Night for day lighting

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Eshan Kazemi

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Night for day lighting

PostFri Feb 02, 2018 5:14 am

Hi

How would you simulate a day scene while filming in night in a small room with one small window using tungsten/halogen lamps with colour temperature of about 3000~3200 K?

Thanks
Es


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Leon Benzakein

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSat Feb 03, 2018 1:07 am

Eshan Kazemi wrote:Hi

How would you simulate a day scene while filming in night in a small room with one small window using tungsten/halogen lamps with colour temperature of about 3000~3200 K?

Thanks
Es


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What grip and lighting equipment do you have access to?
Is the window in the shot? Is the room on the ground floor? Can you get grip equipment and lights to the window(if in shot)?
Do you imagine the sun hitting the window?
What time of day is it in the script? What time of year?
The camera does not know whether it is night or day, you have to give it a good white balance.
You can do a white balance that is warmer so that the tungsten lights will look a little bluer.
Bounce the lights from the direction of the window (if you establish the window) so that you create ambient light.
Put some white material on the floor if you do not see the floor.
Lighting a room for daylight is less contrasting and less directional than lighting for night with practicals in shot. In day time a room has a lot of ambient light, less sourcy.
Television: Lighting/Cameraman, O.B. Camera Operator, Experience in EFP, EPG and ENG , Grip, Lamp Operator
Film: Grip, Lamp Operator
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Eshan Kazemi

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSat Feb 03, 2018 9:56 pm

Hi Leon, thanks for your response.

What grip and lighting equipment do you have access to?
Cheap halogen lights.

Is the window in the shot?
No.

Is the room on the ground floor?
No. It is on the second floor.

Can you get grip equipment and lights to the window(if in shot)?
The equipment has to be located inside the room. It can be attached to the window as it is not in the shot.

Do you imagine the sun hitting the window?
Yes.

What time of day is it in the script? What time of year?
Some days of spring, from about 8~9am to the evening.

The camera does not know whether it is night or day, you have to give it a good white balance.
You can do a white balance that is warmer so that the tungsten lights will look a little bluer.
Bounce the lights from the direction of the window (if you establish the window) so that you create ambient light.
Put some white material on the floor if you do not see the floor.
Lighting a room for daylight is less contrasting and less directional than lighting for night with practicals in shot. In day time a room has a lot of ambient light, less sourcy.

Would you recommend white-balancing in the camera rather than using colour correction gels?
As you pointed out, in addition to the sun hitting the window, a lot of ambient light should be simulated as well. What would you recommend for this? Do you have any practical suggestions (not too expensive) for bouncing the light? The floor is in the shot so I won't be able to put white stuff on it, but maybe on the ceiling? What sort of white material would you recommend?

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Es
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Leon Benzakein

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSun Feb 04, 2018 12:10 am

Eshan Kazemi wrote:Would you recommend white-balancing in the camera rather than using colour correction gels?
As you pointed out, in addition to the sun hitting the window, a lot of ambient light should be simulated as well. What would you recommend for this? Do you have any practical suggestions (not too expensive) for bouncing the light? The floor is in the shot so I won't be able to put white stuff on it, but maybe on the ceiling? What sort of white material would you recommend?


You say that you do not see the window, good you do not need to worry about making the window exterior daylight.
You can maybe project a pattern of a window on the wall. To suggest where the light is coming from.

I would not use gels. You only need gels if you are having daylight coming into the room and you need to blue tungsten light. Since you are shooting at night you will not need to colour correct the lights.
You can experiment with cheating the white balance slightly to make tungsten look cooler.
I would suggest that you take some time to look at the room in daylight or any room and study how ambient light is created. You will see that light bounces off every surface, mainly the walls. Try and duplicate what you see.
Since you do not have grip equipment I would suggest that you can use the following to bounce off:-
a white bed sheet, white paper, news paper, white card, polystyrene board, foam core, the walls in the room (if white). You can bounce off the ceiling too, but you will see when you observe an empty room in daylight that light comes from all directions. I would suggest that you do not use direct light except for effect.
I do not know your shot list but if you can project a pattern of a window or blinds on the wall, that will help sell the idea of daylight.
Remember to establish where the key light is coming from and keep that direction for continuity.
VERY IMPORTANT work safe, be aware of fire hazard if using hot lights..
Do not hesitate to ask more questions.
Television: Lighting/Cameraman, O.B. Camera Operator, Experience in EFP, EPG and ENG , Grip, Lamp Operator
Film: Grip, Lamp Operator
Theater: Lighting Designer, Light board Operator, Stage Electrician, Stage Management
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Eshan Kazemi

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSun Feb 04, 2018 5:41 am

Leon, Thanks a lot for the detailed response.

My idea is to use:

- two lights at the window, one pointing towards the room (inside) with a diffuser in front of it, and one towards the window (outside) with some material attached to the window and the walls around it to bounce the light back to the room. The former substitutes the direct light from the sun (with a pattern of a window or blinds projected on the wall or floor), and the latter simulates the skylight (?)

- another light in the other side of the room (in a big softbox, or towards a wall or ceiling with a bouncer) to simulate the ambient light in the room.

