Tag Archives: Film Light Reflection

We discussed a lot, after the project one.

In fact, we all think the project one isn’t a good video, especially the seaside part, something not in the whole balance. For the project two, we decided to try something new. As there are too many uncontrollable factors to shoot outside and the limited time for us, we decided to film in the studio. From 3 pm to 9 pm on that Friday, everyone made the effort.

Jialu drew it, right, I know it’s hard to understand.

This time we didn’t use the one take model to film, and we only used two Arri 1000K light. These two points I think are the biggest differences, compared to the last time.

At the beginning of the filming, we faced a big question which delayed our filming time.

We were going to make this shot, and we thought we can achieve this feeling and effect by turning off all the lights in the studio, creating a totally dark space. However, it was not working because once we made this space in total darkness, every tiny light dot or area that we won’t notice usually came out. For example, the light of emergency exit sign.

Later, we got a help from our friends who also study in RMIT. He suggests us to turn all the lights in the studio first because it won’t matter too much when the Arri 1000K on. Well, suddenly I understood what we should do to create that. The Arri 1000K is powerful enough to light the character, we need to adjust the ISO on the camera, and the white balance.

We have two Arri 1000K, but in most of the time, there is only one was using, the one that we used the sunlight to light the character from the outside. The another Arri 1000K was just set there as you can see in some shot, it only used when Jialu stands in front of the light, she wants to have the backlight effect to increase the dramatic feeling of this video.

Don’t be confused about the shadow on her face, that’s the shadow of the bar, and the light on her body is the sunlight.

Moreover, this time we want to express the passage of time, we changed the light direction times by times, to imitate the sunrise to sundown. We added more details, compared to the project one. We prepared dry leaves, cigarette buts, and the coffee with milk (Meursault’s favorite drink).

The main light that we used as the sunlight in this video, created the lonely and non-hope atmosphere. Even because of the simple composition of the screen, the only light will guide the audience simply find out the object and pay more attention to the content and meaning of what we want to express.

For the project 1, we decided two screen, one is in the studio, the another one is on the beach by the sea. The lights in the studio we used were two DEDO light and one Arri 1000k, while we shot by the sea, we only use the natural sunlight and one reflective board.

In the studio in Building 9, I was in charge of the light and sometimes helped with other things, and Jialu was the director and actress (because we didn’t find out one suitable actor/actress), Sylvia was the camera/cinemaphotographer, Kris was the props, and Rachel was being the track of cinemaphotographer.

The shot in studio, we decided to use one take, here is the picture shows the process.

At first, Jialu stood at 1, then walked to 2 then the 3. I didn’t draw the camera out because the track of the camera was a little bit confused and if I put it on the whole picture will be complex.

When she stood on 1 the Arri 1000K there light her, then when she walked to the 2, the Arri 1000k turned 90-degree angle to the 3 to prepare Jialu’s coming. There were two DEDO light there to light her when she came from 1 to 2 and 2 to 3.

 When she was on 1

When she was from 1 to 2

When she was from 2 to 3

When she was on 3

Because this time we used one take, the big challenge was all the lights and others need to cooperate well in the process. But we don’t have enough hands to control all the equipment that we need so thanks to Jialu’s friends helps. We practiced couple times to go.

Compared to the studio screen, shooting by the sea made us have to be affected by nature and some uncontrollable factors. The weather at that day was cloudy, but the sun was accidentally coming out from time to time, which made us annoying. Also, we needed to stop because of those pedestrians.

To be honest, I don’t think how to set up the light is the most difficult part. There were many challenges that we were facing. In my opinion, how we express the last part of THE STRANGER of ALBERT CAMUS, how the script and screen go. At the shooting studio and beach, how to do the preparation and co-operate as a group is really challenged.

During the process, we recognized that we were thinking too much, we only discussed how to perfectly create it out but we ignored that we only had 5 people in this group, the video we made need to base on this condition. So later we gave up many great and beautiful ideas.

This class exercise was the last exercise for this semester, I’m so glad that I was in the camera position. I supposed to keep the document of the host that Robin gave us but I forgot it in the classroom. In this shot, according to the script, we need to make a completely dark environment, and Evan needed to sit by the table, reading a book. The only light needs to appear in this shot is the table lamp. Beside the table lamp, we use an extra light to light Evan as the table lamp is not high power enough to do it.

