make the film appear as though it is balanced for daylight?

Many Thanks
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Yes. Either that or get bulbs with a color temp between 5000 and 6500 K, depending on the time of day.

Also, don't forget to diffuse the light so it looks ambient (unless you have a practical light source someone besides the window that could explain where the light is coming from, if that makes sense).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Blown-out windows.

If your windows are in the shot, the hotter your lights, the better the windows will
look. In other words, without any artificial lights, the windows will look completely "blown out"
(white). The more artificial light you add, the more the "blown out" look goes away. Yes, the
lights will be hotter then heck, but the shot will look great. The only other alternative would
be to gel the windows with an ND (neutral density) filter, or stretch a couple of layers of window
screen over the windows to knock down the light. The more you knock down the light, the less
artificial light you need. Make sense?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Another more controlled option is to cover the windows with a tarp or similar, and place lights outside to simulate daylight. It can all be whatever color temperature you want then.

The big benefit of doing it this way is you can shoot all day without your outside lighting changing at all. As the Earth moves around the sun you get different angles of light coming through the window, not to mention cloud shadows and normal time of day brightness/color changes (like sunset). That way your lighting looks the same shot to shot in your 4 minute indoor scens that took 12 hours to shoot.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dreadylocks said:
Yes. Either that or get bulbs with a color temp between 5000 and 6500 K, depending on the time of day.

Also, don't forget to diffuse the light so it looks ambient (unless you have a practical light source someone besides the window that could explain where the light is coming from, if that makes sense).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips everyone. I took some test footage today. This is using a fill light and one spot light, with a reflector behind me and blue filters. The sky outside was cloudy, but not too dull. What do you reckon?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWIi0d5IoOY

Also, can anyone tell me why the footage uploads with a black border around it? I'm shooting in DV wide and exporting using DV Wide settings (in 16:9) in Adobe Premiere, so I can't understand why it doesn't fill the entire screen.

Many thanks for your help
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Will Vincent said:
Well nothing is over or underlit.. but the image is a little flat, there's no depth to the lighting at all.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree, the problem is that I don't have any other filters that I can use on a third light to light from behind. I was using reflectors here but it's not as powerful. Could I get away with adding in a non-blue filtered light from behind, or do you think I should use the fill light to light from the front, and switch the omni to light fro behind the subject?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ArcadeFire said:
Yeah I agree, the problem is that I don't have any other filters that I can use on a third light to light from behind. I was using reflectors here but it's not as powerful. Could I get away with adding in a non-blue filtered light from behind, or do you think I should use the fill light to light from the front, and switch the omni to light fro behind the subject?
Click to expand...

Not every light has to be the same colour temperature - having a slightly warmer or slightly cooler backlight (for instance) can really help with separating your subject from the background.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top