Lighting a dark corridor

[Max2204]

Dear Mr. Deakins,
I’ve created a floor plan for the scene I’m going to be lighting. It’s a long, tall, dark and empty corridor. I’ve highlighted the doors in blue, the walls in green and the windows in red. The director asked for a natural morning light. How would you approach lighting this scene considering the actor needs to traverse along the corridor? Would bouncing the lights off the walls inside the adjacent rooms be a solution?

Thank you for your time and wisdom,
Max

Topic

[Roger Deakins]

Bouncing light off the walls inside the adjacent rooms seems like a good idea. By controlling the size and placement of the light you can control the way the light will fall in the corridor.

[markycohen]

This was a morning hallway shot for a short film I made a few years ago. I believe I had a light bounced off a wall in the small room to the right of the actor, and a light pushed through a small diffusion to camera left (probably flagged off on the sides to make it more window-shaped).

In general with hallways I’ve found lighting through side doors helps me get things looking right. I don’t know what I’m doing though: I probably I lit this with either incandescent clamp lights, home depot led shop lights or some ungodly combination of both! Roger knows best.

[Author]

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