Top Tips from Day Two of the Big League Cine Summit 2015

January 29, 2015March 27, 2017 neilosemancamera movement, camera operating, cinematography, lenses, lighting, tips

Last week I published the best tips I culled from day one of the 2015 Big League Cine Summit. To complete the set, here are the top tips from day two, starting with that legendary teacher of cinematography, Shane Hurlbut, ASC. Since Shane is so good at sharing his knowledge on the Hurlblog, I’ve only listed a few tips from him; I strongly recommend you check out his site for many, many more gems.

Shane Hurlbut – “Delivering Storytelling Impact with Light, Lens and Camera”

On the visual grammar of Crazy/Beautiful: controlled camera moves represent Jay’s controlling mother.
Shane likes to use the work of stills photographers as inspiration.
He added extra 400W sodium vapour fixtures to the existing 100W sodium vapour streetlights for night exteriors in Crazy/Beautiful.
He used a “damaged key” in Crazy/Beautiful to represent Kirsten Dunst’s flustered state. It’s messy, doesn’t quite reach both eyes.

David Vollrath – “Motivated Lighting”

“I don’t want to light their faces and bodies specifically. I like to light the space.” – Harris Savides
Stand where your subject will be to see what reflective objects are affecting your lighting.
Tabletops can be great bounce-boards for toplight. Maybe put muslim or paper on the table to enhance it.
Look for things to motivate light: windows, practicals, overhead fixtures, sconces, etc.
Once you’ve lit the space, it will become clearer how to light the faces.
Work with the art department in preproduction to make sure you get the practicals you need.
Flag your other sources off your practical so that excess light isn’t falling on them and washing them out.
You can use the reflection of a softbox to create a nice shine on a dark surface or even on a face.
A roll of duvetyne armed off a C-stand makes a fair stand-in for a 4×4 floppy flag.
“Beadboard” is just another name for polyboard. (I genuinely didn’t know that!)
Other bounceboards include foamcore and showcard.
Use Source 4 Leikos to fire into your bounce, because they’re easily cut and focused. They’re cheap to rent too.
It’s easier to rig a bounce card overhead than a softbox or a kinoflo.
Plus Green and Minus Green gels – to match or correct fluorescents – are useful in subtle 1/8th flavours.
“Lighting is in the gripping.” Taking away light can be more effective than adding it.
A “cocktail” is a layering of multiple gels.
A simple black card over a shiny piece of furniture can cut bounce and bring back contrast.
Hazers add great atmosphere, but they raise the fill level. To see shafts of light, use a dark background.

Caleb Pike – “Everything You Need to Know About Lenses”

A good set of primes will last you decades.
Lens choice affects: 1. Field of view, 2. Depth of field, 3. Compression (amount of perspective).
Use compression to isolate a subject, or to crop out equipment.
Use wide lenses to open up a space, exaggerate expressions or get the most out of camera moves.
Longer lenses are more flattering for close-ups. Short lenses can distort the face unpleasantly.
Don’t always shoot with your aperture wide open. Choose an appropriate depth of field for your story.
Generally it’s best to keep your aperture the same throughout a scene.
Avoid non-constant aperture zoom lenses for video work.
Primes (fixed focal length lenses) are generally faster, cheaper, lighter and sharper than zooms.
Cine lenses are heavier than stills lenses, do not breathe (zoom slightly when focusing), and have fixed filter rings.
Cine lenses have hard stops on the focus rings, so you can set focus marks on the lens.
Cine lenses have longer throws on the focus rings, so that follow focusing can be more precise.
Wide cine lenses have less distortion than their stills counterparts.
Passive lens adapters are cheap and simple; smart adapters maintain the electronic connection for autofocus etc.
Lens boosters can solve cropping problems caused by using a lens with a sensor size it’s not designed for.
Throttle adapters are passive adapters with neutral density fader filters built in.
Caleb’s budget lens recommendations:
1. Nikon 35-70mm f3.5 macro
2. Olympus 50mm zuiko f1.4 and 1.8 versions – sharp, with long focus throw – around $30
3. Canon 40mm f2.8 pancake prime
4. Nikon 100mm F2.8 E series – around $99
5. Canon 28-80mm F2.8-4.0 L series – well built, very sharp – around $500

