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How to light this?

B

brianluce

I have a bottle, it's about 8" tall and translucent. I want the whole thing to ficker/glow uniformly, not a single point of light in the bottle, but the whole thing. You can't tell in the pic, but the bottle is cut in half. Ideally, It'd be great to be able to light it off something with batteries.

I took a string of led lights, bunched them up, wrapped diffusion paper around them but the light wasn't diffuse enough, you could still see individual points of light.
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edit: dunno how to attach jpeg. here's a link http://sorrentofilms.com/photos.html
 
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knightly said:
Pg. 18: http://www.videotexsystems.com/files/arri_lighting_handbook_english.pdf

Using this technique, but cut the bounce card so that it is the same apparent size (based on distance to camera etc...) as the bottle (minus a mm or two so it doesn't show around the edges)... you can put it closer as well... or just put the diffusion paper behind the bottle and blast a light at it (although that will generally hit the stuff around the bottle.
Click to expand...

Thanks that's nice little lighting primer -- I assume you mean the diagram on pg 18. But I should have been more clear, the bottle is positioned in sand, as in the first pic on my link. So I don't believe that set up in the arri manual will work. And the bottle is sliced in half already, so it should make it a little easier.
 
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It would still work... trace the bottle onto a piece of white cardstock and then cut that out about 1/4" in from the outline so it's smaller than the actual bottle's outline by a hair.

Sink this cutout behind the bottle far enough that you can blast a light with a snoot at it (a snoot is just some black foil with a small hole in it to direct a pin prick of light where you want it - try to get as much of the cardstock without touching anything else)
 
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knightly said:
It would still work... trace the bottle onto a piece of white cardstock and then cut that out about 1/4" in from the outline so it's smaller than the actual bottle's outline by a hair.

Sink this cutout behind the bottle far enough that you can blast a light with a snoot at it (a snoot is just some black foil with a small hole in it to direct a pin prick of light where you want it - try to get as much of the cardstock without touching anything else)
Click to expand...

How can I bounce light off the white board is the bottle is positioned as it is in picture 1? It's buried. Hope there's a way I can do without software, I don't know Shake or AE, maybe one of the Vegas gurus can suggest a way to do it within Sony Vegas...:(
 
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Do you just need it in the close shot like the one in the first post, or do you need a wide of it on the ground as well?

Actually, in either case, I would build a small sandbox for the close shot with a clear lexan bottom (any clear polycarb). Add diffusion (not sure which to recommend) to the bottom of that and place your 300 (or whatever you're using) under it. Snoot as necessary. Rig the bottle to stay in place (and to prevent sand from getting under it, cardboard and gaff tape are your friends) and then surround the rest with sand. Adjust the placement/intensity of the light to taste, and voila, glowing bottle.

You may find that you need to just make a template of the rough bottle shape to black out the rest of the plexi/sand, not sure how opaque sand would be in this instance.

Alternatively, Rosco Light Pads would be good for this type of thing. I think of of the 3"x6" ones would work for what you are doing. That said, they are spendy and I'm not certain I'd want to bury one in the dirt.

Anyway, once you have the CU you've sold the gag, so a simple post enhancement in the wider shots and you are probably good to go.


Also, the nice thing about this solution is that you don't need the full crew/cast or even location to do it.
 
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David.rhsc said:
Do you just need it in the close shot like the one in the first post, or do you need a wide of it on the ground as well?

Actually, in either case, I would build a small sandbox for the close shot with a clear lexan bottom (any clear polycarb). Add diffusion (not sure which to recommend) to the bottom of that and place your 300 (or whatever you're using) under it. Snoot as necessary. Rig the bottle to stay in place (and to prevent sand from getting under it, cardboard and gaff tape are your friends) and then surround the rest with sand. Adjust the placement/intensity of the light to taste, and voila, glowing bottle.

You may find that you need to just make a template of the rough bottle shape to black out the rest of the plexi/sand, not sure how opaque sand would be in this instance.

Alternatively, Rosco Light Pads would be good for this type of thing. I think of of the 3"x6" ones would work for what you are doing. That said, they are spendy and I'm not certain I'd want to bury one in the dirt.

Anyway, once you have the CU you've sold the gag, so a simple post enhancement in the wider shots and you are probably good to go.


Also, the nice thing about this solution is that you don't need the full crew/cast or even location to do it.
Click to expand...

No why the F didn't I think of that! Okay, gonna give it a whirl... Thanks guys.
The embarrassing thing is, in the pics I posted above, the sand and bottle are actually ON a glass table! The solution was staring at me in the face.
 
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brianluce said:
No why the F didn't I think of that! Okay, gonna give it a whirl... Thanks guys.
The embarrassing thing is, in the pics I posted above, the sand and bottle are actually ON a glass table! The solution was staring at me in the face.
Click to expand...

:lol:

I should have picked up on that from the second pic.

Did you cut the bottle in half, or did you happen to find one like that?
 
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David.rhsc said:
:lol:

I should have picked up on that from the second pic.

Did you cut the bottle in half, or did you happen to find one like that?
Click to expand...

I found a glassblower in town, and told him I had a film project with no budget and if he could make the bottle for free, he agreed, made me 4 of them and sliced them in half with a wet saw so I could light them and shoot the inside of them for a background plate for keying.

Btw, the writing on the bottle is 3,000 y/o Chinese calligraphy, the interesting thing is it's similar to ancient Greek, some of the characters are essentially identical.

also, anyone have a suggestion for antiquing the bottle? Need to make it look old.
 
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Question...will the image be static.. no panning or zooming ? if so your options are even greater. You can play w/ the bottle in any image editing program.

Static or not, the color, hue and saturation controls on vegas offer a lot annyhoo...Be crative...think
 
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