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You could grab a screenshot of the scene in which the lamps are clearly visible, make an image research with Google Lens, or similar tools, of only the lamp part (the entire screenshot will probably link you to pages talking about the movie, you need Google to focus on just the detail of the lamp). Perhaps you’ll need to scroll a bit within the results but usually you find what you are looking for, sooner or later.
(again, sorry for posting it twice but the previous post got cancelled)
As always, my lack of experience makes my opinion of limited help, but if i understood you’ve got too much light and there’s no way to turn part of them off, is it correct?
As Roger and gx42 wrote, i was wondering too what kind of scene are you going to shoot, or better what kind of effect you want your scene create on the audience.
If the problem is that the light of the gym is too even and can’t create a dramatic effect or make the talents stand out , besides the negative fill (but i guess it’s not easy to use them in such a great space, and i suppose you’ll need to consider also the bounce from the field on the walls too, not only the lights from above) you could use an ND filter to make everything darker, adding some other lights just on the talents to make them stand out. The ND filter should avoid to overexpose them and you’ll obtain a wider contrast between them and the background and more control on what you are actually lighting. It won’t look very naturalistic but, again, it depends on what kind of story you are telling and in what kind of shot.
Perhaps it’s a stupid idea but in theory it should work, at least i think so (i’m not experienced enought to judge how well it could work, i leave the judgment to Roger, David and the others). You could do a test and see what happens. I’d limit the ND to one stop or two, or it will look a theatre stage more than a basketball field.
Another possibility could be the secondary color correction in post production of the areas you want to be darker, but you’ll need somebody good with masking and rotoscoping if the shot is very dynamic.
I completely understand where you’re coming from Luca. I used to be the same way but I managed to make myself think differently about these things. I suppose its harder to stop thinking like that depending on how technically minded you are but I’m not sure.
It seems one of those commercials for people that need help about some struggle in life. Once i was like you, then i changed my life! You can too! Ah ah, just kidding, but it made me smile! 🙂
Thanks again David, as always your tips are very useful! I’m planning to use a bit of haze to make visible the beam of light of a torchlight a characters will use at one point, so your tip could be a very interesting idea!
The scene won’t be actually very dark (at least not in camera) since i am trying to use a bit more light than necessary to reduce the noise (not overexposing but still brighter than how it will look after grading) , but above all i’m afraid that with my lack of experience i could mess everything up with a very dark scene, without the freedom to modify things in post.
This short it’s actually just a global test (and, i hope, a showreel for fund rising) for a more complex project. But even the test needed a story, i rewrote it almost 20 times (i always say that if you must do something, you must do it well, ah ah!) and now i care about the characters i created, i’m trying to tell their story in a decent way. And many people are helping me, i am responsible for the result, so for this first time playing safe seems the best idea. If i will able to manage to create something vaguely acceptable – i hope so! – it will be in large part thanks to the tips and teachings by Roger, you and the people here on the forum! : )
“If you look for meaning, you’ll miss everything that happens” – Andrei Tarkovsky
I understand your point, but i have a tendency to analyze thing to understand their “true” meaning, no matter how mundane the thing (it may be a Tarkovsky’s frame or something written on a wall or just a scribble by my son), that’s just how my brain works. Perhaps i’m a bit too rational, but to me it’s more important to understand the meaning of something for its author than my feeling of it. I teach maths and science, i can’t avoid that! ah ah!
Well, i think it’s the proof that you are a master when someone puts your name on a LUT!
Jokes apart, I am more or less in the same situation (learning, working with little or not budget, etc) and so congratulations to getting the work done, it’s not easy to create an indie production! I liked the stills in your video, they really have some Deakins’ vibe (just a little tip for future videos: a little more showing, a little less talking!) . My doubt about LUTs in general and in particular one inspired to Roger’s works is that LUTs can do amazing things (your still show that) but they are a shortcut. In other words, one can obtain a great image but without actually knowing how he did. So, a nice shortcut to the desired look, but little learning from it (unless you analyze the values in the LUT and manually modify it to see what it does). I think it’s way more complicated but a better way on the long term to try to get to that very same look manually working on lights, camera movements, lense choices, color correction, color grading , etc etc. It took longer but you learn a lot doing that. Just my opinion! Good luck for the movie and congratulation for the movie!
Thanks a lot David! I really love the elegance of your shots, Mrs Maisel has a fantastic style! The effect on the nun’s veil is wonderful.