Matt Workman – “Camera Moves That Matter”

A camera “hand off” is a move that starts focused on one thing and then transitions to focus on another.
A classic establisher might start on a mysterious insert then pull back – “hand off” – to reveal the scene.
Spielberg, Scorsese, Luhrmann, Singer and Bay all use camera hand-offs frequently.
Camera moves increase production value and can cover multiple story beats in one shot.
Doing the same thing in cuts reduces your audience’s understanding of the scene’s geography.
Crane-ups give you a privileged view, a sense of power.
Write down the beats of the scene, then storyboard or previz. All departments can benefit from the previz.
Beware of boring bits in the middle of camera moves. Is it better to do it in cuts so you can speed it up?
Use Autodesk Maya for previz. Build a library of accurate grip equipment models.
Check out Matt’s other site http://www.cinematographydb.com which uses previz tools to illustrate other DPs’ set-ups.

Top Tips from Day One of the Big League Cine Summit 2015

January 21, 2015March 27, 2017 neilosemancamera operating, cinematography, composition, equipment, lighting, lighting kit, tips

This week the third annual Big League Cine Summit is taking place: two days of online masterclasses with top commercial, TV and feature film cinematographers. If you missed this educational and inspirational free event, here are the best tips I culled from day one’s sessions:

Frankie DeMarco – “Composition and Camera Operating for the Big Screen”

The advantage for a DP of working with a separate camera op is that you have a second opinion.
Try to think like an editor. What specific shots do you need to tell the story? Can you do it in a “oner”?
Lots of angles/coverage can kill performances and make the audience overly aware of the camera.
If you need to shift position for comfort, do it during a part of the take that the editor is unlikely to use.
You can sometimes get away with crossing the line if your singles are dirty.
Use clean singles to show that characters are not connecting with each other.
Single point perspective, a.k.a. formal composition (framing the subject centrally) can be very powerful.
Lighting for silhouette can make a simple moment highly evocative.
The best composition reflects character relationships, perhaps using layers and depth.
Good composition should draw the eye to the right part of the screen and not distract the audience.
Good cinematography should tap into the emotion of the scene and the character whose eyes we’re seeing it through.
When watching the blocking, think about the emotions. Let the scene tell you how it should be shot.
Let the lens talk to you. Try watching the blocking through different lenses and see what feels right.
A great static frame that the actor can move around in trumps panning around with the actor.
Use a dolly-in for an emotional moment, but a zoom-in to show a character having a thought or idea.
Check out Stanley Kubrick and William Friedkin films to see excellent use of zooms.
Use a long lens to disconnect your subject from their surroundings.
Play the first take safe, and then you can try tagging hand-props or pulling focus to background characters on later takes.
“When in doubt, turn it out.” i.e. beware of over-lighting!
Don’t be afraid of changing f-stops from angle to angle to maintain a consistent softness of background when your background is different distances away from different subjects.
Don’t worry about continuity too much. “The set is made of rubber.”
Try unusual compositions. Be willing to fail.

Kevin Shahinian – “Story Telling Techniques: Adding Massive Production Value”

In high-end events shooting, try to get the organisers to pick rooms that will work for sun orientation.
Use a long lens to create a potentially unsettling sense of voyeurism.
To build tension and unsettle the audience, short-side your subject and show lots of empty background.
In an over-the-shoulder shot, add power to the foreground character by having them dominate the frame.
With non-actors, shoot candid footage; you may capture genuinely great moments. Use action verbs to direct them, rather than talking in terms of emotions.

