Bounce light challenges on Bladerunner (Sappers Farm)

[halfgrain]

Dear Roger,

I recently read your “Sappers Farm” article in “Looking at Lighting” and very much enjoyed your thought process. In the end you write

…although in actuality creating the soft bounce lighting when shooting directly toward the windows was quite complicated.

Would you mind sharing a little what those challenges were and how you overcame then?

Thank you!

Topic

[Sean Buffini]

Also interested to read a response. If I was to guess, I’d image shooting the silhouettes in front of the small windows meant they struggled to keep the interior visible without it looking like there are light sources inside the room since there were supposed to be no interior practical sources.

[Roger Deakins]

I was referring to the positioning of the light on the bounce. There were no lights inside the set at all so the positioning of the ‘hot spots’ gave me some shape to the light coming through the windows. I would adjust the focus of each lamp so that it was out of frame from shot to shot, and the white of the bounce seen through the window was lit only by the spill. This was so the window didn’t ‘burn out’ and I maintained detail in the highlights, texture of the dirt on the glass etc.

[halfgrain]

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you!

[Author]

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