‘EMPIRE OF LIGHT’ Lighting Set-Up

[Rolroll]

Hi Master Roger Deakins,

I just watched your newest movie EMPIRE OF LIGHT. I love this film’s tone so much, especially the night scene you did. I saw you lit the street outside the theater motivated by street lamps and environmental lighting sources. It looks so real when the female protagonist Hilary walks on the street. The sky is black but the surrounding buildings and people are all lit so naturally. I am very curious about how you lit the whole street, and how you keep her face such soft and nice bright backlight on her all the time when the camera follows her. Could you talk about your lighting settings for the street outside the theater?

And the firework scene when Hilary and Stephen are standing on the rooftop, I wonder if the firework is real. Did you add any other lighting fixtures to enhance the firework lighting effect on the environment and their faces? Could you also elaborate on how you light this rooftop when they two have a conversation before the firework comes out? which elements you are motivated by? Why don’t you use moonlight for the night scenes of the movie?

I was always confused by the idea of how to light a night scene naturally, so please give me some tips!

Thanks, Master Roger!

Topic

[Roger Deakins]

I am going to post something in the lighting section, although I don’t have that many specific diagrams.

All the fireworks were real. No CGI. We built a false skylight for the roof and used an array of small par bulbs to bounce light off its base, as if it were coming from the floor below.

The street outside was basically lit by the festoon we rigged along the seafront. It was frustrating that, because of a delay in getting permits and an OK on cost, the rig was only finished on the night we first shot an exterior of the Cinema and I had no time to fully balance the levels as I would have wished. The buildings beyond are lit simply with open face 2K Blondes set on turtles and aimed as a wash on the facades. Mostly, these carried a light diffusion on the barn doors. I could have used LEDs, and that would have been my preference as I was using LEDs almost everywhere else, but cost prohibited this.

[LucaM]

Please Roger, don’t get angry, but…

Roger Deakins wrote:

… 2K Blondes set on turtles…

…I can’t take away from my mind the image of this charge of 2000 blonde girls riding turtles. That must have been a wild movie production indeed! Did you have brunettes on platypuses too?

Just kidding (i try not to take myself too seriously) ! Now that i think ashamed myself enough with silliness, may i ask you what “turtles” are? I not very expert about lighting terms, but i’ve never met this one before and it seems i can’t find it anywhere!

[Tyler F]

Turtle Base, they are the bottom or ‘feet’ of a c-stand. Essentially the lowest position you can get on a stand without a babypin nailed to a piece of plywood.

[LucaM]

Tyler F wrote:

Turtle Base, they are the bottom or ‘feet’ of a c-stand. Essentially the lowest position you can get on a stand without a babypin nailed to a piece of plywood.

Thanks! I didn’t know they had a specific name! I learned a new thing and it’s a good day when  it happens!

[Author]

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