Rasmus Heise – “Extraordinary Cinematography with Minimal Lighting”

Design lighting that works from all directions, to minimise set-up times.
Use more than one colour to add depth.
Dot practicals around where possible, to give you sources that will work for different angles.
Focus on one key light source in a scene. Everything else is just a bonus.
Fluorescent tubes and sodium vapour lamps can be great low budget, low wattage solutions.
Philips makes fluorescent tubes with high CRI.
Wet down your exterior sets to add contrast and nice reflections.
Silhouette shots are quick, cheap and look great.

Matthew Santo – “Commercial Lighting: How to Light Fashion vs. Action”

Photographing commercials is all about heightened reality, perfect sunsets, perfect skin, etc.
It requires a lot of passive lighting: bounce cards, negative fill, contrast control.
On beauty and fashion commercials:
- Your background can set a darker mood even if the talent has to be lit flatly for beauty.
- Know your talent’s face in advance – e.g. do they have soft or hard features? Deep-set eyes?
- What side is the talent’s hair parted on? This could affect your decision on which side to key from.
- Try to make sure the make-up room’s lighting matches the colour of your lighting on set, so the MUA doesn’t get any nasty surprises on set.
- Use Briese lights for beauty. They have hard- and softlight qualities.
- Chimeras may be better for talent with less defined features.
- Reduce skin texture by pushing fill through large frames or bounce, e.g. 12×12 frames.
- Hard backlight looks great but beware of fly-away hair.
- Combine hard and soft sources for backlight that has punch but wraps and doesn’t create shadow issues.
- There’s a range of Cosmetic lighting gels that add a little warmth and diffusion.
- Use a low overall light level for talent comfort and less squinting!
On sport and action commercials:
- It’s about movement and body definition. Backlight and sidelight are most important.
- Edgelight defines the talent’s body shape. Toplight adds muscle definition.
- Lens flares add dynamism but reduce contrast, so light high-key.
- Use higher light levels for highspeed shooting and to maintain focus as people move.

Stefan V. Borbely – “Deconstructing High End Car Commercials”

Rather than lighting the car, light the environment and the car will reflect that environment.
For exteriors, wait for dramatic skies because the car will reflect these.
Silver cars are the easiest to light.
Use long fluorescent tubes or long reflectors to make seamless long highlights on the bodywork.
Use Cinema 4D to test your lighting set-ups for reflections.
For night exteriors, take stills on the recce and note your exposure settings.
Bagolights are great for creating streaks of light on cars.
Fisherlights are a good substitute for the sky.
If you can’t afford Fisherlights overhead, put lamps on the floor and shoot them up into big polyboards.
Schedule your exterior shots for sunrise and sunset, and shoot inside the car in the middle of the day.

There is still time to get free access to the summit at bigleaguecinesummit.com Stay tuned to neiloseman.com for top tips from day two.

Six Cinematic Uses for Fairy Lights

December 28, 2014March 27, 2017 neilosemancinematography, lighting, tips

They’re everywhere at this time of year, twinkling away, but I carry a string of fairy lights with me on every shoot, whatever the season, because they can be useful in many ways. Here are a few:

1. Firstly and most obviously, they’re handy set dressing to tell the audience that it’s Christmas. Useful in a montage to help sell a passage of time, like in this shot from Stop/Eject:

2. Fairy lights produce lovely bokeh in the background of a close-up, as in this scene from the Doctor Who TV Movie. Use a long lens and a wide aperture for the maximum effect.

3. In fact, you can use fairy lights to create a completely abstract background of out-of-focus lights, maybe as a backdrop for credits, titles or DVD menus.

4. You can tape fairy lights to a polyboard and create a lovely soft light source as Eve Hazelton demonstrates in this video at 4:28.

5. Fairy lights against a black background, underexposed, make an instant starfield backdrop as seen in Soul Searcher at 39:21. These were actually some of Hereford’s Christmas lights that the council had put up outside the window of my flat.

