Shooting on a soundstage

[octopoli]

When your working on a soundstage and creating a daylight scene do you usually use a daylight balanced film stock and daylight lights? It seems like a lot of times when people work in a studio even if they are shooting a daylight scene the work is being done with tungsten lights. I guess since there are no windows its easier to set up rather than having to use HMI sources.

 

[Kim Welch]

Quick Search

Quick Search

I did a couple of quick searches and posted the links below. Maybe some of these websites have the information you seek. you might also contact Fuji Film for help. Are you working in the industry?


http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=10701

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=28811

https://ascmag.com/education/stage/index.html

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Movie_Making_Manual/Lighting

http://www.rivalquest.com/filmlingo/

http://www.shuttertalk.com/articles/diylighting


hope those help.

 

[octopoli]

Thanks. That helped a bit. I was reading an article on Inglorious Bastards and Robert Richardson talked about how they used HMI's on a soundstage (something he said was rarely done). So thats how my question arose. I guess its eaiser to shot a day scene on soundstage with tug lights if you don't have any natural daylight coming in with the absence of windows.

 

[Kim Welch]

shots i took on the fox studio 14 stage "house" series in 2006

shots i took on the fox studio 14 stage "house" series in 2006

here you go. i don't think i can do better than this. Below are photos i took while visiting the fox studio sound stage 14 during a "house" episode. this is set up to simulate sun shining through a kitchen dinning table window. http://www.studentfilmmakersforums.com/pictures/house/kitchenset.jpg

i really can't tell you what lights are used here or why. you need a cinematographer or gaffer to explain what is going on but here is an example of what really is going on with lighting a sound stage. I particularly like this one. http://www.studentfilmmakersforums.com/pictures/house/lightingfromabove.jpg


http://www.studentfilmmakersforums.com/pictures/house/kitchenset.jpg
http://www.studentfilmmakersforums.com/pictures/house/lightingkitchen1.jpg
http://www.studentfilmmakersforums.com/pictures/house/lighting1.jpg
http://www.studentfilmmakersforums.com/pictures/house/lighting2.jpg
http://www.studentfilmmakersforums.com/pictures/house/lightingfromabove.jpg

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It's more common to light soundstages with tungsten because (1) they are much cheaper (though they draw more power), (2) they look nice and are more flexible, can be run through a dimmer board, come in wattages down to 100w and less, etc., (3) you often have night interior scenes anyway that use tungsten lamps, and (4) HMI's are temperamental, not as reliable as tungsten (ballasts overheat, there are flicker issues, hot restrike problems, etc.)

There are some exceptions -- the giant set for "The Terminal" was lit with HMI's because Kaminski wanted to keep the real color temp difference between the daylight and the tungsten used in the food court stalls and stores, etc. The opening scene in "Inglorious Basterds" because it was shot both on location with real daylight plus HMI's and then finished on a soundstage, so Richardson wanted to use the same types of units as he did on location. And I did it for "Manure" because I was using the Red One camera, which looks better in daylight color temps, and it was easier to add a big soft light over the landscape soundstage set using Kino blanket lights, and because I was using Kinos, I could easily use daylight tubes instead of tungsten tubes. This also allowed me to use big tungsten lamps when I wanted to create an orange sunset effect since the camera was set to 5600K.