This is the picture of the shooting situation at that time.

The first challenge that we were facing was how to make the classroom completely dark. We Lowered the blind but there are much electricity in the room, some blue light dot we can’ t switch off it. Also, we changed the position and direction of the table because we can’t let the Television on the wall reflect the light then negatively affect our shooting.

Because of the low power table lamp, we set up another light on the left side of the camera, in Evan’s shot, to fill Evan. It worked.

But the second question came out:

The fill light we set on the camera’s left also fill the back of the lamp, it’s obviously telling everyone that we are using an extra light, so fake. To solve this question, we use blackboards to control the direction and range of light propagation.

this is how we set at the end

At the same time, we considered the exposure problem of the lamp, we put a piece of soft filter or paper in the lamp’s cover. In this case, the light of this lamp could be lower little bit and the cover at the mouth of the cover reduce the direct light on the table and hand, which helps to solve the over-exposure question.

This is how it working during the shooting.

I think it was successful, the light on his face is hard, the hand part has a little bit natural over-exposure because the hand back is the closest part of the lamp.

I don’t want to mention Catherine shot here because of it not difficult as the Evan shot.

At the end of this blog, there is one thing that I want to say is about the angle of the camera.

I was thinking about to put Evan in the middle of the screen because this is a simple structure screen, to put the main character in the middle of the screen can stress him. Later Robin told me the camera should set as high as Catherine because of this copy Catherine’s perspective. Well if this is Catherine’s perspective, I would like to say Evan might be better to look at the camera rather camera’s right side (Catherine was standing there to guide Evan’s eyes).

This blog is based on the class on 30^th April.

Last time we shoot the screen of Colin and Catherine with natural sunlight from the west side of the classroom. This time we lower all the blind, turn on the lights on the ceiling in this classroom and set up one key light on the west side of this classroom to create a plausible, naturalistic, “day-lit” interior. We didn’t change too much between the last shot and this shot, similar action, position and of course the script.

   I was acting Colin, yes, I enjoyed acting, but this won’t negatively affect me to pay attention to the lights and the big working surroundings. These two pictures are the shooting situation at that time, as you can clearly see the position of the key light, the camera, and a whiteboard.

Sorry, I didn’t remember to add the whiteboard on the left side of the table (Colin), the whiteboard used to fill the shadow of Catherine and Colin, making the shadow lighter.

Let’s me describe the light situation in the classroom at that time first. As we lower all the blind, the whole classroom will be dark so we turn on the all the lights on the ceiling, although there was still some strong sunlight sneaked in from the gap of the windows and blinds, the problem wasn’t very serious. It seems like, compared to the over-exposure dot, a little bit much overexposure make the whole look more natural. Over-exposure isn’t a devil that every cinemaphotographer or photographer must avoid. How to use the over-exposure to make what you want is a very interesting and challenging question.

(These photos are screenshots by my phone, this camel picture made and posted on Instagram by Alan Schaller)

Take this amazing photo from Alan Schaller, one of my favorite photographer and I followed him on the Instagram. He took this photo in the Sahara Desert, and he said this is one of his first minimalist pictures. Except the camel is in very hard shadow, the sky and desert are over-exposure and no details, and far away haystack and dunes are in light shadow. He uses the over-exposure on desert and sky to reduce details, stressed the camel. Easily catch audience’s eyes on this camel and this beautiful photo.

There is one thing that I mind is I don’t think the light on the screen is successful, it’s awkward to say the light on Colin and Catherine’s faces are natural as sunlight. Two reasons I figured out for this feeling. The first one is the ambiance light. From the screenshot, we can see the difference between the light on Colin and Catherine’s faces and the light in the background is obvious. There is too much light on Catherine’s face than the background, obviously, there is a focus light on her. Compared to the last shot we took, the natural sunlight lights the shadow in the background because sunlight is very diffusible, even the objects in the classroom will reflect light.

                         Consider this question, I think the solution should be: we can set up few more lights, don’t have to be the same one with the key light, to light the ambiance.