6. Similarly, fairy lights can represent distant city lights, as seen outside in the first shot of this trailer. (It was actually filmed in the daytime with makeshift black tenting around the window and the fairy lights within that.) For another example, check out the model shots of the train in Soul Searcher, above, like the one at 1:22:07. This behind-the-scenes photo of the miniature set shows the string of fairy lights that were used as “streetlights” between the model buildings.

Cinematography: My Process

December 16, 2014March 27, 2017 neilosemancamera operating, cinematography, lighting, shooting, video

Consulting director Sophie Black's storyboards on Night Owls. Photo: Dimitri Yiallourou — Consulting director Sophie Black’s storyboards on Night Owls. Photo: Dimitri Yiallourou

I thought it might be of interest to describe my typical working process as a director of photography on a shooting day. Different directors and ADs will run their sets different ways, so this is a generalisation.

I like to start the day by reading some of Stephen Murphy’s DOP Documents over breakfast. These elegantly-laid-out collections of screen grabs from top cinematographers are fantastic inspiration.

On some productions I’ve had long talks with the director, I’ve seen storyboards or shotlists and I’ve been on the location scouts or walked the sets already. On others I’m a last minute hire and I know nothing beyond what it says in the script. (And this should go without saying, but you need to read the script. Apparently some DPs don’t. WTF?)

Whenever I see the set for the first time, be that in preproduction or on the day, I start to think about light sources. If it’s outdoors, what is the sun orientation? If it’s indoors, where are the windows? If it’s night, what practical sources are there and do I need to add or remove some?

Ideally the next thing that happens is that the actors arrive, still in their street clothes, and the director blocks the scene with them. If I see anything that can be tweaked to orientate the talent better towards the light sources, or to provide more interesting framing, I’ll suggest it.

During the blocking I’ll wander around with Artemis (a virtual director’s viewfinder app on my iPad). If there’s a shotlist or storyboard, I’ll find the angles described and check they work. If not, I’ll find the angles I think will work well. I’ll screen-grab all of these and show them to the director when they’re done blocking. There may then be some give-and-take, perhaps adjusting the actors in situ through the viewfinder, until the director is happy.

Before the actors depart to get into costume and make-up, I’ll have my assistant put down marks for their key positions. Then the cast can leave and I can get down to the business of lighting the scene. Here’s broadly what I’m thinking about, in roughly the order I tend to think about it:

Realistically, where would light be coming from?
How should the scene be lit to create an appropriate mood?
How should the cast be lit to look their best and enhance their characters?
Aesthetically, what lighting will look the most pleasing?
Practically, where can I put lights with the grip equipment I have, without any of it coming into shot?

Once I’ve taken a few minutes to figure that out, I’ll start issuing instructions to my gaffer. I might walk around planting lamps, or just stands, and let the gaffer finish the job by cabling them, or I may let him set some lamps up while I puzzle over whether I’ll need other lamps elsewhere. Meanwhile the camera is being set up with my chosen lens on, either by an assistant or me, if we’re short on crew. (Most directors leave lens choices to me.)

When most of the lamps are set, I’ll fire everything up and draft in whoever’s around to stand in for the actors so I can see if it’s working as planned. I don’t use a light meter, so everything is judged by eye on the monitor, perhaps with the aid of a histogram. Some tweaking usually ensues.

By this point hopefully the cast are back on set and we can start camera rehearsals. Although these are useful to the cast and director, they’re invaluable for me so that I can practice the camera move and see how the light works on the actual actors and costumes. Usually there’ll be a little more tweaking of lights before we shoot. With any luck this doesn’t hold up the director because they’re busy giving last minute direction to the cast.

After we shoot I’ll tell the director whether the take was any good from a camera and lighting standpoint. I generally don’t request retakes unless I’ve screwed something up pretty badly. Long experience has taught me that the editor will always choose the best take for performance, regardless of any minor camera wobbles or dodgy lighting, so I’m not going to waste time insisting on another take which won’t get used. The important thing is for the director to get the performance they want. Having said that, it’s my job to flag up any cinematography fluffs so that it’s the director’s decision whether to go again or not.

