Eye-light

[85hal9000]

I just saw the rough cut from a short i shot a few weeks ago. i´m quite happy with the overall result, but i´m still not very happy with a few closeups, just beacause a nice eyelight is missing.
sometimes i noticed this also while shooting but couldn´t really find a solution to give some shine in the eyes. i was working with very low-light levels, and every time i turned on something more to get this eyelight, the overall mood of the scene changed a lot (it just filled the shadows so much!).
it would be nice to have some advice about tricks you normally use to achieve this.
thankyou very much!
Matteo

 

[David Mullen ASC]

You just need to knock down the eyelight to the point where it's not adding much fill. You can use anything for an eyelight but it needs to be controllable in intensity, either with scrims, dimming, or layers of diffusion gel, etc.