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(Page 3 of 3 pages for this article < 1 2 3) Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •Visual Effects • Lighting Against The Wind: The Making of a Mime Music VideoIf your first response to a low-budget music video contest is to cast one actress in three different parts, all of whom appear onscreen at the same time and interact with each other, then this article is for you.
The lighting was fairly simple but took a while to set up as the technical crew consisted of myself and Ted Allen, my intern. Originally I wanted to use a Leiko to create a spotlight effect, but the Leiko we found at the studio didn’t have an iris and I couldn’t make it project a pool of light that was the right size. Instead I used a 1k Baby on full spot, with a couple of wire doubles in it to balance it with the background. I have a healthy respect for the old masters of hard light as it can be very difficult to use, especially in color. Black and white lends itself to hard light because it’s automatically an abstract medium; our eyes expect color images to look a bit more realistic, and although there are many hard light sources in the everyday world they often blend together into a low contrast ambiance. A busy street at night is a great example of this concept: street lights, shop lights and headlights create an environment that feels like night, and contains a lot of sharp shadows, but often doesn’t contain rich, deep blacks or areas of severe contrast. It’s difficult to light faces well using hard light. The higher the contrast on the face, the more precisely the lights must be placed. It’s very easy to make people look bad with hard light. Contrast is a key player, which means fill light plays a major role. In these images from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, note that while the key light is not placed “perfectly” the reduced contrast created by the fill light smooths the rough spots on faces:
The first three Indiana Jones movies were shot by the late Douglas Slocombe, BSC, who was the last reigning master of classical hard lighting. Whenever I want to study hard light I pull one of these films off my DVD shelf.Classical hard light modeling illuminates the face from above and to one side with the intent of casting the nose shadow along the “smile line,” an invisible line that connects the corner of the nose to the corner of the mouth.
Classical hard lighting, with the nose shadow extending down the smile line.I wasn’t terribly worried about lighting Nanishka with hard light, as her face is beautiful and can take light from nearly any angle, but I still wanted a properly placed fill to help her out during those moments when her head was turned at an odd angle to the key. It’s possible to compensate for an unfortunately-placed key light by placing the fill light in a pleasing position; often the placement of the fill light is more important than the placing of the key. To get the look I wanted I knew the fill had to come from a large-ish source placed as close to the lens as possible. To that end I placed a 2’x3’ bounce card directly below the lens and hit it with a floor-mounted Baby. The combination of source size and placement near the lens gave her skin a luminous quality while also reaching under the brim of her hat and creating large eye lights.
Soft light from below does wonders for eyes and hat shadows.Fill from below looks very real and natural, as if the light sources at the top of the frame are creating ambience by bouncing of the floor. Bouncing off the floor, however, has a very different look, and the steeper the bounce angle the more the talent will look “underlit.” Sometimes this is good, but when lighting for beauty instead of mood it’s better to fill with a large source near the lens rather than near the talent.
The effect of the fill source alone: Nanishka on the right has ducked out of her key light.Occasionally a fill source placed beneath the lens will cast shadows upward onto walls and other background objects, but if the fill source is big enough these shadows will be very soft, natural and realistic. Sunlight striking a floor through a window will result in exactly these kinds of shadows in a room, and while we often don’t notice them consciously the subconscious picks right up on them. The exposure was driven by the background: two Babies lit the black curtains and a 200w Inky on an overhead C-stand arm lit the background bench from above. This Inky really determined the F-stop as we weren’t able to rig a Baby on the C-stand arm due to weight. Exposing for the background bench meant pushing the ISO and opening the shutter to eliminate perceived noise, but after seeing most of that noise disappear in post I’ll keep the shutter closed down and increase the ISO in the future. Two more Inkies served as backlights, one for each mime position. A 4’x4 tube Kino Flo with Lee 122 “Fern Green” lit the green cards that covered the bench (so that Nanishka could be inserted later, in her third on-screen role) and another Kino Flo hidden behind the bench cast a glow onto the curtains from below.
The foreground lighting setup.I had Ted follow Nanishka with the “follow spot” Baby during her performance, and all the other lighting stayed the same to ensure consistency between the different performance passes.
Ted Allen plays follow spot operator when he’s not working as camera assistant, electrician or grip.While our little video appeared to be the most professional entry in the Pink Martini contest the band apparently preferred a more rough and home-grown approach. We didn’t even make the top five. Although we’re all disappointed that our hard work didn’t result in a decisive win, place or show, we’re quite happy to have created a cute little art piece that has a special place on our reels.
This is what happens when you let a DP touch his own lights. The Leiko mounted to the post is not working, nor are any of the other lights in the shot beyond the Baby at the top of frame, the Baby aimed into the bounce card below the lens, and the green Kino Flo behind Nanishka.You can read the director’s account of the project here. Stills from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” are used for education purposes only and are the property of Paramount Pictures.
Art Adams is a director of photography who lights like a mime: silently and with practiced skill. His website is at www.artadams.net.
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The Best of Stunning Good LooksA directory of my best articles, sorted by topic.
This entry is a guide to my best articles, sorted by topic. Enjoy! |
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