OT: Fill light for Face smile lines, etc ???

will-3 wrote on 4/22/2008, 1:01 PM
Wondering if you guys would share some of the ways you get light to fill the smile lines... and under the eyebrows...

We are using a simple 50 watt soft flood in a small lamp... sitting on the floor about half way between the cam and the subject... the light points up at the face.

This works OK but probably need a soft box to spread the light more... but then we would have to go up on bulb size.

We are shooting chroma key... and the talent is sitting on a tall stool... so if we raise the light we get a shadow on the chroma key background... so sitting on the floor point up at about 45 to 60 degrees seems to keep a lot of the shadow of camera range on the back drop.

What are some of the ways you guys do this?

Thanks for any help.

Comments

Terry Esslinger wrote on 4/22/2008, 1:27 PM
3-point lighting
Cheno wrote on 4/22/2008, 2:21 PM
Shadows are a result of harder light sources, hence the bare bulb. Fluorescent lights will be a bit softer, thus reducing shadows. But unless your light is spread across the face evenly, you'll still get shadows but not so pronouced if you're using a second light to fill in the wrinkles, etc.
Ideally you need to soften your light source via diffusion or backing the light up if you're using the one single light. 50 watts won't buy you much unless you're shooting in the dark. Not sure what look you're going for but I would suggest at least two lights, one at about 8 o'clock and one at about 4 o'clock in relation to the subject, aiming away from the green screen but not completely at your talent's sides. This will help light evenly but keep it off your background.

For very little money, you can go buy a power strip, 4-6 socket to plug adapters and 4 - 6 100 watt equivelent fluro lightbulbs, throw some wax paper over the sucker or diffusion if you can find some and you've got a 400 - 600 watt light that will be bright, but not overly harsh and should light your talent up just fine. Granted, like Terry pointed out, 3-point lighting but in a bind, a large softlight will work and spill less onto your background.

cheno
JackW wrote on 4/22/2008, 4:34 PM
Chinese lantern with a 250w photo flood inside. Watch out for fire.

Jack
farss wrote on 4/22/2008, 5:10 PM
Chinese lantern with daylight 50W compact fluro inside. No need to worry about fire :)

Bob.
Cheno wrote on 4/22/2008, 5:16 PM
$10 bucks for the Chinese lantern at Ikea and $4 for the bulb at WalMart -

job's done ;)

farss wrote on 4/22/2008, 5:27 PM
Amen.

The traditional solution to the face that's showing its age is a beauty light i.e. a ring light that goes around the lens. Lightpanels make one such unit that seems to be pretty popular and expensive. One could take one of those 'camping' LED flying saucer things from eBay and mod it to fit around the lens.

The trick here is to use a very soft light source, not anything with a lens. You want the fastest light falloff possible to avoid getting shadows etc on the green screen. Getting as much separation as possible between the screen and subject is the other aspect to solving this.

Bob.
Guy S. wrote on 4/22/2008, 7:32 PM
A light source that is large relative to the subject will produce even, low-contrast lighting. I use a softbox to accomplish what you're trying to do. To keep light from going all over the place, I use an egg-crate (a cloth grid that sits in front of the diffuser), but you can also use piece of black foamcore between the light and the background to block stray light.

SV makes a fairly inexpensive (~$100) 24" x 24" softbox that uses regular Edison-base bulbs. I might try a lower-wattage bulb in the softbox, and place it close to your subject. Then I'd use a higher wattage light on the background.

It was suggested that you position lights at the 4 & 8 o'clock positions. This works well, and with a softbox I'm able to use a reflector instead of a light at the 2nd position.

I've also found that a Tiffen Warm+Soft filter (grade 1) adds color and helps hide lines.

Good luck!