How much prep time does lighting take up?

moonshieldmedia

moonshieldmedia

I'm shooting in all natural or available light so there are no complicated lighting setups to deal with. How much time do you think this saves me?

I went ahead and scheduled more scenes per shoot day because I was assuming I'd be saving a lot of time, but we go into production in a week and I'm starting to panic that I overdid it!

There's 16 shoot days scheduled for a low budget indie drama romance feature. Without going too much into specifics, does that sound doable to you?
 
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Mannie Bothans said:
Right. Just watch Festen or any of the other Dogme 95 flicks to see what it looks like to use available lights on a feature without the kickers, reflectors, scrims, etc.
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If that dogme look is what you're going for, then sure. I personally dislike that look, and I don't believe that it looks cinematic by any means, but that's the point of dogme filmmaking.

Of course, even in dogme, there is much more to it than simply setting up a camera wherever and letting it roll. If you analyse any dogme film, especially Festen/celebration, you can see that the camera and sources of light (even if they are natural) are positioned in a way to maximise their usage.
 
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"The King is Alive" is a Dogme film that gets it all right... although, the locations were chosen to work with the strict guidelines of the movement... including the quality and constancy of the sunlight in the dessert.
 
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"I'd say that learning to use natural light is a more interesting"

And this is where we get into aesthetic and opinion. It's not interesting to me in the least. When I go into a location the first thing we do is black out every single window in the place (unless it's in the shot). If I had my preference I'd never use real locations at all I'd shoot everything on a sound stage. I try to write my scripts with as few exteriors as possible because I don't like shooting outside (especially in the day). There has to be NO way around it storywise for me to write a daytime exterior into a script (because I can't afford the 6 12K HMIs and 20' silks to totally take control of the light).

Not saying I am right and you are wrong, just coming from two totally different places artistically.
 
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Here's a "natural light" shot... Huge bank of windows to screen left, interior fluorescents inside...
Screen shot 2011-11-21 at 10.37.16 PM.jpg
we turned off all the lights, covered the windows, then recreated the lighting in more pleasing tones. Lighter blue than the sun would have provided and replaced the fluo light with tungsten so we wouldn't have that ugly green/yellow sickly looking thing happening... and we lit the interior side rather than the top so we wouldn't have the ugly shadows under the eyes the ceiling lights would have provided.

Throughout our 2 hours shooting this scene, the actual sun that does hit the back of the room crawls down the wall approximately 3 feet... perhaps not too noticeable, but really annoying; potentially pulling the audience out of the story if it's cut wrong.
 
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We also shot this in one afternoon for a competition here: http://yafiunderground.com/Video/SCJD-Knightly.mov
all exterior, all sunlight. I scheduled my day so I would turn the angle of the camera > actors as the sun went through its courses... lunch from 11:30 to 12:30 as the sun was too overhead. All shot in 4 total hours. Bright winter day. We only had to stop for clouds twice and were within minutes of being snowed out right before the shoot (which would have forced us to reschedule to the next weekend or find an interior solution) -- but the weather broke before it hit us.
 
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Gonzo_Entertainment said:
NO way around it storywise for me to write a daytime exterior into a script (because I can't afford the 6 12K HMIs and 20' silks to totally take control of the light).
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Lol, I do exactly the opposite now. I write scenes that take place as much as possible outside or in places with heavy sunlight because I don't have any light except a few 1K tungsten I need to borrow every time and that I hate because they get so hot and are so heavy and all in all quite impossible to attach the way I'd want them. One day I'll buy just one good (small and without heat) light for all purpose and that day shall be glorious.


But natural light is so beautiful when you understand it and take advantage of it that I feel like I'm insulting nature to prefer turning natural light off and do my own.
 
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I have shot a ton (stills) in natural light and indeed it can be very very beautiful, BUT, it changes constantly and frequently in unpredictable ways. We have the exact opposite view. I think natural light is for huge budget films so that you can scrap shooting scene 42 today because you lost the light and it's no big deal. I film on very tight schedules. We're shooting Scene 42 today between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM and I know exactly what light I'll have because I am 100% in control of it.
 
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