The second reason is the edge of light and shadow isn’t featherized. It’s doesn’t mean all the edge or shot need to be featherized to look like the daylight. Just consider the shooting location and time, and the classroom environment, the edge should be better to be featherized. Characters were not sitting just next to the windows, there was meters away from the windows, so the contrast should not be tough and high. The shooting time was at noon so there shouldn’t be only her face was light and exposure, but the other stuff (the ambiance reason), because of many reflections in this classroom the edge should not be tough.

To solve this problem I think we can set the reflection board closer to Catherine, or set up a low power light to fill.

Aria and her group mates are going to recreate a cool scene in a famous thriller film called Psyho which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The scene is the woman walked into an old room without windows, and she got shocked by a sitting dead body. Her hands accidently crashed into a hanging tungsten light bulb, and so on the continually waving and changing light caused by the waving bulb on her face.

I am really looking forward to their work because there is some great exposure here could be learned and recreated. Please see the above and below few screenshot photos.

Alright, the exposure on her face is really great but I could not screenshot everything and post them here. In order to figure out why the light is soft on her face while the light is hard in other places like her clothes and other obvious surroundings. Later, after I repeat this video, again and again, I found that there is not only one light (the bulb) in this room, in other words, the bulb isn’t the key light, and there shall be at least two lights (includes the bulb). Why?

Let’s see the below screenshot, concern on the shadow of the dead body.

There should be a light in the front upper. Also, this film made in 1960, and the tungsten light bulb won’t be bright enough to make the whole room bright. This conclusion I got from my personal experience since I used to live in a mountain village (my mom’s hometown) for a while. The mountain village lacks electricity at that time, and tungsten light bulb is very common in almost each single house.

So I personally suggest Aria’s group that observe this video carefully, then imagine each location of the light, how the film team set up the lights to achieve this feeling. If it is possible, soft frost or half frost could be used.

Also don’t be too much worry about the part that the woman’s hand crashed into the bulb, making the bulb waving and moving. From what I observed, the bulb could be counted as a fill light rather than a key light, and the angle of the bulb is side fit. To summarize that once the key light location is chosen, the biggest challenge will be done.

Please note the references:

All the photos in this blog are screenshots from a youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWHYmNrAFlI

On 16^th April, we had scene 36 called CLASS ROOM to be shot in class. We were only using the natural light from the one side of windows in the classroom in Building 13, and some black cardboards to fill actress.

The key light, also the origin light of ambience light.

This is the light circumstance at that time.

During the filming, there was an obvious problem that we met is the overexposure at the back as the curtain cannot perfectly cover the windows, the sunlight came from sides as you can see the photo above and below.

We tried to use the chair to block the overexposure, not perfectly but we did a lot.

Except this, we made some negative fill into Catherine’s shot, photo as below.

It’s good that we negatively filled Catherine to reduce contrast and balance the exposure on her face. However, every times that I saw her face I feel the exposure and shadow isn’t evenly distributed, which makes her face looks not clean, I mean, a little bit dirty, not creamy enough.

From my point of view that, the shadow’s color isn’t great, compared to Colin’s shot. Photo as below. Also I noticed that her ear part is more bright than her center face part, I mean her nose and eyes, it’s look uncomfortable. If time permits us to make some try, I think we can try to use some reflective board to bright her center face.

In both of Colin’s shot and Catherine’s shot, there are no too much details of the environment, people obviously will pay more attention to actor/actress’s face, even a smile or speaking action. In this situation, the details that will not be noticed at ordinary times will be enlarged. I am thinking that can we try to set up low-power set fit light or back light to fill their faces. If we could not do it due to limited equipment, I am thinking that could we use some black cardboard, setting up the black cardboard close to the windows, to reduce the amount of incoming light. Or possibly can we hold the black cardboard closer to Catherine since it’s a close-up shot, and black cardboard won’t be on the screen.

Still, remember that there is no correct or wrong lighting, it all depends on what kind of film and style that we want. This scene is a conversation in classroom, a normal life at university. To create this feeling and environment, soft light and low contrast on people’s faces, we could say, is the best way to present.