Lighting Style?

[SDBenassi]

I'm shooting an apartment indoors with 16mm film, B&W. I have a lot of experience in photography so I'm good with exposure, but not too much experience setting up lights. I'm contemplating 2 different styles of light.
1) Ambient: There's one window in the room. I could expose the normal light level in the room for middle gray and blow out the window (as a highlight, not literally!). This would be a cool look, and theoretically my subject should have correct exposure. The only problem is that the sun never shines directly on the window at any point in the day, so I'm not sure how well that will light the room, and I don't want to compromise depth of field.
I was thinking, in that case, that I could use a tota light to boost the overall light level in the room, only the point of this lighting style was to get a dominant highlight from the direction of the window, and I don't want to end up with something flat.

2) Incandescent: The window shutters could be closed and the room could just be lit from incandescent lamps, etc. regardless of time of day. This could work with the character and setting too. I'm thinking about trying to put as many light sources in the shot as possible. I would like to light the set with the lights from the lamps, using minimal hot light. 500W bulbs are still 120V so I was thinking about just plugging them into the regular light sockets. Does anyone see a problem with this? Too much heat? A way around this?

Advice welcome!

 

[Will Vincent]

For option 1 you could bounce the sunlight into the window.

As for option 2, maybe I am misunderstanding your intentions, but if you want to have your lights in the shot, I think your best bet is going to be to fake that they are actually the source of light that is lighting your scene. You could do that by turning them on with lower wattage bulbs (so it will be visible that they are on) then light the scene with higher powered lights -- offscreen -- set up to look like they are coming from the sources you're emulating.

 

[knightly]

you can scrim the windows to lower the level of them a bit.

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

If I'm understanding you correctly, it may work to put a spotlight outside the window, pointed into your room for a key light, with some other, interior lights as fill. Maybe I'm not seeing the picture here.

Doug

 

[Justin Hayward]

If you add a tota inside the room, it's going to be flat. But, exposing for the window ambient will blast the window out so white, you won't be able to bring it back.

Your best bet is to put something outside the window, but you'll need something brighter and more directional than a tota. Like a HMI par (a daylight balanced light, which a tota isn't). Obviously a 6k par or Fresnel would work but I assume you don't have a generator. A 1200 par will plug into the AC and has alot of punch, but it's about two hundred a day (or so, I can't remember). A 1200 fresnel is good too and is alot cheaper.

Otherwise, expose for the direct soft window light and only frame in a sliver of the window. That way you'll be able to use the natural light and show it's direction without having a huge blasted out white box in the frame.

 

[SDBenassi]

So shining a key light through the window could give me a directional light that I could expose for. Is the idea that exposing for this light would allow me to incorporate the window into the shot without having it blown out as I am now exposing for more light? It seems that I would have to have something diffusing window, like scrims or tracing paper or the light will be too harsh, but I guess that really depends on what time of day and weather I'm trying to recreate.
Very interesting, the problem is that I can't do this! I'm shooting in a second story window and there's no affordable way I can get a key light outside my window! Maybe I could just scrim the window and use it just for looks, and not for a light source, but then how do I create a directional light from the window?
I'm thinking I could opt for a look where the shutters are always down and the light in the room comes from the incandescents: lamps, etc. I would like to use these lamps as the actual light source, though I understand that putting a 500W bulb is a fire hazard since the lamps are designed for much lower levels. Is this true? My source was a mechanic, not a lighting expert. Are they're special lamps designed for movie sets that allow for this?

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

I'm not sure you realize what having the lamps in your shot is going to do to you. Rather than burning up a lamp fixture by using a higher wattage bulb than it's rating, you probably want to use low wattage bulbs in the lamps that will be in the shot, and your high wattage bulbs off-camera, making it look like the lamps are providing the light. This setup was suggested above by Mr. Vincent.

It sounds to me like you need to shoot some experiments. When it comes to lighting, there is nothing that can replace experience/practice. You can probably use a point-and-shoot digital still camera to get a sense of how each setup is going to look. You definitely can't have bright light sources in your shot, unless you're shooting some sort of special effects shot.

Doug