Gel questions?

[rgesualdo]

in the following situations what kind of gels would you use, taking in consideration I'll be shooting with kodak 250T film stock on a super 16mm CP16 camera and i have tungsten lights.

living room with sliding door (lots of daylight coming trough), I will need to light with my tungsten lights part of the living room where the light is not as strong?

Lets say i have faster film and need to shoot a scene in a bedroom where the light will come from the window and i want the blue cast we are used to perceive as moon light. how can i accomplish that, should i set the lights outside shoot the grey card and then put gel on the lights? or put gel and then shoot the grey card?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, there is no 250T Kodak stock so I'm going to assume you mean the 200T stock, 7217...

If you have real daylight coming in, and you want to match your tungsten lights to that, you have to either gel the windows with Full CTO or Sun 85, or gel the tungsten lights with Full CTB (and thus lose two-stops of light output from them.) This is always the problem with shooting day interior scenes with small tungsten lights. You may be better off getting some daylight Kinoflos and small HMI's. Unless it is a small window that is easy and cheap to gel to 3200K.

As for a moonlight scene, I would use 1/2 CTB on the lights, but remember to shoot your grey scale under white (3200K) light first, and make a note somewhere that the scene is lit for blue moonlight. You can make it look a little bluer than a 1/2 CTB gives you if you shoot the grey scale with a little warming gel on the grey scale light, like a 1/4 CTO.

 

[rgesualdo]

thanks a lot

thanks a lot

If i match my tungsten (by using full ctb) to the light coming in from the window wouldnt the film be blueish when developed due to the fact that is tungsten film?

Im new to all this, but I really want be a cinematographer, would you advice to some one like me to get a still slr 35mm camera or a digital in order to practice.

again your advice is golden, b/c I have a hard time getting advice or having my concerns and questions answer down here in miami.

thanks a lot

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, if you gel the tungsten to match the daylight, now everything is 5500K and will be blue-ish on the negative unless you put an 85B filter on the camera to correct it overall to 3200K. Or you can correct the blue out in post by shooting the grey scale under the same blue light and having the colorist make it neutral. Or you can use a partial correction filter like an 81EF or a LLD or any pale warming filter, shoot the grey scale under the same filter correction, let the colorist make it neutral in the transfer or print.

You can practice certain things on a DSLR.