Hey all! I thought I'd come in here and ask for a little help. Every time I light a scene, my keylight ends up creating incredibly harsh shadows on the walls. I set up a background light to cast on the wall, but the shadows remain (albeit a little less harsh). I'm using the same strength tungsten's on the wall as I am as a keylight. Should I use a more powerful light? Is there any way to avoid shadows in the background?
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Harsh Shadows on walls?
- Thread starter VladCantSleep
- Start date
personally what i would do is get two lights (powerful lights preferably) and shine them on your scene from two different angles eg: one light shining from left and another from the right, if the lights are the same and are both the same in power then it should cancel out the shadow behind, there could still be a bit of shadow but it will be a small amount and is still easy to work with. you may want to play around with the lights from different angles to see which angles give the least amount of shadow.
Two lights of the same intensity on opposite sides are just going to cause more problems, with double the number of shadows.
There are two factors that determine the hardness of a light source - its size, and its distance from the subject. The further away it is and the smaller it is, the harder it becomes. The sun is an enormous source, but because it is so far away it is incredibly hard when the sky is clear.
Moving your source closer probably isn't an option and will cause all sorts of other problems, so finding away of making it bigger is your only option if you want the shadows to be less harsh. You can do this cheaply and easily by bouncing your light off white polyboard or foamcore, or by shining it through a large sheet of diffusion - it could be translucent shower curtain, a white bed sheet or specially bought diffusion material. Whatever you are shining light through or bouncing it off effectively becomes the source. Either way, making the source larger will make the shadows substantially less hard.
Of course, you may want the hard light on your subject's face, just not the shadows on the wall. For this we need to look at the angle of the light, and flagging it. If the light was below the subject, pointing upwards, the shadows would fall mostly on the wall and ceiling; if the light was level, the shadow would fall partly on the floor, but mostly on the wall. So, if we want to move the shadow from the wall, we need to place the key light above the subject, pointing downwards. You may then want to add some fill light - perhaps with polyboard or a reflector - to prevent the other side of the subject's face from going completely black (this of course depends on the look you are going for).
Finally, let's look at flagging the light. By blocking some of the material with a "flag" - usually a rectangular metal frame covered in black cloth, but anything that blocks the light is usable - we can darken the top of the wall, so that the subject's shadow is no longer so pronounced against a bright wall. It will still be there of course, but much less noticeable. This approach is also useful when the shadow from a microphone boom keeps coming into shot.
So, to summarise: make shadows less harsh by moving your source closer, or making it larger; minimise shadows by changing the angle of your key light or flagging off the light around the subject.
There are two factors that determine the hardness of a light source - its size, and its distance from the subject. The further away it is and the smaller it is, the harder it becomes. The sun is an enormous source, but because it is so far away it is incredibly hard when the sky is clear.
Moving your source closer probably isn't an option and will cause all sorts of other problems, so finding away of making it bigger is your only option if you want the shadows to be less harsh. You can do this cheaply and easily by bouncing your light off white polyboard or foamcore, or by shining it through a large sheet of diffusion - it could be translucent shower curtain, a white bed sheet or specially bought diffusion material. Whatever you are shining light through or bouncing it off effectively becomes the source. Either way, making the source larger will make the shadows substantially less hard.
Of course, you may want the hard light on your subject's face, just not the shadows on the wall. For this we need to look at the angle of the light, and flagging it. If the light was below the subject, pointing upwards, the shadows would fall mostly on the wall and ceiling; if the light was level, the shadow would fall partly on the floor, but mostly on the wall. So, if we want to move the shadow from the wall, we need to place the key light above the subject, pointing downwards. You may then want to add some fill light - perhaps with polyboard or a reflector - to prevent the other side of the subject's face from going completely black (this of course depends on the look you are going for).
Finally, let's look at flagging the light. By blocking some of the material with a "flag" - usually a rectangular metal frame covered in black cloth, but anything that blocks the light is usable - we can darken the top of the wall, so that the subject's shadow is no longer so pronounced against a bright wall. It will still be there of course, but much less noticeable. This approach is also useful when the shadow from a microphone boom keeps coming into shot.