Once the first shot is in the can, lighting for the coverage should be fairly straightforward. I’ll have my assistant change the lens, then I’ll move the camera to the new position myself and see how the existing lighting works. Then I can tweak things accordingly.

And so it goes on until the scene is wrapped.

OK, enough from me for a minute. Want to see a legendary cinematographer’s process as he lights a scene? Check out this unique and fascinating video.

I’ll leave you with the latest Ren production diary, which asks (and fails to answer) the question: “What is a DoP anyway?”

Candlelight

November 25, 2014March 27, 2017 neilosemancinematography, lighting

The First Musketeer – the period web series I DPed in France last September – is edging closer to completion. One of the biggest challenges of the shoot for me was simulating candlelight. Almost every scene had candles in it (albeit fake, yet very convincing, LED ones) and it was always a struggle to make them appear to be shedding authentic light.

A couple of years back I blogged about how I created candlelight for the Wasteland trailer, by hiding ordinary 100W tungsten bulbs behind the set-pieces the candles were standing on. I did this again on The First Musketeer, and it can be very effective.

The main tavern set was dotted with large barrels topped with candles, so it was quick and easy to gaffer-tape pendant fittings with 100W bulbs onto the backs of these barrels. (A piece of blackwrap was interposed to stop the bulbs singeing the barrels.) The advantage of a bare bulb over a fresnel or par fixture is that it sheds light in all directions, just like a candle. So when three people were stood around a barrel, as long as the two at the sides were cheated slightly back out of the barrel’s shadow, it lit them all up fairly convincingly.

A single 100W bulb hidden behind the barrel lights the three Huguenots in the background. A blue-gelled HMI provides backlight. — A single 100W bulb hidden behind the barrel lights the three Huguenots in the background. A blue-gelled HMI provides backlight, while two dedos off the sides of frame cross-light the foreground characters.

Dedo, de-e-edo. Dedo come and me want go home. — Dedo, de-e-edo. Dedo come and me want to go home.

This method doesn’t always work though, and it relies on the candle being sat on something a bulb can be hidden behind.

A dedo creates the pool of light around the background candle here.

Dedolights are great for creating circles of light to surround candles, and their built-in dimmers make it easy to flicker the light for added realism. But this method has serious drawbacks. Firstly, it lights the candle itself as well as the surroundings, often rendering the flame (or LEDs) almost invisible. Secondly, anyone passing between the dedo and the candle will pass through the beam of light, destroying the illusion. In an ideal world you would rig the dedo to the ceiling and set up a little thin flag to prevent the light hitting the candle itself, but in practice this would usually be difficult and time-consuming to set up.

More recently I’ve tackled the candelight problem again on Ren. The difference was that we were able to use real candles, often double-wicked for enhanced light output. Real candles take care of their own immediate pool of light, so then you only have to worry about beefing up the amount of lighting hitting the talent and the surrounding set.

Again, bare bulbs can be useful for this, but dedos are often best. It’s possible to cheat the dedo positions quite heavily and still get away with it, because they produce such a narrow, controllable beam of light.

The two candle stands in the background have 100W bulbs hidden behind them. 40W bulbs would have been more suitable, but unfortunately we didn't have any. The light supposedly cast by these candles actually comes from two dedos. The first is at ceiling height off frame left, aimed at the Duke de Luyne (Toby Lorde) on frame right. The second is hidden behind the duke's desk and lights the heroes on frame left — The two candle stands in the background have 100W bulbs hidden behind them. 40W bulbs would have been more suitable, but unfortunately we didn’t have any. The light supposedly cast by these candles actually comes from two dedos. The first is at ceiling height off frame left, aimed at the Duke de Luyne (Toby Lord) on frame right. The second is hidden behind the duke’s desk and lights the heroes on frame left.

What methods have you used to simulate candlelight? Comment on Facebook or tweet me – I’m intrigued to hear.

