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A cold "hair backlight".

FernandoAndre

FernandoAndre

In most scenes on my short film, I need contour the head of the characters with a strong light with a cold temperature - like an orange source at night.

Something like this girl, but at night:

Backlight.png




But the hard point is that I need to match this city lights:

curitiba-rua-xv-noite.jpg



So, the goal is to reinforce the light of this public lamps in order to make it shine a lot as a thin backlight in the character's head, hair, body, whatever I can. Any tips about a good light equipment for this purpose and how I can change the color temperature if needed? Is extremely important do not light the front of the actor with this source, but creating incandescent outlines with the same color of the ambient.

Thanks for any help.
 
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Your first picture inst showing up.. so I cant see that example.

I think you have your "warm and cold" backwards. Sunlight is COLD (blue) Tungsten light is WARM (Orange)


The street scene though pretty, looks incorrectly white balanced to me.. looks like tungsten lights being captured with the cameras white balance set to daylight, I'm thinking the store on the corner is using daylight balanced florescent lights. VERY ORANGE when you do that!

So if thats whats going on, then any tungsten light you add should generate he same orange tint..
 
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wheatgrinder said:
I think you have your "warm and cold" backwards. Sunlight is COLD (blue) Tungsten light is WARM (Orange)
Click to expand...

Hello wheatgrinder,
I remember being taught in photography classes that blue lights are warm, as a young star in the universe gleaming fiercely, and orange lights are cold. Exactly the opposite of what we know in art direction by classifying the colors of objects. But I'm not sure.

wheatgrinder said:
Your first picture inst showing up.. so I cant see that example.
Click to expand...
Here is the direct link for the picture: http://www.ephotozine.com/articles/Kodak-EasyShare-V803-8mp-5253/images/kodak_V803_backlight_yellow.jpg


wheatgrinder said:
The street scene though pretty, looks incorrectly white balanced to me..
Click to expand...
Yes I think so. BUT, actually the lights of this city (Curitiba, Brazil) are truly orange.

As you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbpdesigner/1695855358/
Here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raelwolf/4939186984/
And here: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LVndQ3xmK4w/TkCDcv1xQ_I/AAAAAAAAAAo/NRqN4vof-L0/s1600/IMG_0115.JPG

What do you think about?
Thank you!
 
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Cosmologically speaking you're correct on stars and there age relating to blue and red.. it makes sense think about it..

new stars are HOTTER the hotter things are the more blue they are.. as suns age they get LESS hot and hence MORE RED in color.

Relatively speaking, a tungsten light is much COOLER than our relatively young sun so RELATIVELY the sun is more blue then the much cooler tungsten light.... lol that was fun.


Dang, that link didn't work :)



I stand by my white balance comment. Most outdoor snap shots are taken with white balance set to outdoor sun so dusk, nighttime shots are also set that way and hence tugsten lights appear ORANGE. But dont listen to me, you should make this discovery your self. It will be very "illuminating" and is not hard to do.
 
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Mannie Bothans said:
Are they bright enough to just bounce from the practicals?
Click to expand...

I guess not. Look this still from an official test of the film.
I tried to make this backlight effect using the light of the street (which is orange/yellow). But not even close to what is in my mind :(
The white balance of this shot was set to not look so orange.


Luz_pra_a.png




wheatgrinder said:
Relatively speaking, a tungsten light is much COOLER than our relatively young sun
...
I stand by my white balance comment. Most outdoor snap shots are taken with white balance set to outdoor sun so dusk, nighttime shots are also set that way and hence tugsten lights appear ORANGE. But dont listen to me, you should make this discovery your self. It will be very "illuminating" and is not hard to do.
Click to expand...

Hmm, thanks for the explanation about the warm x cold lights question.

About the colors of the lamps, I live in this city and the lights are orange hehe. I mean, I'm understanding what you are saying about the white balance, but these light poles are coated with orange capsules, which is really much orange. By the way, this is an important part of the script. The story is admittedly in this city, and that is why I want to reinforce the orange lights with this night backlight (specially on the head, because it has to do with the script too). Throughout the script, I play with many urban characteristics of the city in the point of view of the characters.
 
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The White Balance issue may seem to be somewhat tangential, but it has bearing on what the light finally looks like on your film (digital or otherwise) in this case what you see is NOT what you get.. You should understand before you settle on your light solution.