So, to summarise: make shadows less harsh by moving your source closer, or making it larger; minimise shadows by changing the angle of your key light or flagging off the light around the subject.
Without flagging, you can move your camera to be at more of an angle so you frame the shadows out of the shot, or move the lights to the same effect.
Best bet though is to be very conscious of where you direct your lights. Use the 3-point lighting system, then add a light on the background (the 3 foreground lights ideally cast no light on the background whatsoever - careful placement and flagging with barndoors to narrow the beams)... this will allow you to control the contrast between the background and foreground lighting as well to help your subjects stand out from the backgrounds.
Best bet though is to be very conscious of where you direct your lights. Use the 3-point lighting system, then add a light on the background (the 3 foreground lights ideally cast no light on the background whatsoever - careful placement and flagging with barndoors to narrow the beams)... this will allow you to control the contrast between the background and foreground lighting as well to help your subjects stand out from the backgrounds.
You want to keep your subject as far from a wall as possible. If it is white, then maybe dress it up, paint it, put objects in the way, find another room. Flags may be good, and so is backlighting with the light back near the wall aimed forward at an angle. Also, use a cookie to cast some erratic shadows intentionally, which can give it some apparent depth.
I would consider changing the angle of the camera and the keylight. That was you can avoid actually shooting the shadows and then fill in the blacks with a much lofter fill light.
But there are probably some better suggestions in the longer (aka ones I haven't read) posts above.
But there are probably some better suggestions in the longer (aka ones I haven't read) posts above.
Great answer from chilipie. You can see some of those suggestions at work here:
The camera is set up on the far left (behind the bar). The shot is looking between the foreground actors (seated at the bar) to the background actor (standing, far right). The key light at the bar is a "soft box", which is just a highly diffused source. It's the bright square immediately behind the actors. Practical light sources from behind the bar are providing fill. Above the bar is a fixture that is being bounced off foamcore, which provides a little extra fill.
Two different sources are providing back/rim light for the actors at the bar. The most obvious is the blue-gelled 2K shooting through the diffusion, which is made from a white bed sheet, just as chili described. The second is a hard, red source, which can be seen in the upper right corner of the photo. Note the barn doors and aluminum foil flagging the spill from that instrument.
The actor standing at right is lit by a key that is being bounced off another sheet of foamcore suspended by a c-stand. Her fill is provided by an off-camera source gelled hot pink. She is backlit by a hard mini-fresnel source, also not visible in this shot. Even though she is standing fairly close to the wall, the direction and softness of the sources - like chili said - prevent shadows from being cast on it.
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Another example for you here…
The key lights are turned off in this photo unfortunately, but they were shining straight through the windows. The polyboard and fresnel lamp offered some very soft frontal fill.
You can see a scene being shot here, with the DoP crouching down and the camera's matte box just below the microphone boom. To the far left are the lights that were aimed through the windows.
The key lights are turned off in this photo unfortunately, but they were shining straight through the windows. The polyboard and fresnel lamp offered some very soft frontal fill.
You can see a scene being shot here, with the DoP crouching down and the camera's matte box just below the microphone boom. To the far left are the lights that were aimed through the windows.
Man I need me a 2k... any hot leads on cheap used one in my local area ?(found a CL ad, but no response after bugging every day for a week!)
They pop up on eBay fairly regularly over here, even more so on your side of the pond I would imagine - I managed to get mine for a little over £30.
Yep, got my 2K on eBay as well. Here's one for the same price I paid:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mole-Junior-Sol...859?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c57eee853
With a double-riser stand and shipping it ran about $300. Globes were about $20 each.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mole-Junior-Sol...859?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c57eee853
With a double-riser stand and shipping it ran about $300. Globes were about $20 each.
I don't know why, but that made me think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_FJyvivi-I
Great thread though.