Lighting Techniques #5: Smoke

November 8, 2014March 25, 2017 neilosemancinematography, lighting, tips

Smoke looks cool, I think we can all agree, but why? What are we trying to achieve when we spray a set with smoke?

In the famous cinematography manual Painting with Light, John Alton says of the cinema experience: “We sit in the dark looking at a light screen; this gives a definite feeling of depth. In order to continue this depth on the screen, the progression from dark to light must be followed up. The spot which should appear to be the most distant should be the lightest, and vice versa…”

Smoke can help you accomplish this dark-to-light depth. Because it’s white, if you spray it in the background then the background will get lighter, while the foreground will remain crisp and contrasty. It’s like standing on top of a hill and looking at more hills receding into the distance. The more distant ones are lighter, less saturated, less contrasty because of the atmospheric haze.

Smoke helps darkly-clad characters stand out from a dark background in The Deaths of John Smith (dir. Roger Harding)

Smoke machine — The Magnum 550: the most powerful smoke machine in the world. Are you feeling lucky, punk?

There are a number of ways to produce smoke. I own a Magnum 550, a small electric machine designed for DJs but perfectly useable on set. The smoke fluid is electrically heated until it turns to gas. On Ren we have an Artem smoke gun which uses propane gas cans to heat the smoke. This is handy on location because it doesn’t need a power supply, and it can produce thick clouds of smoke much more quickly than the Magnum.

You have to wait for both of these types of machine to heat up before you can use them. Ideally you need a dedicated crew member who is predicting when you might be ready to shoot and heating up the machine in readiness. If you’re outdoors, they also need to stay on top of the wind direction. You may think this would stay fairly constant, but trust me, it doesn’t.

Both types of machine produce wreaths of smoke which usually needs wafting in order to look like general atmosphere. And consistency is a challenge. It’s tricky not to have long takes that start with a lot of smoke and end with none. Both types of machine are too noisy to run during a take, though the sound recordist may agree to let you run an electric machine during pauses in dialogue, and an Artem can continue producing smoke for a little while after the gas is turned off.

If you’re indoors, a hazer may be more appropriate. This is an electric machine that uses compression rather than heat to vapourise the fluid, then blows it out continuously through a fan. The effect is much more subtle and constant than that produced by a smoke machine.

However you’re generating your smoke, remember to keep it in the background as much as possible. It’s all about making your subject stand out from the background.

You can find out more about smoke and why I use it in my Ren podcast at www.rentheseries.com/news/ren-podcasts.

Smoke used to volumise a shaft of light in Ren (copyright 2014 Mythica Entertainment)

Ren: Lighting Karn’s House

November 4, 2014March 27, 2017 neilosemancinematography, lighting, video

Karn’s house is an awesome set which I had been walking past at Ren Studios for six weeks before I finally got to light it. It didn’t disappoint.

Behind all that smoke at the top is the HMI

In the words of my camera assistant Andy Roughan, I had to John McClane it to get the HMI up on the metal tank behind the set. After climbing onto the tank via a stepladder, I had to shimmy around an incredibly dusty pipe to get to the spot where the lamp needed to be. Getting the lamphead, the low boy stand and sandbags up there was fun. At one point I lost my balance and fell backwards, towards the roof of the set. I shouted a naughty word at the top of my voice, thinking that not only was I going to injure myself quite badly, but I was going to destroy everyone’s favourite set before we’d shot a single thing on it. Fortunately it was so well-built that it took my weight, or at least the part of my weight that I was forced to put on it, and no harm was done. Except that me shouting the naughty word in such a tone of utter panic had given everyone within earshot a minor heart attack.

Why was it so important to get light up behind the set, rather than shining it down through the roof from in front? The answer is smoke. You can’t really see smoke unless it’s backlit, so in order to get those magical shafts of light coming through the set, the HMI had to be at the back.

