Bathroom and club lighting questions

[yannl]

 

Hi all,
I am shooting a short film in a few weeks and have some questions about lighting it. The story is about a guy who meets his ex girlfriend on the toilet in a club and wants to get back together with her.

 

The first scene is a club scene. The location has not yet been determined, but there are two options: one is an actual club with a light system, the other was once a club but doesn’t have any lights installed. Would you even use the lights of the club as ambient light? Or how would you recreate club lighting that looks realistic on camera?

We have some RGB tube lights and RGB LED panels available for the shoot.

 

Most scenes take place on the toilet. There are no windows and the protagonists talk to each other while the ex girlfriend is sitting in a stall and scrolling on her phone. How would you light this scenes with the restricted space of a toilet stall to create depth in the image?

 

I really appreciate everyone who could give advice.

Topic

[Roger Deakins]

The practical lighting would really depend on the kind of club it was. If its an old place a bare bulb could work or a simple fluorescent tube. If you use a tube you could justify it being an odd color, which may or may not work for the scene. As for the club other than its toilet, I would always look at what exists and then decide if I want to use it or not. That really is a personal choice and a financial one as well.

[yannl]

Thanks for the tips. Luckily we were able to shoot the club scene in a real club during an event, so we didn’t have to cast that many extras. I went with the option of a tube hung next to the sink. Here are some stills of the scene in the bathroom:

[Author]

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