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That is always a tricky balance. Of course, many, of not most, of the car shots you see in films or TV shows today are a product of digital composites.
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.
You say they had the firepower ‘back in the day’. They might in theory have had the firepower but it was really not realistic to use it. Until the advent of fast film stock, fast lenses and, eventually, HMI lighting it was prohibitively expensive to light a large set with a soft source. And before HMIs, or more recent LED lighting, a softly lit set would be hot! Some sets even burst into flames under ‘soft lighting’.
The reason I would use multiple directly focussed lamps to create a ‘soft’ source was not only to have control of where the light went. It would have be crazy expensive to do it any other way. LEDs and cameras that can be rated at 800, 2,000, 5000 ASA or more make such choices academic today.
When I started out I would usually have a hair and make-up test day that gave me the chance to study an actor’s face. And, yes, I would move a key light around just to see what effect it might have. Bear in mind that John Alton was lighting with more direct sources than I or most contemporary cinematographers use today so having some test time was even more essential for his method of working.
To experiment in that way on set, on the day of the shoot, creates all sorts of problems. Even if you were allowed the time by a director, actors tend to arrive on set intent to shoot. A camera rehearsal is sometimes frowned upon. It makes the physical similarities of a stand-in even more important.
I don’t remember using a LUT on Jesse James or No Country for Old Men. Of course, I didn’t because I was shooting on film. Was the look of 1917 any different? Did the LUT make it look like it did?
HMIs are an alternative solution. And there are now plenty of Fresnel style LED lights that can run at a daylight setting, a tungsten setting or anywhere in between. Yes, you can gel a tungsten source but, if you mix it with other sources, the color never seems quite right to me.
I always make a diagram of how I wish a scene to be lit. Then I discuss the plan with my gaffer and we go from there. If I am uncertain a lamp will give me the required output I will consult a photometric chart but also my gaffer.
I have used an array of LED panels to produce a similar effect to a cove bounce source. Depends on the situation whether it is a preferred approach. It is never quite the same, just as a series of lamps projected through diffusion is different again. The differences may be subtle but light bounced of a white muslin cloth is softer and more evenly spread.
If I was shooting a scene and lighting it with a cove bounce source I would set for the wider shot first. I would only move the source in if I felt a need to soften the light on the subject a little more for a closer shot. A softer look on a closer shot seems quite natural to me and is more easily to accept than the reverse.
I think that is what you are trying to connect with – in the midst of all the technical aspects of being a cinematographer, the politics and the stress.
Those three shots were made in camera. The very distant details in the town were added later but nothing of consequence. True Grit was shot on film and these exteriors were exposed at around f 8/11 on the lens, probably a 27mm. Hence the depth of field.
My take is that I love being in the real world but practical considerations often prohibit that. Otherwise, anything to avoid a blue screen!
For a day scene I generally prefer to light through a window and let the exterior blow out. With a flat white beyond, a luminance key will easily create a matte line from a window frame or doorway for whatever might need to be inserted later.
For night work I have no problem with real ‘poor man’s process. Of course, it has its limitations but what is shot in camera can always be augmented in post if it is really needed.
I wonder if that 10K Fresnel was actually a Carbon Arc. The picture shows a lamp with a pretty large front. A Carbon Arc (Brute Arc) would probably give you the wider pattern of ‘sunlight’ that appears in the scene.
There was no fill light. The scene was lit with an array of double ended 500 watt globes that were rigged inside the boiler. The opening was designed to be the size and shape it appears so the light from the ‘fire’ would stretch across the scene. The globes were dimmed down to give the warmth you see in the shot and a slight random flicker change was added as if from flames. The globes were replaced with the fire you see in the shot as a post effect.
