Lighting tips please

[devhaven]

So I am doing the cinematography on a short film soon and I was hoping I could get some tips on a few lighting scenarios. We have a spot light as well as access to this lowel light kit. http://www.lowel.com/kits/DVcreator55.html. We are shooting on the Canon XL2.

1) Harsh headlights of a car momentary fill a small tidy bedroom
with light. In the flash of light we see VALDO, a man in his mid 50's, sleeping next to a younger
but still aged woman CLAIR. The car passes and the room
plunges back into darkness.

*** There is a 10 foot stretch of roof outside the bedroom window. *** I was thinking of taking the spot light and passing it through the window - but im sure there are better ways.



2) The shadow approaches the tent. The figure is of a young woman. Celestyna's shadow stops suddenly, startled by the unfamiliar voice. The shadow begins to walk away from the tent. The shadow disappears.

*** The previous text might not be important, but what is important is that there is a really dark shadow that is visible on the tent walls. We need to be able to tell what the shadow is doing. Is it possible to shoot this outside in the sun, or will we need to move to an interior location and light it so the actresses shadow is visible inside the tent? How do you propose we shoot this.



Thanks again

 

[knightly]

scenario 1: pass the light through the window, but rotate it from not shining through to shining and back out to not shining through the other side of the window. This will give the illusion of a car passing.

2: day light may not cast enough of a shadow due to the ambient illumination which would serve to bring the level up on the shadow and make the edges less distinct. You could use a source light gelled orange to simulate a fire and wave stuff around in front of it to simulate fire, a bunch of cloth strips of varying widths knotted randomly that obscures the light. tie these to a pole or a bike tire mounted horizontally and move the pole back and forth or turn the tire slowly to simulate the flickering of a fire. If you need distinct edges, put another light in front of that, but dimmer to keep a constant shadow on the tent.

test the lighting before the shoot day!

 

[Will Vincent]

knightly has given you some pretty solid suggestions... in both cases I would suggest setting up a decent level ambient lighting in the foreground that is bright enough to prevent noise/grain and other low-light video issues... make sure your exposure is locked (!) obvious, but some people overlook it...

Then in post dial the light down to the level you want the final image to look. This ensures you'll have good solid footage to work with, even when the shot is supposed to be dark. Of course it means you'll need a good amount of lighting gear to work with, and your "headlights" & backlighting for the tent shot will need to be drastically brighter than the rest of the lighting, but ultimately working in this method gives you the best results.

 

[devhaven]

Thanks for the replies. Some suggestions that I might actually be able to achieve. Any more would be great.

In addition, to lighting for the shadows, how do you propose I light the inside of the tent? - as tents are fairly small. The script calls for candles, but i'm not sure if that will be enough - or safe. It must look like sunlight is coming in through the tent walls.

Thanks