ot: lighting advice

winrockpost wrote on 9/6/2007, 6:02 AM
normally leave lighting to the pros, but doing a cooking show and lighting designer is not possible for the small budget. So, 2 cams shooting in a home kitchen.. dark wood cabinets along the entire back wall, dark skin talent , black marble counters... Got a couple arri kits and a couple a chimeras , but thinking stands everywhere is going to be cumbersome for the handheld, as well as dangerous .Been thinking about renting 2 kino banks and just flooding the whole kitchen with just those. Any help or suggestions please ,,,Mr Milt.., or any kind soul.
thanks

Comments

farss wrote on 9/6/2007, 6:15 AM
We've got one of those monster Kino 800 lights, very, very nice.
However this job sounds like a nightmare, the black counter tops will be reflective, the wood maybe, maybe not. All in all kind of like shooting a blind black cat in a coal cellar at night.
Large light source are the answer but where to put them. If this was in a studio you might have a fighting chance. How big is this kitchen?

I'm no lighting expert but to me this sounds like a big ask even for a pro. Maybe dressing the set up a bit so it doesn't suck so much light might really help. Perhaps hiding lights under cupboards, benches, anything, bounces of ceilings. The large light sources idea mightn't work too well in this space, if it's tight you've still got to fit a camera and you and you'll perhaps have no room to move the camera either.

And what about doors / windows, any other reflective surfaces?

Bob.
winrockpost wrote on 9/6/2007, 6:31 AM
lol,, yup

pretty big kitchen ,about 18' wide and 8' deep opens up to a family room so got all kind of room in front of an island and a few feet on the right side,, natural light can be controlled, one window and side door, going to prop out the countertops as much as we can without looking like we did
thanks Bob
farss wrote on 9/6/2007, 6:40 AM
If you have the space big scrims and fire lights into them.
Use daylight light sources, HMI or fluro. Less heat and it'll match anything coming in the windows.
One of my clients shot something not dissimilar recently with that talent against some of Sydneys wonderful beaches except the sand, sea and trees are a very strange color thanks to the tungsten lighting in the kitchen.

Thing is normally I'd follow the advice of the pros, don't be afraid of black but...
A camera with black stretch might help but make certain you've got enough light so the camera isn't using any gain and introducing noise into the blacks. Black stretch can make noise worse. If you have the budget a large chip SD camera, 709 (DB, expensive) or 570 (DVCAM, a lot cheaper) makes for a better image.

Bob.

Cheno wrote on 9/6/2007, 9:12 AM
Do you have an option to another kitchen set? You're more and more seeing cooking shows go to sets that are more vibrant and modern. You're dealing with so many dark tones that lighting will be a bear. Better to have a little more contrast between your talent and the cabinets / countertop. If not, I would suggest a pattern of some sort against your cabinets to break up the dark tones. Kino's or any fluoro packages will work and should take care of harsh shadows but my overall suggestion would be to find a different location.
vicmilt wrote on 9/6/2007, 12:25 PM
Not to be snide, but it's time to look for a new location - period.

8' wide is NOT a large space - it's a tunnel - lighting it will be a dog.

If you're only shooting for 3 minutes or less of screen time, you might be able to get away with that kind of "look" - dramatically "reportage", but a "cooking show" connotes 20 minutes or more, and has to be slick and sharp.

It can be done - and without a lot of money and crew.
It's so easy to find what you need, just do the legwork.

OK - you so won't listen to advice that will make your whole job easier and better - -
then position a lot of lights on the background cabinets FIRST to create separation from your main subject - if the basic shapes of foreground to background (in this very difficult situation) aren't there, your footage will stink. Check your exposures at this point in your camera. If you can't see anything, you need more light on the background.
Once you've got the basic separation of foreground and background, flood the front of the set from either side of the camera with a soft flat light.
Bob's suggestion of HMI's through a silk (cheap version - tack shower curtain liners to a 1x3 wood frame) and a lot of cheapo Halide bulbs will light 'er up. HOT AND DANGEROUS!!!

This'll work, but it's never gonna look good.

For that I suggest a large, light wood (NOT WHITE), matte finished cabineted kitchen - the bigger and brighter, the better... at least 15x20 feet. They are around - just ask.

