Daytime Lighting - School corridor

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

I wasn't recommending full CTB--even if this was simulating daylight, you wouldn't want it noticeably cooler than the overheads. If the flo's were cool whites, it might be worth adding some 1/4 CTB to the redheads. Won't affect the output much.

I was wondering. Only reason to use the full CTB would be if there was natural daylight coming in.

[Cole McDonald]

If you angle the camera straight down the hallway (as in both sample pix top of thread) you will see the doors on both sides, if you put your vanishing point on one side of the frame instead of in the center, you'll change your angle of attack to one side of the hallway. If you light from that side, you can effectively do whatever you want in those rooms, hiding frames etc, without sacrificing the cool frame...it'll also give a nice solid background behind your subjects as they stand more in front of a wall rather than being separated by a vanishing point. This is of course all story dependent though.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

What Cole said is what I was trying to explain. It can be challenging on a low budget and little time to set up the lights just as you like. If you can light mostly from one side, you reduce the time needed. If the doorways on that side don't show up as much in the shot, you won't need to worry about flagging the light to keep it from blowing out the doors or the doorframes.

[Eric Lagerlof]

Cole, Marcus. Good points. And after looking at the clip Charles was referring to, where there is spill on the doorway frame, I realized I was getting awfully 'fussy' in my thinking anyway. There's nothing wrong with what in the end is actually motivated light reflecting off the door sill or door itself for that matter.

BTW, Charles, is that you swinging the steadicam around its post?

[Tony Webber]

This is the other corridor i can use, any comments on this one?

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Tony Webber

This is the other corridor i can use, any comments on this one?

Very different corridor, you should pick the location that best suits the mood of your scene.

In this case you have daylight coming through the windows. Are these south facing, so that you have direct sunlight coming in?

The glass doors at the far could cause problems with reflections from your fill light and possibly the crew if you're filming at the far end.

Given you're dealing with daylight here, perhaps the easiest way is to go with it and using the light coming in from the windows. Although you could colour correct the windows by filtering them to covert their light to tungsten, however, I suspect it would be easier to just use CTB on your redheads and use the method from the previous corridor to light the far end.

You can use the moving fill on the faces so that they don't go too dark between the windows. Leaving the glass door at the far end open would avoid reflections.

[Dale Stoltzfus]

Just for what it's worth, this corridor doesn't feel as much like a "real" school to me as the other one does.

[Tony Webber]

yeah it is a pretty different corridor,; the film is a light hearted teenage romance, the windows are north facing.

both locations are in a college, i havent found the perfect corridor though but i can shoot there for free.

[Charles Papert]

Originally Posted by Eric Lagerlof

BTW, Charles, is that you swinging the steadicam around its post?

uh yeah. Zach shot most of the black and white Super 8 footage himself (as can be seen in a couple of shots) and he told me to "do something flashy" with the rig. I didn't do the Steadicam on the actual music video though, was too busy being a DP that day. We shot that whole video in a 10 hr day, which including two different cranes (one being the 100 ft Strada, what an amazing device) and 4 locations...jeez.

Back to the hallway--there shouldn't be any reason to have to avoid shooting straight down the pipe, having to rake into the side wall will lose a lot of depth of the shot (although it might help make it look busier, as you can re-use the extras by having them double back behind camera). Plus the lighting that you would be doing through the off-camera side doorways would start to flatten out a bit as you come around (it's no longer true side lighting). It might seem "easy" to slide sideways to line up the shot with the end of the hall just on the trailing edge of the frame, which will keep out the other side, but with a Steadicam shot and two characters walking, any deviation in their speed becomes harder to compensate for. For instance, you've lined up this raking shot of the two guys walking that favors the right wall of the corridor (also realize this will place one of them into semi-profile); if either the operator speeds up or the subjects slow down even a little, they will slide to the left side of the frame. The natural tendency here will be to pan left, which will instantly reveal the left side of the corridor. The better solution is for the operator to slow down, but if he does not find the proper spot to speed back up the actors may then get ahead of him and start pushing the right side of the frame.

Bottom line is that it is tougher to pull off a shot that attempts to see one side and the end of a hallway than it is one that is raked hard into a wall (45 degrees) or straight down the hallway. And of those two, the one that looks straight down the hallway is more dynamic and interesting due to the depth, and it does not favor one actor over the other.

[Tony Webber]

and this is the final corridor, its in a newer building. Again a different feel, lots of daylight from skylights.

not really sure which one would look best and be easiest to deal with.

any opinions on this one?

[Charles Papert]

Looks like less issues with contrast in that corridor, although it's hard to tell if the skylights continue in the foreground and we don't know how long your walk and talk will run. If you can contain it all in the lit section, you are in good shape. You might still need daylight walking fill with the camera, which will be a bit tough with the instruments you have, but even if you don't have it the ambience is probably OK to do what you need to do, you'll just want to supplement a bit for closeups if you have them (even a white bouncecard held under the faces should cover you)

[Eric Lagerlof]

Seems to me as though time of day could be a rather large factor as well. If you have it narrowed down to a couple of sites, you might want to see, (if possible with a stand-in and video camera), if a certain time of day may give you more favorable conditions.

BTW, somewhat off-topic... I've been watching "Jericho", the British crime series and the cinematography for that show rocks.

[Tony Webber]

Did another location scout and found another suitable corridor. what do you reckon on this one? It goes on a bit behind the camera and there is another stack of lockers to the left behind cam.

[Eric Lagerlof]

What do you think? I'm not sure what you are asking about anymore. Two things come to my mind right away.

As director, which corridor suits YOUR needs and eyes vis a vis the script? What looks like the school that your characters would inhabit? Also as director, what blocking/action takes place? Is having a locker jutting out good or will it just get in the way of the actors or camera op when they are walking?

As lighting cameraman, which corridor is the easiest to light? Or, which gives you the most opportunity to create a certain mood?

Given that it is a romantic comedy, and assuming you don't have a large budget or lots of experience, the corridor with the skylight, especially at a time of day when there is plenty of light, (but not directly shining through the skylight), looks a good bet. But really, at some point, you as director, and or DP, have to make the call. That's why you are earning the big bucks-(euros?)!

[Charles Papert]

Eric, you took the words right out of my mouth.

The online community is a nice tool but at some point you have to move on and just make your film (otherwise, you'll have to put all of us in the credits!) There's been a wealth of information in this thread alone about hallway shooting, probably more than you would get if you posed this question in a film school class, so have at it and please post the results when you are done.