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Lighting in small spaces

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devhaven

Hi.

So I will be shooting an entire 30 minute short film in an apartment in January. There are places where we just won't be able to fit big lights.

Is it possible to light a hallway or small rooms with the practical light in the scene, such as the ceiling lights, without using other lights. What type and wattage of bulbs should we get? Or would it be better to replace the practical lights with low wattage lights and simulate that light with bigger lights and reflect them around the corner or something?

***The practical lights on the ceiling MAY or MAY not end up in the shot.***


Please let me know if you have any tips for lighting in such a situation.

Thanks.
 
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If the overhead on scene lights are not going to be in the shot. You can always rig a 250 watt for a soft light, or a 500 watt light for something more bright and overpowering. If that isnt what your looking for then, my next suggestion would be to do what knightly said. Just bounce the light off the ceiling. Although it might be hard to control the light, but it would give a really sweet ceiling glow. But it depends if that works for you or not.
Hope that that helped, if not sorry about that.
 
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Maybe use a deffusion gel to soften and spread the light?
But then again bouncing the light off the ceiling would be nice...maybe both!
I'm new to lighting so yeah :)
 
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OK, been thinking about this a bit... Here's my solution.

1 1K open face halogen worklight (lots of light) aimed at ceiling from behind the actors, hitting ceiling behind them so it acts as a very diffuse hairlight.

You then bounce the redirected light using a bounce card as the key light to hit the side of their faces you want the key to be on (away from camera = short lighting, toward camera = broad lighting). You can reflect again or just turn the second reflector to brush the actor's otherside of the face for fill (using the edge of a light beam will get you a more subdued light than pointing it directly at them)... or you could go my route and not fill at all and get really tenebretastic footage ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenebrism ) I like to hair light from the opposite side as my short-lit key. This provides separation from the background while still doing a lot of texturing to the actor's faces, it's almost like outlines in cartoons, but light rather than black ink.
 
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Knightly - the Tenebrism page is really interesting - In some cases that is actually what i'm going for. I want the characters to walk in and out of light in much of this short film. Patches of light, patches of darkness.

Another scene we are doing is one lit only by candles, about 150 of them, in an apartment living room. We tested it (yes it gets very hot).

It looks really good on camera, except the fact that we can't see his face. We will be using small lights to light up his face, and diffuse them, and use orange gels. We will add a dimmer so it can act like candle light.

Any suggestions for this scene?
 
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Just get little closest lights, those round ones you push the top on, they are about the size of a hockey puck. You can put some sticky tape on them and put them whereever you want. They are like 5-10 bucks a pop so you can buy a ton. Need some light on a ceiling? slap five of them up on the ceiling out of frame. Your not going to get the brightest lights but if you can use a wider aperture and slow down the shutter a bit, you'll be fine. they are LED but you normally can find some that have coloured filters or you can just buy whatever tint paper you need to use over them, with a little work you can get them at the right colour balance.
 
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I would not suggest lighting a scene with those tap lights :lol:. There's indie, and then there's, well... tap lights??
 
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Knightly, is Tenebrism the style that was using for the lighting of the Godfather? I loved the godfather's use of lighting

Indietalk, those tap lights, what about using them for lighting a inside Car scene at night? I remember watching the behind the scenes of Collateral, and they used these LED lights inside the car.
 
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MelonDome said:
Knightly, is Tenebrism the style that was using for the lighting of the Godfather? I loved the godfather's use of lighting

Indietalk, those tap lights, what about using them for lighting a inside Car scene at night? I remember watching the behind the scenes of Collateral, and they used these LED lights inside the car.
Click to expand...

the LED lights you saw, were most likely the new Flat Panel Lights that have been getting a lot of rave...i have used them (well not me, but on past few films in the last year they have used them in tricky places) and they work great...but very expensive for the indie guy...a starter pack is around 2000. i think....

or they could of been a Brick Light...which is battery powered about the size of a brick..hence the name..they give off some good light...but would need to be close to the actor as they dont give off a lot of light...we use them alot when i turn off the refrigerator..throw one in there and when the actor opens the door it looks like a frig light...

anyway...it could of been something else too...dont know..didnt see the photo...but it might be one of those.
 
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I've used a couple of LED work lights in similar situations... Didn't plan it that way... Needed some light -- went to Wally World -- found them for like $20 apiece. The kind you'd hang under the hood of your car.

Worked like a charm...

filmy
 
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