How do pro's get their stuff to look so good? By paying attention to every detail, and pre-selecting elements that will MAKE them look good. Good looking locations, good looking talent, good looking wardrobe, good looking make-up, good lighting, good props - everything.

And don't whine to me about budget and how "hard" it is without money... boys (and girls) - I'm sailing in the same boat that you are, these days. It just takes a little effort and a lot of motivation.

No way would I ever shoot in the circumstance that you explained.

v
winrockpost wrote on 9/6/2007, 12:53 PM
.......OK - you so won't listen to advice that will make your whole job easier and better - -


Yes i will !!!!!! lots of faults here ,, but am a good listner. 8 minutes of the show is scheduled for the kitchen,, trust me i wish it was 8 secs,,, i wish it was in another kitchen, i wish i hadn't cashed the deposit check..oops whining now.
thanks guys,
rs170a wrote on 9/6/2007, 1:04 PM
winrock, are there any colleges in your area that have a cooking prgram?
If so, talk to them and see if it's possible to rent their kitchen for an afternoon.
I've done shooting in the kitchens in my community college and can tell you that it's a real pleasure having lots of working/shooting space.

Mike
richard-courtney wrote on 9/6/2007, 3:13 PM
Thanks for posting this. We ALL learn from each other.
8' is kinda tight.
JackW wrote on 9/6/2007, 3:41 PM
I had a similar situation a couple of years ago -- very tight space with lots of visual clutter. More or less solved the problems by lighting from outside the kitchen windows (i.e., through the windows) with a couple of Lowel light kits and by placing lights inside a closet that was next to the kitchen space.

As others have suggested, we made a point of lighting the background and the talent separately, to get maximum separation.

After a single establishing shot, we shot everything else as tight as possible: head and shoulder, CU of hands preparing food, etc., to minimize the background clutter.
Even with close up shots it's very important to look carefully at each shot to see what's in the background, and move things that distract from the talent. With the very dark backgrounds you describe, I'd use a gobo to create some kind of patterning on the cabinets -- anything to help break up the surfaces.

In post I used the Vegas Cookie Cutter to soften the background around the talent in the establishing shot to minimize the clutter.

Perhaps you can do something similar. Good luck.

Jack
vicmilt wrote on 9/6/2007, 3:49 PM
Local college - GREAT IDEA.
If you ask right, you might even get a free crew - just don't tell them you have no idea what you're doing.

Where are you located?

v
winrockpost wrote on 9/6/2007, 4:19 PM
i want to thank all for the great advice,, the college idea is real interesting,,here in Charlotte we have johnson and wales right down the road and we have a good working relationship with them,,, I think all their kitchens are pretty industrial looking but definitly big!!!, but they may have some sort of "home style" set up,, dont know.
going down there and have a look ,
thanks again
farss wrote on 9/6/2007, 4:30 PM
One could perhaps do what one of my clients did, rent a house in the country for a week. They ended up dressing up the living room as the kitchen, worked a treat and the cast and crew treated the shoot as more of a holiday than hard work. There's oftenly houses sitting empty during the off season that the landlord is more than happy to get any form of rent for.

One light to not overlook is the Joker Bug from K5600, all manner of useful snoots and tubes can be latched onto the front of the basic light and being a 800W HMI (not a halide) they pump out a lot of light. Very expensive to buy but very reasonable to rent. Rental on good lighting gear comes at a much cheaper rate than cameras per dollar of capital cost. You still might not have the budget but too often people think that because it's expensive to buy it's going to be expensive to rent and yet much of the heavy metal that the film guys use is very cheap to rent...relatively. That's why you see truck loads of it just sitting around on a big shoot, very different to the cameras.
I'd say the same thing about scrims (silks), don't invite disaster using shower curtains when a big scrim is like $30 to rent, with stands.

One suggestion, why shoot inside at all. Many of the cooking shows are now shot outdoors, lighting is very cheap, maybe just one big silk and a reflector or two with stands and shot bags. A nice looking BBQ, a solid table, nice location. Heck even have the guys serve up food for the crew, looks very authentic. Apart from silk you can oftenly rent the table(s), chairs, BBQ and a truck to move it from the one company.
Getting yourself stressed out over a shoot is not the right way to get a good result. If the whole thing can be made fun everything flows well. So getting outdoors for a "picnic" puts everyone at ease.

Bob.