When you want to work with the light set outside, for lighting long shots you will need quite
powerful light sources.
If it is LED you will need something about 300 watt of power or more.
In this art project I used light sources from litepanel brand, because Arri light sources
would be very expensive for my tasks.
Lite panel kindly provided me a few types of light sources.
It was LED Sola 9 and Sola 6 models with fresnel lens which can lit very far and be
focused.
Also, I had litepanel Gemini 1x1 and 2x1 models for soft, powerful and spectacular color lights.
BMPCC 6K (not a pro) was chosen as the main camera for this project.
Most likely you paid attention to the anamorphic character of the image.
Lens flare and oval bokeh all these things are specific for LOMO anamorphic vintage lens
As I worked in the big space I need to communicate with my team and gaffer on the distance.
Hollyland t1000 helped me with this task.
I had a control under the situation with light setup during the process of building the camera set.
Hollyland t1000 was very simple for using.
I just turned on the hub base and could speak with my team of 4 people at the same time.
Okay, how can I lit the night scenes that the image will look volumetric.
I just try to add in this scene some contrast elements.
It was a color contrast of red and white-green.
Also, I wet asphalt of water to make it look a little bit cinematic and volumetric.
Wet asphalt has reflection and looks more attractive than when it is dry.
Also, I added the smoke for backgrounds to make this look like a steam from under the
sewer cover.
To separate the car from the dark background, we put the litepanel gemini 2x1 with diffused
light above the car.
Backlight set for the car.
Red light from the rear lights is not expressive.
Guess what we did?
Yes, we added an extra red light near the rear lights of the car.
To highlight the main character from the background, the solar 9 litepanel lit it as a backlight.
During the set of this scene we lost light from the billboard on the building.
The place was just closed.
We added an extra light point near this building with litepanel gemini 1x1.
This light like arri sky panel can work with dynamic mode.
We have chosen dynamic light of red color.
This lens flare from sola 6.
Let's summarize this scene.
When I looked at this place I think about how to create volume here.
I used light, smoke, water and expressive LOMO lens for cinematic volume.
As I told before, the litapanel Gemini has all opportunities of skypanel.
I used some art light mode like a photo flash, or color gradient.
I can control speed and colors of lights on the back panel gemini or use a smartphone
app.
When we worked with art shots of middle shots I was talking with my gaffer by radio, he
was on a parallel street and I gave the command to block the streetlights and put one powerful
and clean light source.
We put lite panel sola 9 as the backlight.
If you know how 1000 watts of HMI works, you can imagen the power of sola 9.
So, what principles I used in filming in the night.
1) The first - I tried to imitate all additional light sources like a natural streetlights
or billboards.
It helps the scene light not to look fake.
Observing this principle I can put a light source anywhere and lit objects as I want.
The second - I chose the backlight technique because if you shoot with low-key atmosphere
this setup can emphasize objects in the frame.
In this situation the scene can look volumetric.
Also - I used powerful light sources because if I didn’t have a powerful light source,
I could not lit big space and objects like a car.
You don't have to have a light source with crazy power, for working with night street
it will be enough to have about 300 or 500 wats.