How Mr. Toland did it?

[FlexTerra]

Hello everyone,

I have being trying to copy some of the light setups in Citizen Kane but I have failed to create a convincing look. Im very interested in suggestions as how to setup this scenes. Here are a couple of links to the specific scenes.

Citizen Kane 01

Citizen Kane 02

Citizen Kane 03

Citizen Kane 04

Im looking foward in what you have to say.

FlexTerra

 

[temerson]

NUmber 3 looks like a shallow, low-light fill aimed at the back of the left subject's head, and another shallow fill on the background coming from the right.

 

[FlexTerra]

nobody

nobody

I Guess nobody knows..!

After all thouse years no one has figured this out.

I hope someone steps up and at least try to solve this.

 

[vervor]

generally it looks like very controlled light - you'd have to be all over the place with screens and silks and flags - in most of those also it seems like the ratio of backlighting to foreground lighting is high so a person's face is not exposed. In addition to those sorts of controls you can further control with black wrap and bouncing.

1 - I'd say there's a diff light on each of the guys on the sides and no light in the middle - just a little spill to get minimal exposure - you can't tell how close the guy in front is so he may in fact be 5 or 6 feet away towards the camera

2 - same as above

3 - seems to me there's two lights - one bounced off that wall and then a sort of key up to the left just getting the top of his head and neck and then the dude who's out of focus in foreground - no fill

4 - probably shot from a bit of a distance to get the back out of focus so much or some other way to get that - that sort of controlled lighting over a small area can be achieved with strong directed light and blackwrap or flags or really anything - get creative

again, very controlled lighting and exposure it looks like- toland was one of if not the best to many - good luck - I tried to take a shot at it!