White Cyc Floor

[Nick Keller]

When shooting on a white cyc how do you get the floor to be white without space lights? If you get the bg lit with 2 5k's (20-30 ft cyc) pull the talent out and light them with kinos or diffused 5k does the bounce from all the white fill the floor enough to make it seem like "white limbo?" My concern is you get you bg lit fine but in the wide the floor will turn "dirty white"

Thanks

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Basically you want the amount of light hitting the cyc to be the same hitting the floor if you want an even amount of luminance.

Now sometimes I've had to turn off knee compression in some video cameras to actually let me burn out the white to get rid of the dirt marks, etc.

So given that it will help to light the whole space more evenly, if you can't rig space lights, you may want some other alternative to create soft top lighting, like rigging rows of 12'x12', 12'x20', 20'x20', etc. frames of UltraBounce or other white material on the ceiling and bouncing off of them from the floor. Or rigging something other than space lights, like Kino Blanket Lights or Lumapanels up there.

 

[Nick Keller]

Thanks. I was thinking about using a 5k fresnal bounced into a 12x12 of something. Though what's the best way to create some contrast? I am keying from the side I guess the top light can act as some fill without flattening out the image.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Sort of goes against the nature of a white limbo space to have contrasty lighting, because that creates shadows generally. Sure, you could, for example, light the space with one giant soft sidelight and have a soft shadow going the opposite way on the floor.