Hi guys,

for an upcomming short movie there's a scene were the actor carries a candle light while walking down a bridge. The idea is to see a nice reflection of this light on his face. But i don't know how to get realistic results. I have seen it alot in movies but its mostly not convincing. Has any of you ever performed this kind of lighting. Can you suggest a way to do it?

Thanks in advance

Greets

Michaël

just use a candle ?

Yes thats seems obvious but a candle does not give enough light, or i would have to shoot really low key.

Thanks for the respons!

If you have a portable light that's powerful enough. Put an orange (or reddish orange...or yellow... or yellowish orange...whatever your preference) gel on it and then create some sort of board or cloth with various shapes (or strips) cut into it then wave it in front of the light to create a flickering effect. I've seen it done just using somebody's fingers in front of the light. This is done all the time in films to simulate light from a flame. After all you cannot produce a fire of any kind with consistent light output and movement.

Thank you very much Tony
thats seems like a good idea!

More suggestions?

Watch our teaser...
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=92935

Around 00:01:06:00 into it you will see what you can do with a candle. :-)

Bill

All that with one candle ?
Seems impressive, is tempting me to pull this off with lots of candles

Of course it all depends on what your camera and lens are capable of also. I personally prefer a more controlled environment. That's why I prefer the gelled method. You could always take a look at Robert Altman's film "McCabe and Ms. Miller". It was shot using nothing but candle light, with what I would assume were some very fast lenses.

When he blows out the candle it's all the candle, when you see him looking around in the wide shot the set is dimmly lit the reflections on his face is all the candle.

Here are a couple of stills, I had to hand hold at a 1/10 of a secod to get them.

The wide shot of the set shows our accent lights the make shift foamcore softbox gives the flickering light from the fire place.
a closer shot shows the candle light on the talent.

Isn't low light fun!! :-)

Bill

Of course it all depends on what your camera and lens are capable of also. I personally prefer a more controlled environment. That's why I prefer the gelled method. You could always take a look at Robert Altman's film "McCabe and Ms. Miller". It was shot using nothing but candle light, with what I would assume were some very fast lenses.

One trick is to use a fake candle with a small light bulb concealed inside the candle stick connected to a battery carried by the actor. You have a burning candle mounted on the top of the fake section, so you have a flame, but the illumination is done by the hidden bulb.

"Barry Lyndon" has real candle film scenes shot with f0.7 Zeiss lenses.

How about an oil lamp? You can adjust the amount of light you get and it remains the right kind of light.

Thank you all for the respons,
I think i have some experimenting to do,

watch out for my results!

Thanks again

Michaël

Only good for face close-ups - Maybe a chinese lantern with some strips of alfoil (cooking foil) hanging inside and given a bit of a shake to make the flicker and move the light source subtly to make any shadows move.

For the static wide shot, a small lamp might be hidden from the camera behind the candle to provide added light or maybe a very narrow pin spot beam aimed at a small reflector on the tabletop behind the candle holder.

A Chimera Lantern on a pole works well. Held just out of frame and a 250W, or 500W lamp on a dimmer, you can get a nice effect. You can follow the actor as he walks. The Chimera Lantern is more rigid than a regular paper lantern and has a skirt that Velcroes on, so you don't flare the lens.

Rosco makes a fake candle with the bulb inside, that you can rent, or buy. Depending on the set and time, you may be able to light with just candles, but you might still need some type of base light and some help from additional luminaires.

Thanks Bob and Mark !

ive heard about the chimera, i have to see if they rent it here.

Hi,

Something else to try... Have candles made with a double wick. i.e. 2 wicks. This works well to increase the natural light level from a practical candle. If that's enough for the "wide shot" then you could add a bit of bounced light (with the correct color gel) for the close up.

On a recent episode of "The 4400" I had an actor in a mine shaft who's "ability" was to create fire with his hands. The FX guys rigged a butane jet to his finger to get real flame and I augmented it with my "scorpion" flashlight (with Full CTO Gel) bounced off some white paper. I just had to quickly shake the flash light to simulate the flame jittering. It worked well!

Simon Hunt
Gaffer

Another way to fake fire/candelight is to shine the light through a cookie and move it gently back and forth. You can get a similar effect by using a gold reflector.

I had to do a similar thing a few weeks ago, where some actors had to appear to be looking back at a car they've just torched.
We used a wooden pole with rags tied to the end of it with wire, soaked in parrafin. It was 3 feet away from the actors.

The still picture shows how it looked originally, and the attached WMV clip is a rough idea of what we did with it.

Seemed to work alright . . . .

Best candle/fire fake I've ever done:

I have one of those round pop-up reflectors; take it out of the case, but don't unfold it; makes a 1-foot(ish) wide circle of flexy silver. Hold it low, point a 6" fresnel at it (gel if needed) and flex/wiggle the reflector.

For campfires/fireplace, unfold the reflector & use the full size. Worked like a charm.

I like the combination of dimmers and reflectors. For big fires, you can use 2 or 3 lights with gels on them (pointed at the same direction), dimming each of them at a different speed.