After shooting the video blog, Andy and gaffer Richard “Squish” Roberts finished building the cyclotron for the firelight effect. This consisted of three 100W bulbs behind a red gel, and two behind an orange gel. I don’t want to give away screengrabs yet, but you can see the fire effect at work on set dresser Amanda Stekly in this ropey iPad photo:

Set dresser Amanda Stekly, lit by the fake firelight

This fire effect served to light Ren (Sophie Skelton) in the foreground of the master shot very nicely, and separate her from the background through colour contrast. It rendered the 2ft kinoflo shown in the video blog unnecessary.

When we came in for the close-ups I continued to differentiate the characters of Ren and Karn (Christopher Dane) through light quality, as I had in Wales. I brought in an LED fresnel for Karn’s close-up, to get a hard sidelight, then for Ren’s close-up I used the 2ft kino to get a much softer look and from a less severe angle.

It’s a shame there was only one scene to film in this set; it would have been great to use it more. But it will certainly add a lot of production value to the opening episode of the series.

Ren: Lighting Dagron’s House

October 30, 2014March 27, 2017 neilosemancinematography, lighting, video

This is our big interiors week on Ren. The main set is the inside of Ren’s house, which was assembled in a mere three days by Chris Dane and his team, cannibalising the village exterior set. In this video blog I explain how I lit the set.

This set-up worked pretty much as-is for the first big scene in the house, shot on Monday. It was all handheld, so I needed the flexibility to move around with the camera and not worry about lamps on the floor getting in shot. The way I’d lit the set meant that the cast could stand pretty much anywhere and look good, especially since whoever was wiggling the “firelight” reflector could tweak the angle of it to follow any actor threatening to go a bit dark.

100W bulbs hidden behind the dresser for "candlelight" — 100W bulbs hidden behind the dresser for “candlelight”

As the bedroom was visible in the background of many shots, I rigged a rough version of the candelight effect I knew I would be using when we got to the bedroom scenes proper. I clipped four 100W tungsten bulbs behind pieces of furniture and cabled them into two channels of the dimmer board Colin kindly lent us. These were then flickered to suggest flames.

The dedo over the table proved to be superfluous. When I saw Claire making candles for the set, I asked her to double-wick them. I’d read in American Cinematographer that they’d done that on Pirates of the Caribbean to boost the light output, and sure enough, once those candles were lit, the dedo wasn’t needed.

The following day I played around with the lighting a bit more. When we came in for close-ups – this time on sticks – I turned off the overhead 4ft kino and brought in a 2ft kino on the floor for Window Wrap (Lighting Technique Number #3). That way the light got into the talent’s eye sockets and was generally more flattering.

The kinoflo on the right acts as Window Wrap

For another scene I decided the fire had gone out, allowing our bad guys to be bathed in cool daylight while the good guys stayed near the candlelight by the bedroom door. It’s nice when you have motivated colour contrast like this in a set and you can play around with which characters are in which colour of light. I look forward to shooting the remaining house scenes and developing some nice candlelight in the bedroom.

Find out more about Ren at www.rentheseries or on Facebook or Twitter.

Ren: Lighting the Prison Cell

October 22, 2014March 27, 2017 neilosemanbreakdown, cinematography, lighting

After a month of shooting exteriors, yesterday we shot the first interior set for Ren. Which was just as well since a tropical storm was raging outside and blowing down parts of the exterior village set.

It was a classic prison cell scene, one of those shaft-of-light-through-the-barred-window jobbies. Amanda Stekly and her team did a great job of creating a two-walled set with moss, wet stone and even real snails. Outside the window was a platform to sell the illusion that the cell was below ground level.

Here are some frames from the scene:

If you’re going for this shaft-of-light-piercing-the-gloom look, you need three things. Firstly, a powerful, focusable light; I used a 2.5K HMI fresnel. Secondly, you need to accept over-exposure. The only way you will get any detail in the shadows is by exposing bright enough that the highlights – anyone standing in the direct beam of light – will clip. If you don’t like the highlight roll-off characteristics of your camera, stay away from this type of lighting. The cool thing about having a keylight this hot is that when a character moves around in the light, especially if they’re wearing light-coloured clothing, they bounce the light around in interesting and often unpredictable ways.