My scene has the exact same structure of your first shot, the one with the man and the window on his left side, of course with a completely different mood: think to the very same scene but with just the moonlight from the window (it’s a low key scene in a horror short. Later in the scene, to create a bit of variety, i’ll add a lantern to create more contrast and a rim light or a backlight on the actor).
In such a situation would you use a dim hair light (the light from the window bouncing on the ceiling and then on the actor) to add a bit of elegance and separate a bit the actor from the background or no hair light at all, to increase the dramatic factor?
Thanks Roger and David! You helped me put things in the right perspective. Mine it’s the usual beginner mindset (“this thing makes the job easier , so it must be some kind of cheating, the masters will cover me in pitch and feathers and send me away as an heretic because i took the easiest road..” Well, i think you got the idea). We live in an era in which AI is
ruiningchanging everything and i’m here wondering if it’s right or not to use white balance as a way to obtain the right mood instead of colored lights and colored gels for a micro production like mine…Curios? You answer yourself. I find inspiration from being emotionally engaged with an image rather than admiring it for its technical representation of what might be considered ‘real’.
Yes, I understand the concept, it’s a deep and personal level of appreciation of art. I find something close to that in the abstract shots of Tarkovskij (the ponds of water in Stalker, for example). Perhaps I don’t understand exactly their meaning (at least not at the first time, for sure) but i’m sure that they are trying to tell something. The problem is understanding what (and that’s the problem with contemporary art, for me: it leaves too much to the viewer’s interpretation and feeling, at a point that everything – also a banana on a wall – can turn in a work of art because of…reasons?).
I try posting an image, as a test, to see if it triggers the “too many redirects”…
EDIT: checking the editing function (don’t pay attention to this post, i’m just trying to figure out where the problem is)
I find a bit curious the fact that your shots are famous for their natural look, but you often mention among your influences expressionist and abstract painters , that are not naturalistic by definition. A guess is it an influence on istinct and emotions, more than on visual style?
…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.
I’ve got a “philosophical” question: does altering a bit the temperature of lights with the WB of the camera may still be considered a way to obtain “in camera” the desired look?
For the little project i’m working on i’m trying my best to obtain “in camera” the effect i’m looking for (and i think using this approach is a nice way to learn), but after many tests with colored lights and gels the only simple way i found to obtain the “day for night” effect i desire is cheating with the WB of the camera. Not the best solution, i know, but the only one that seems to be working in my case. I’m happy with the result and it just requires a little grading in post to achieve the exact look, but it made me wonder on what “in camera” means, in practical terms.
I sent a link to a possible solution by email (it seems i can’t put active links in a post, it triggers the “too many redirect” bug too) . Summing up, it could be a bbpress theme problem: do you think it could be the cause? On bbpress forum there are various other posts about problems with the editing function, even if not directly involving the “too many redirects” issue, but i’d say it’s a function not working properly on bbpress in general.
Thanks Roger!
I loved The Witch too, i think it creates a deeply disturbing and uneasy feeling (i think in this its colors and in general the cinematography play a great role) without using the traditional tricks of many horror movies that use the story just an excuse for a collection of jump scares. A24 is creating a sort of revolution in the horror genre and I think Robert Eggers is the most talentend of the directors working with them. I read he loved the original Nosferatu so much that he considered almost disgusting the idea of doing a remake of such an ageless masterpiece, but i think he’s the perfect director for it.
Well, let’s hope you’ll find a great horror story to tell, sooner or later, 20 years after The Village (a movie i loved, by the way, it has one of the most beautiful scenes i’ve ever seen – the one in which Joaquim Phoenix takes Bryce Dallas Howard’s hand and they run in slow motion, with the final part of the scene that seems almost a Caravaggio painting) the world needs and deserves another scary Deakins movie!
I was wondering something similar, It’s an interesting question! I was thinking to a Tommy Lee Jones shot in No Country For Old Men, in which (i hope to remember correctly, i apologize if i am not correct) a close up of his face used a stronger light than the one that was used in the previous full shot, but the light remained of the same quality, so there was continuity. I think – but as always i’m the less experienced here – that perhaps it’s the quality of the light (soft vs hard, direction, temperature, etc) that creates the continuity, while there is a little more freedom with the quantity of light, given that the first comes from the source and the second from the distance from the source. But i’d like to do as you how a correct approach to the problem!
Congratulation for the new short! Is it available online? I’d like to watch it!
EDIT: to clarify my blabbings, i understood (i hope i’m correct, ah ah) that a warm soft light, for example, will stay so even from a distance, while the same will get weaker or stronger moving farer or closer to it, because inverse square law affecting the intenstity of light .
