- This topic has 23 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 1 month, 2 weeks ago by
.
-
Topic
-
-
Replies
-
As I spent most of my career shooting film I usually keep the camera set to daylight or to tungsten. The lighting is the color it is relative to those settings for both the scenes you mention as they were shot on stage.
Thank you. could you explain please,why u set the camera white balance to 3000 kelvin in the tunnel/bunker scene. i just saw the behind the scenes video i really want to learn.
Both scenes were shot on set and I was balancing to tungsten sources. The flashlight was a warm LED bulb and the bunker was lit using dimmed down 500 watt tungsten globes that registers at around 2200K. Setting the camera at 3,000 ‘ish gave me the final color I was after for the final grade.
So in a scene like this, should I set the camera to 5600K and the lights to 3600K, or am I completely off? Thanks, you’re really helping me!
You are forgetting that in the wide shot, there is a practical lamp with a tungsten light bulb that is driving what the supplemental soft light is doing. A household bulb through a cloth shade might be 2800K or less, so the soft light is matching that warmth. If the camera had been set to 3200K, then the lighting would read slightly warm. If one wanted even more warmth, one could set the camera higher like to 3400K or 3600K, etc.
Often your additional lighting has to take into account some practical or natural source in the room that has a certain color temperature. Sure, if the only light in the room came from an off-camera LED, then one could do any number of lighting & camera setting combinations to get a warm look.
You are referencing a scene and film that was shot on film. The scene was shot using a tungsten balanced stock and the tungsten lights were either dimmed or warmed using a gel. As David says, the color temperature would have been between 2400 and 2800K and the film stock balanced at 3200K. There was no color grading done in post.
now i do understand white balance and how to adjust it according to the light source much better, thanks so much!
Roger, you mention that ‘No Country For Old Men’ had no color grading in post. I was surprised to read that, as I recall you speaking about the breakthrough role of grading for ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou’. Perhaps the technology was not sufficiently advanced at the time of ‘Oh Brother’ to perform a full grade? Would love to know what was the first movie you shot that you brought into the DI?
Thanks so much.I think what Roger means by “no color grading in post” was that the warm color effect was created in the original photography, not created later in post. All movies are color-corrected if only to match the usual small variations in lenses, daily stock processing, shifting time of day / weather, etc.
Yes, the color was not created in the DI. The only time I have altered the color of any scene in the DI was on ‘O Brother Where Art Thou’, for the reasons that have been explained at length elsewhere. ‘O Brother’ was the first time I used the DI. At the time I vowed it would be my last but …. That didn’t last long.
haha… that’s funny.
For the scene mentioned above in the hotel, and the scenes inside the ‘Regal Hotel’ did you film on location or in a studio? Could you say why that choice was made? I’m guessing adequate space for equipment and time management, but not sure.
Thank you!The hotel room was a stage set. Space had something to do with it but also availability of the location and a desire to shoot during the day rather than in a small room on location at night. So, the lobby and corridor was on location and the room a set.
The Motel rooms were also on stage and we just redressed the one set to create the two similarly styled rooms. The air duct drove that decision as well as practicality of shooting. Transitions from the ext. to the int. are always tricky and here there was direct action crossing the join.
Wow Roger, thanks for the details of those scenes. Such clever production and filming decisions. And seamless transitions from ext. to int. wow. Thanks again for all these details.
One last question, if I may.. I’ve always wondered exactly where the location is for the ‘drug deal gone wrong scenes’? Especially where Josh approaches the ridge overlooking the scene, with the powerful mountain range in the distance. I’ve even wondered if the mountain range is a plate added in post?
Thanks so much.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.