cinematography Chiaroscuro

[sfoster]

For chiaroscuro, is it mostly color correction these days, lighting bright and then crushing the blacks? I want to do something like this for my next production on sunday.

(Still taken from 'The man from nowhere')

I'm using two 500-watt LEDs with blackwrap to focus the light. I've tried setting up the top lights like this, at 90 degree angles from each other but I think I have to turn one off during the others shot.. might be too much spillage reflecting off the walls and floor.

How did they do this in the 40s before we had color correction? I know I need to read that book painting with light.

This is what it looked like without any color correction. I guess not too bad, if I wanted it to be brighter I could point both lights at the subject simultaneously, and then redirect them between shots for each new angle of other subjects.

(Photo of yours truly)

Any advice?

 

[baoliun]

One trap that people fall in with dark pictures is that it is lit at low levels. that is not necessary true and rarely true tbh. You can clearly see that the background is lit with blueish/greenish light (probably gelled HMI? ) and underexposed several stops. The face is lit separately and with tungsten or even tad gelled light perhaps.

Now for your screenshot: If you are trying to replicate than the light in the original is def not that high. If you want dead eyes,that sure you can go with that. Get some cheap porcelain sockets,cable,switch,plug all will cost you dunno 10$? with a household bulb. get couple of those.

Your location looks pretty nice,it has some elements of interior. Compose the shot so you see more of the wooden furniture,rather than plain walls. Put a candle or a practical light in the background with a small wattage bulb,so you will get nice yellowish spot in the bg,without much spill.

Key with your LED. Add fill with white card to control spill somehow. Get your socket with a household bulb,cover it in blackwrap or normal foil to make it behave like a snoot, and rim light/backlight the actor. This will be motivated by the practical and give nice color contrast as your LED's are clearly green.

Spill will be your problem,so try to get black fabric,black foamboard w.e to be able to put it in strategic places.

 

[knightly]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro
http://www.bluelavaart.com/images/isf/egg/art1-egg.htm

The look you're going for sounds more like "Tenebrism" Single source, hard shadows using chiaroscuro to the extreme (light against dark, dark against light to separate your subject from the background and create depth).

When I've had to do this in the past, I've over lit the foreground allowing for the background to fall away to black due to the extremely low ISO and tiny Aperture.

In camera, I'd recommend turning off all the lights in your environment, then setting the camera's aperture until your background hits the darkness you want. From there, light your subject to get exposure. We shot on a theater stage with black curtains. I lit the actors with 1K lights at 10' with really strong spill control on them so they wouldn't touch the curtains at all. You can put your actors on a piece of black cloth as well so the floor doesn't act as a reflector.

Your snooted lights is the correct solution, but you need to get them bright/close enough to the actors to have their exposure high enough to let the background fall into the amount of darkness you want. a bold of black fabric from the fabric store draped across the background (as far away as you can from the subject) would help as well.

If you want bits and pieces of the background to show, light them separately.

 

[sfoster]

I know I didn't reply to this but I was reading it and taking it under advisement. I finally started editing this short and it is goddamn amazing. I've definitely got a talent for crime thrillers.

Thanks guys
Oh and FYI I had TWO people on set that were both more experienced than me. one of them went to college for film. and they both told me that I could do it during the day and just modify it in post. I declined as politely as I could and said we're filming this part at night and lighting for the effect!