Multiple lights, Batten Lights, elongated sources, array of individual fixtures

[Julius]

Dear Mr. Deakins,

In your lighting technique toolbox, I often notice your preference for using multiple single sources, grouped together to create a larger source that appears as one wide singular source. While looking at some of your sketches on the forum, I find myself wondering if you use additional diffusion. Since you have mentioned many times that you are not a big fan of multiple shadows, eliminating them would require placing the lights incredibly close to each other or using diffusion. Perhaps I am overlooking something? Furthermore many times i notice, you tell a specific spacing between two units in the “Look at Lighting” section, but even then, wouldn’t there be a rough shadow gradation?

Also the batten lights are often talked about in the “Look at Lighting” wich i also a a technique where you gang up multiple lightsources. In the shower scene in Sicario for example you use these batten lights.

One example that comes to mind is the ringlights in Blade Runner. On the “Look at Lighting” site, you share a YouTube video where one can explore the lighting test you conducted. However, in this video, the multiple shadows appear quite rough. In the movie, the lighting presents as a smooth gradient, yet still directional. What was the main difference in achieving this effect between the test and the final production?

Julius

Julius

Topic

[Roger Deakins]

YouTube video? That may be from a test, I haven’t seen it. The lamps are spaced so that any multiple shadow is inconsequential. If you were to look at the lighting on a white sheet of paper, you would definitely see a shadow for every single lamp. If I was lighting a white sheet of paper I would use diffusion or have the lamps even closer together. On a face the shadows don’t register and if there is movement….

I use fresnel lamps, as on Lebowski, O Brother, Jarhead, or True Grit, so the light is confined to a single area but still appears as one soft source in that area. On True Grit, for the night scenes, the lamps were 5 – 7 feet apart, but looking from 1,000 feet, that’s not a great distance. If I had done the same on BR2049, at 20 feet it would have looked ridiculous.

[Author]

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