That said, find the light temperature of the "practical" lights (those light posts) and find a source of light that matches that temperature. If you can get a peak at the bulbs when NOT on, the temperature might be printed right on the bulb!

kelvin-scale-white-balance.jpg


A simple thing to do, depending on your camera, is to get a white piece of card stock\paper and use your custom white balance settings on your camera to set it so the reflected light is "WHITE" this will look strange, but your camera might tell you what the K value of the stree lights is...
 
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Higher Kelvin number = Hotter temperature, cooler colour.

Lower Kelvin number = Colder temperature, warmer colour.

You can use WB to adjust everything "correctly" where white will be white or you can use WB as a tool to fool the camera and get a wamer or cooler look.
 
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I do not understand why a hotter temperature give us a cooler colour.
But ok. Not important. :abduct:

The fact is: I need to know what is the temperature of the lights of this orange lamps, and buy a light exactly equal? So, once I get this, I can reduce the temperature of WB in the camera to make it all look orange as in the real look. Is it right, that's the way?

But I wonder what kind of light I have to use to bring this igneous backlight effect on scene. And the position of this set relative to the actor. I'm looking for lights on the BH and there is a lot of options. I'm lost.
 
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Easy answer on the first one..

Look at something BLUE it makes you feel cool. Look at something orange it makes you feel warm.. the SCIENCE came after!

You can get close, its not going to make that much difference. If the lights are literally ORANGE then you can get filters to make whatever lights you have ORANGE . Its no more complicated than that. Get a mix of filters: http://www.leefilters.com/lighting/packs.html


The white balance IF ITS AN ISSUE, will come up in the final footage, so you might want to TEST your shots first..
 
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Like Wheat said, colours we deem "warm" or "cool" are according our human aesthetic and evolutionary experiences.

As to why a hotter temperature in degrees gives us colours like blue instead of orange is because of an inverse relationship in wavelength which you can read more into if you like.

For filming purposes, what we need to know is that higher degrees in temp give us bluer colours and lower degrees in temp give us redder colours.

Now when you are filming under tungsten light and tell your camera white balance to 3200k, basically you are telling the camera that there is too much red in my image right now, please add some blue so that the scene looks neutral, where white shows up as white.

When you are filming under daylight and you tell the camera to balance to a higher degree kelvin, you are telling the camera that your scene looks too blue right now, please add some red to it.

Now that we know how WB affects the scene, we can change it in whichever direction we like compared to the actual light conditions in the scene to get different effects in camera. Or you can get a neutral image and apply that effect in post.
 
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Ok, thank you very much, guys. Sorry the confusion.
The question now is to find a king of equipment to make this hard backlight. I don't know if it can be a diffused light.

Thinking about that: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/760136-REG/Impact_SP_UM_Ceramic_Floodlight_Socket_120V.html

with that: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/610332-REG/Impact_ESM_ESM_Lamp_250W_120V.html
(3,000K colour temp / 250W)

on that: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/310782-REG/Impact_401287_Mini_Boom_with_Casters.html

Do you think it works for what I want? Is it strong enough for this purpose?
I can spend a lot more money on this budget, just don't know what to look.
 
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You want something like a hair light that matches the orange city street scene, correct?

If so, for doing it in camera, set up your camera and adjust your WB till the image looks warm enough for your taste. Set up a light above and behind or just behind or wherever you like to get the kind of look you want. You can look into different filters and/or different strength CTO gels to match that light to your street lights.

Do the same for your key and fill and whatever other lights you have in your setup.
 
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Another example is in the film "The lives of others", at 39 minutes of this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ts_9Mfc5ag

As you can see, there is a backlight outlining the woman. And this
light comes from above. Thats what I need, but stronger and with this warm color.

Thank you Ernest, but I'm a really beginner on lighting. I don't know what light I have to buy for this. Can you suggest something?


And wheatgrinder, almost like this second image you posted, but in another position to simulate the public lamps.
 
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Ah, now we can analyze what your really trying to do.
Here is a low quality screen cap from that movie at about 39:00 ...

livesofotherscap39mins.jpg



Im going to guess that this scene was lit white balance set to tungsten. The street lights and the head lights of the car (see a few seconds before the frame above) are close to pure white.

The light coming from camera right is probably a big tungsten light with an orange filter. Its quite a wide spread as the spill hits across the road to the building and lights up the white stripe.. In this Frame you actually SEE another light source (the blue on the top) probably unnoticed during shooting as this is what happens with real world sources in the real world. mixed lighting temps come out varying degrees of orange and blue..

In this next frame we can see more of whats going on screen right (reflections in the car)
livesofotherscap3854min.jpg
 
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