I shot the scene on Richard Roberts’ Blackmagic Cinema Camera, partly because of ongoing problems getting a monitor signal out of my Production Camera, and partly because of the extra stop of dynamic range the BMCC would give me to milk this high contrast lighting scenario.

The third and very important thing you need is a smoke machine to volumise the shaft of light. (More about using smoke in a future post.)

In this view of the platform behind the set, the fluorescent fixture providing indirect "daylight" can be seen on the left, gelled with Quarter Minus Green to remove the green spike in the lamp's output. — In this view from behind the set, the fluorescent fixture providing indirect “daylight” can be seen on the left, gelled with Quarter Minus Green to remove the green spike in the lamp’s output.

In order to give the sense of indirect “sky” light also coming in through the window, I placed a fluorescent outside the window so as to catch some of the side wall of the set. When I first tested the lighting set-up the previous night, I placed a second fluorescent fixture directly above the window to get some edging on the tops of the stones underneath. But I found that the more sources I set up, the less definition I got in the shaft of HMI light, so I dropped the toplight.

Although the script called for guards to drag Hunter (Duran Fulton Brown) into the cell and shut him in, the two-walled set had no door. So with help from the art department I constructed a ridiculous-looking door in roughly one-third scale, simply to cast the shadow of the door. Behind it I placed a redhead gelled with half CTO, which Richard wiggled during takes to suggest firelight.

I set the camera to a white balance of 4,500K so that the “daylight” of the HMI would go a little cold and the “firelight” would go really warm.

Our first shot involved Hunter washing his face at a bucket of water, then slumping back into the “sunlight”. We positioned the bucket out of the “sunlight”, in the small patch of light coming through the window of our fake door. But Hunter was still too dark by the bucket. I didn’t want to flood the set with fill and ruin the mood, so I hid a small LED light behind the bucket and diffed it down. This lights Hunter’s face when he leans over it, and hopefully suggests a reflection off the water.

A fluorescent toplight rigged over the bucket for the face-washing close-up. Note the black cloth hanging from one side to reduce spill.

When we moved to a close-up of Hunter washing his face (below), I rigged a fluorescent toplight, suggestive of indirect daylight from the window, and placed a circle of foil at the bottom of the bucket. The idea was that the toplight would reflect off the foil and the surface of the water and light Hunter’s face. It didn’t work, but the toplight itself really made the shot for me. The more you work with an actor, the more you learn the best ways to light them, and I’ve learnt that Duran looks great with toplight.

Lighting Techniques #4: Health Bounce

October 6, 2014March 25, 2017 neilosemancinematography, lighting, tips

This is a really simple technique but incredibly effective. All you do is put a reflector or a piece of polyboard under the talent’s face. Here’s an example frame from Ren starring Sophie Skelton. This was shot on an overcast day using a 2.5K HMI as backlight.

Sophie is very beautiful and the make-up (by Becca Youngs) is great, but the icing on the cake is a simple piece of polyboard out of the bottom of frame. It subtly lifts the shadows on her face and puts a ‘sparkle’ in her eye. That sparkle is actually the poly’s reflection, but it’s amazing how much life and energy that gives. I’m calling this technique the Health Bounce because it’s used a lot in ads for health and beauty products.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison without (left) and with (right) the poly.

The human brow has evolved to protect our eyes from sunlight, amongst other things. In an exterior scene, particularly on an overcast day, the light comes predominantly from above, rendering the forehead and the nose the brightest areas, and throwing the eye sockets into shadow. This is a challenge for cinematographers. So much of an actor’s performance is in the eyes – it’s essential to get light into the eye sockets to capture every nuance of that performance. A bounce board underneath the face helps do that.

Colin Smith holds the polyboard for the above shot of Sophie

Neil Oseman

Director of Photography

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