- some white stuff, as you suggest, to bounce off the floor, ceiling, etc (wherever not in the shot).

what do you think about this setup?

My concern is that setting the white balance in this situation might be a bit tricky. How to correct the colour temperature of those three tungsten lights and bring them to the daylight colour while they are no longer at a known value (3200K), and not the same, because of using different white diffusers and reflectors? For example, the colour temperature of the tungsten light which simulates the direct sunlight (after diffusion) might be 2000K different from the real sunlight, while the one which substitutes the skylight (after reflection) might be 3000K different from the real skylight.

Thanks
Es
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Leon Benzakein

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSun Feb 04, 2018 4:19 pm

Eshan


I am not sure I understand your lighting setup, why you are pointing a light at the window if it is not in shot.
I am sure you know what you are doing so those are decisions you have to make.
If you have the space you may want to make a book light.
https://fstoppers.com/bts/book-lighting ... ible-23125

Remember that you only need worry about this for the wide establishing shots.
When you go into coverage for close ups you can be more subtle to create the look you want. What you see in the background is important to the mood you are setting.

Always remember continuity, make drawings of your lighting setup, this also helps if you need to reshoot.

As for the white balance, I suggest you do some test to see what works for you.
Any creative decision you make has to be your own. You have to live with it.
IMO using gels will introduce another level of headaches to deal with.

I am working on the premise that you will be shooting at night and that you will not be having any real daylight coming into the room.

Is this correct?
Television: Lighting/Cameraman, O.B. Camera Operator, Experience in EFP, EPG and ENG , Grip, Lamp Operator
Film: Grip, Lamp Operator
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Kyle Gordon

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSun Feb 04, 2018 4:50 pm

I think he's saying that he wants to "point light at the window" meaning to put some large white reflective bounce material to cover the window, and then to bounce light off of that back into the room to simulate soft light coming from a window in day time.

He also seems to want to have some direct but diffused light to simulate direct sunlight which makes less sense to me.

If youre using a cookie to put some kind of direct sunlight window pattern, that seems less likely to look natural. I guess I'd just do the bounce and be done with the window-motivated part of the lighting.

A book light off camera to the window side would be ideal.
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Thomas Koveleskie

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSun Feb 04, 2018 5:25 pm

I know you said you already had cheap halogen lights, but you may want to consider using daylight LED bulbs. You can even sculpt the light to your liking, but I don't know if you just want/need a super bright daylight key light only. With the bulbs strategically located you can simulate the light spilling through the window.

I own and use a set of 1000W Photoflex Silverdome large soft boxes and they do a great job lighting for daylight indoors when white balanced properly. They use large screw in cylindrical bulbs.

Diffusing your halogens would be a good idea if you need a good even light source as opposed to sculpting some shadows with bulbs. You also can buy white ripstop nylon at fabric stores to use as diffusers. I've made my own replacement diffusion front covers for soft boxes using this. It works very well. Just place the nylon in front of the lights, but far enough away to keep them from melting of course.
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Leon Benzakein

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSun Feb 04, 2018 5:28 pm

Kyle Gordon wrote:I think he's saying that he wants to "point light at the window" meaning to put some large white reflective bounce material to cover the window, and then to bounce light off of that back into the room to simulate soft light coming from a window in day time.


Got it.
Television: Lighting/Cameraman, O.B. Camera Operator, Experience in EFP, EPG and ENG , Grip, Lamp Operator
Film: Grip, Lamp Operator
Theater: Lighting Designer, Light board Operator, Stage Electrician, Stage Management
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Eshan Kazemi

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostSun Feb 04, 2018 8:52 pm

Thank you guys for the replies and sorry for my bad explanation. The setup could be something like this:

Setup2.jpg
Setup2.jpg (58.03 KiB) Viewed 1406 times


Just seems a bit difficult to get the correct colour temperature of the lights from different sources (direct sunlight, skylight, and room ambient light) using camera white-balance. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Es
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Leon Benzakein

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Re: Night for day lighting

PostMon Feb 05, 2018 3:00 pm

Working on the premise that there is no real daylight coming into the room because you are shooting at night.
This is what I would do. To each his own.

White balance to 3200k if you have 3200k instruments.
You need to have a starting point or else you will drive yourself crazy.(welcome to the club)
Add flavours of blue(CTB) to instruments that need to be brought to 3200K.(When you add gels you will lose intensity.)

Or........you may find that the different colour temps work.(without CTB)If you have them coming from opposite directions. The key lights being true 3200K.(or close)
You may want to do your white balance after adding the diffusion you will be using(before adding blue if needed)
Another way is to light the room get the contrast ratio balance correct and then do your white balance.
This will give you an optimum white balance.
Always keep in mind continuity, use the same instruments from the same directions when going in for coverage

Make sure you have a good reference monitor or shoot some tests and look at them in the edit suite.
There is no "one size fits all" sometimes you have to work with what you got.

Ultimately it is your vision.
Television: Lighting/Cameraman, O.B. Camera Operator, Experience in EFP, EPG and ENG , Grip, Lamp Operator
Film: Grip, Lamp Operator
Theater: Lighting Designer, Light board Operator, Stage Electrician, Stage Management

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