Interior Office lighting

[Alain Aguilar]

First, I want to express my admiration for everyone in these threads who have great amounts of knowledge and kindness for providing their tips. I have an interior office set, which has 3,200 ceiling fluorescent lights. There also a large window from which between 10:00 and 12 PM the sun is right above it, not in front. I want to obtain that green look on the set, like the ones in some TV commercials. Should I change the ceiling bulbs and replace them with 5,600 balanced lights (to match the window sun light) and use a filter in the camera, or just keep the bulbs and stay 3,200 all the way without worrying about the window? Instead of the filter, if I go 5,600 should I go for the green in post?

Thanks!!

[Casey Visco]

There is a number of ways to handle the situation, but, if you have the time and resources, replacing the bulbs to match and going for the green in post would be the way i'd do it. I don't know how large the window is, but if the sunlight is too strong at that time of day, you might consider putting some ND over the window itself or, placing a large scrim ABOVE the window outside and out of frame to cut the light back a bit. Ensuring you don't clip out the highlights.

[Alain Aguilar]

I have daylight fluorescent tubs in that location, which I think I'll be able to use. The sun doesn't start shining directly inside the office until 2 PM, when the sun begins making its way towards the West. The use of a scrim outside the window would be impossible in my case, because the office is at the 20th floor in a corporate building. I plan to shoot my scenes between 8 AM and 1 PM. I have to consider the fact that the Sun will be changing its position in relation to the window, and I'll have to come up with adjustments to level the brightness level (perhaps gradually adding ND filters in the window). I've taken some video testing and even when the sunlight intensity is not that strong it does look very bright on the monitor. I would like to know what's the difference between using the lens filter or postproduction color treatment. Is one better, or easier than the other? (for the green look)

Any help is much appreciated!

[Wayne Orr]

Out of curiosity, how do you know the ceiling fluorescents are 3200k? That is somewhat unusual in offices.

[Alain Aguilar]

I'll take at look at them tomorrow, and I'll post. I think a while ago I was trying to figure out what was their temperature, after pulling a tube out I noticed the 3,200 written in small print (I will confirm it tomorrow). The other indication is the color temperature, which is in the yellow orange side. In my XL1 looks very greenish, it looks that their low quality produce a very limited range of colors, pronouncing the green more than anything, very flat. During another shooting I used the daylight tubes and a combination of daylight Kino Flos. The look was beautiful. However for this production I want to obtain (or at least get close) to that green, Matrix look.

[Charles Papert]

Alain:

Here is an video (click on "see Lazlo Bane's Superman video" link at bottom left) that I shot that uses a "hyper green" look in one section (the band walking in slow motion down a hospital hallway). If that is the kind of thing you are looking for, I can tell you that the tubes were changed out for standard Cool Whites which photograph a bit green, and 1/2 plus green gel was added to each diffuser panel in the ceiling. There was a 3200 balanced Ringlite mounted on the camera, to which we added 1/2 minusgreen (magenta) gel. We balanced (this was film, but the process of "white balancing" is done in sort of the same way, by shooting a neutral reference) to the Ringlite, which created an effective full plusgreen cast to the already slightly green fluourescents. Additional light was HMI (5600) with no additional correction, so they were slightly green also. Then we jacked the green up even more in color correction.

Hope this helps a little.

[Alain Aguilar]

Charles,

Nice work on that video, after looking at it a few times I begun singing along the music as well. I loved the hyper-green effect of the hospital hall. My project deals with an introversive character who goes to work and strange things begin to happen. For this I want to create a "not so normal look". However, the green from the music video might be a little too much for the theme of this project. I would leave the current office tubes but I'm wondering if they being low quality would not produce the range of color or contrast that I want. I basically want quality; I'm using a Canon XL1 with the P.S. Technik adaptor and a few Zeiss lenses.

Thanks for the tip, I’ll put your suggestion on my list of possibilities. How much less green did come out before the post production process?

[Charles Papert]

Alain:

It was pretty green, at least half as much as the final version. But that was a significant amount that we added. And film responds differently to the mired shift (magenta-green) than video.

I think you need to first address the issue of whether or not you will be gelling the large window (from the inside) with ND. If you don't have the firepower lighting-wise to balance the levels to the interior, then that is your recourse. And if you are going to the bother of gelling that window with ND, you might as well add a layer of minusgreen at the same time. That will save you having to gel all the individual fluorescent fixtures (unless that is easier). If you want a more yellow-green look to the interior, just balance to the window light and let the interior go warm (I would "cheat" it slightly cooler for the white balance, using a 1/4 CTO in front of the lens or Warm Card equivalent). Alternatively, if you wanted to correct completely, you could use an ND-CTO combination gel on the windows, which will correct the daylight to incandescent and cut down the level.

Lots of ways to skin this cat! The best way to go about all of this is to shoot some tests using different combination of plus and minus green gels. You don't even have to do it at the office necessarily, you could pick up a fluorescent shoplight at your local hardware store with the same type bulbs and take your time at home figuring out the right combination (shoot against a window to recreate that light). Doing a test on location would mean having to deal with correcting at least one fixture multiple times and flagging off all of the surrounding fixtures so their uncorrected light doesn't contaminate your subject--a bit of a hassle. If you are thinking about gelling the big window, with the knowlege that rolls of gel are not cheap, it would be well worth doing these tests with small pieces of gel before investing in your final choice.

Oh, as far as the existing bulbs...as I said, video is pretty forgiving so you won't see contrast changes or "quality" of light issues, just color shifts. The contrast will be controlled by you in the shoot, by turning off selected units, adding negative fill via flags, or using additional units on the floor.

[Alain Aguilar]

Charles,

I'll defenetely try your suggestion of testing the tubes and gels outside the set. I have a large window at home that can do the job. These tips are defentely getting me in the right direction. I shoot on the 29 and 30th of this month. I'll send you some stills as soon as I have them.

Thanks

P.S if anybody else wants the stills with the technical lighting notes let me know. I'll be glad to e-mail them to you

Al

[Alain Aguilar]

I know this thread was done a while ago. But I feel that it would be interested if I posted the results. Thanks to Charles and everybody in this wonderful community, thank you very much for your advice. I think I got somewhere close to what I was looking for, more resources would have helped ($$$). But take a look and let me know.


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