Lighting a Small Garage to Look Like a Living Room

[Agenda Productions]

Hi,

I'm Gaffing & AC on a short next Tuesday and I am wondering about a lighting set-up I have decided on. His script calls for the one location for three days, a small workspace/garage area about 14ft Wide and 25ft Long. The director wants it to look like a well lit living room normally and then throw a lot of highlights in there...

The set-up I devised was this.

Three 14ft Pole Cats with a 4 foot double bank Kino on each one. They are all evenly spaced to (what I think) will give it an overall "well lit lounge room look" then since there was so much light in the room with a lot of practicals and it is justified to give nice highlights. So I was thinking just set-up some dido's around the room highlighting certain shelves and so forth and then use a really cut/diffused redheads for side keys/backlights sort of thing (I would really like to use 600w or less but considering the three blondies is in our equipment list there’s not much I can do)

Do you think this will work, or will three Kinos be too much light? I ask this because I haven't used Kinos yet and I have already hired them going with my gut instinct...

Any help would be appreciated.

James.

 

[Filmosity]

What format are you shooting on? Film, or video?

It seems that if you think you already have a lot of ambient light, using too many kinos might make things really flat. If the idea is for a high key lighting situation, go with the kinos but cut and shape them to avoid a lot of spill. Are the walls white? Remember, a lighter color wall will act as a bounce for you, and could make controlling the spill difficult.

Those redheads might be a bit much, but yeah, you can diffuse and cut them, or put them on a dimmer (giving you a nice warm light as a side effect) until you get what you want.

Good luck!

 

[Agenda Productions]

Hi,

I'm shooting this with an XL1s (we may or may not be getting a P+S Technik adapter with 35mm Zoom) The walls are dingy, grey brick, the actual location is supposed to be dull, but the subjects in the frame are very bright and colourful and this needs to be accentuated.

We had an idea of: Correct me if it sounds stupid, but putting a very thin white sheet over the roof and under the kinos to soften the whole lot and give it more spread (not sure if it will actually work)

2 questions:
• If you wanted nice even lighting around the room but wanted overhead lighting what else would you use besides the kinos?
• Dimming changes the colour temp right? Does dimming down, reduce the temp to a warmer colour like, would dimming down a tungsten redhead half way reduce the temp to like 2500K or something or not????

Thanks for your help
James.

 

[Filmosity]

Well, in your situation, it looks like your kinos are the way to go. You're obviously on a very low budget, so yeah, throw some sheets up there as some diffusion (for lack of real butterflies and whatnot) and you should get a nice, even spread.

And yes, as you dim down a tungsten unit, the color temp will warm up. So, without correction, you'll get a nice warm glow...if that's what you're going for.

The question now becomes, do you want the color temp on the kinos to match that of the tungsten units? Consider that, because you may have to gel units for matching. Or, you might want the contrasting temps.

 

[Agenda Productions]

Excellent,

I might just get some .3 ND gels if there's too much light rather than stuffing around with the colour temp...

Thanks for the help,

James.

 

[laurent.a]

Do you have some light coming in the room through a window or not?

If not, the best way to justify some highlights is to make as you'd have windows, out of frame.

Mind that kinos are not very powerful, so at a long distance, they won't light a very large place...

I wouldn't say you have too many of them anyway, depending on the widest shot you have to assume.

Don't forget to set your light for the widest shot at the beginning, you won't get any trouble cutting in.

If I was in such a situation, I'd be happy to have kinos but I definitely would feel comfortable with HMIs (I actually wouldn't consider shooting this without, at least, a couple of 1200 conepar, but I might be a bit old-style...)

Mind also that you can have the kinos tubes in either 5500 or 3200 K if you wish.

If you want a daylight effect (you don't tell us much about that, but since you speak about highlights, I guess it's day in), don't forget that matching any 3200 source to the daylight key means you have to put a CTB gel that cuts 2 stops...

On the other hand, as you speak about practical lights, makes me think of a day out effect, please tell us more about that.

 

[Agenda Productions]

Hi,

It is set in a small garage, very small, about 12 feet wide and 20 long but it is supposed to be a whole little stylised house... The script calls for it being about two robots and the owner living in here. Anyway, production wise, there is no window in the garage but I will establish a source from the door early in the piece. All the tubes are tungsten and so are all the practicals. Some of the scenes are set during the day and I'm thinking to only use a redhead with half CTB cut from the direction of the 'window'. I'm not sure about HMIs, actually I'm positive I wouldn't use them, the space is very small... I have a Blondie in the Kit and am also positive that I won't use that. Out of the very small amount of shoots I have lit I found the only necessity for a Blonde or HMI was from outside pointing in replicating daylight. Do you use them often indoors? I am curious as I obviously haven't been on many shoots to see them used.

But saying all that.
• I'm using all tungsten units except for a few scenes then will be replicating daylight with a redhead
• I figure having enough practicals in shot will justify the actress having nice 3/4 back lights at times but mainly highlighting her all the time with backlights/side keys and so on, which the director wants. (do you think I'm dreaming?)

Thanks

James.

 

[laurent.a]

Ok, I didn't figure out it was so small, sorry about that.

I like the kino idea even much better if it's that small.

You have to mind that an open-face (either redhead or blondie) doesn't look too nice when lighting people directly - or do you wish to use diffusion on it? The light would then spread a lot and cut the light direction you're trying to set...

A Fresnel would be perfect, I would say..., either T (1000 W) or HMI (a 400 or 575 would be fine)

Half CTB will cut one stop on the redhead.

 

[Agenda Productions]

Hi Laurent,

I would be using diffusion on the redhead, but, saying that, what is 'quality' difference between the light source of a fresnel and a redhead. Am I safe to say that fresnels have a more 'hard quality' 'more contrasty'... sorry for the obvious question, I have only used fresnels once and they were 2k in a huge area.

Thanks.

James.