Shooting by Tiki Torch?

[Tom Lowe]

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/761/tikiyu7.jpg

I'm real big on natural light, and have been giving a lot of thought to how I can shoot night scenes that are supposed to take place in a campground for my RED feature... without electrical light. One of the ideas I have been exploring is tiki torches.

On a recent camping trip I brought along a few tiki torches, and they seemed to provide a hell of a lot of light. In the past, we have used a flicker unit with a simple red chinese ball/100-watt lightbulb to simulate and/or augment real campfire, but the results left much to be desired.

A couple of great things about tiki torches: First, they are dirt cheap (4 bucks at walmart) and they burn forever. Second, they are basically silent. No need to hear a gennie grinding away in the distance or a campfire drowning out dialog and choking the crew every time the wind changes direction. And third, the light is very warm, very realistic and very beautiful, at least to the human eye.

Has anyone ever tried shooting human beings lit at night with only a couple tiki torches? This is actually going to be my first RED test in Dec. I have some tiki-torch holders that you basically pound into the dirt, and I suppose you could bring along a little saw to cut the bamboo poles to whatever height you needed. I figure, a couple tiki torches, placed about 4 or 5 feet from the actors, with very fast lenses and ASA800 or 1000, should work out okay? Does that sound feasible? I guess if it's too dark I could just keep lighting more and more torches, or bring them closer the subjects.

BTW, Jarred, is there any chance we could get a straight-up Cinematography forum here?

[Michael Ragen]

It seems like you could make this work. I'm super big on natural light as well. I shot a short with an HVX where there was a lantern scene and we just broke off a piece of a duraflame log and set it on fire in the lantern and it turned out pretty well. It was still noisy, but it was shot on the HVX...

You can also compensate for low light by opening the shutter up to 220 degrees or so. 99.9 percent of people wouldn't know the difference between that and 180 degrees.

[jbeale]

From everything I've seen so far, the Red is at least as good for noise in low light as modern DSLRs, for example Canon 20D, 30D, 40D etc. So if you used such a DSLR for this torchlight photo, you should have a good feel for how the Red could perform (unless you used a very slow shutter speed).

[Tom Lowe]

Yes, in fact, from the samples I have seen, the RED is actually far superior to DLSRs in low light.

BTW, not only do I plan to use the tiki torches as stand-ins for campfire light, I have written tiki torches into the script as practicals around the campground sets. Of course, for close-ups on actors, I will cheat it and bring the torches in a little closer.

[David Mullen ASC]

Anything that produces flames can be useful, whether a gas flame bar, tiki torches, a second off-camera campfire.

It's all really about distance to the subject -- for most medium to close shots, small flames like that can create enough light or augment an existing fire.

Also, if someone is standing with their backs to a big campfire and you want a little fill, bounce cards (white or silver) can be used to reflect the real fire back into the shadows.

The problem always comes in scenes where the character, for story reasons, is several yards away from the campfire. Then either you need to bring some flames closer for exposure and pretend they are from far away, or have that person who is so far away from the campfire fall into a different light source, probably moonlight logically.

I remember a campfire scene shot by Philippe Rousselot for "The Bear" which was very realistic, as if the campfire was the only light source in the woods. I believe it was probably augmented artificially, maybe not, but it felt like it was just lit by the fire.

Since real flames flicker quite a bit on film, I've augmented real campfire light with just a little even soft light, like from a orange-gelled Kinoflo tube buried in the ground next to the fire. That has the advantage of keeping the exposures from jumping too radically, by having this weak soft light mixed with real firelight. Allen Daviau had a very realistic fire scene in the evacuated family house in "Empire of the Sun", lit with a flame bar... but with a diffused, orange-gelled tweenie shining through the flame bar - the flames naturally created a flicker effect by the way they moved in front of the light from the tweenie. And judging from the shallow depth of field of the shot, obviously it was shot near wide-open and a lot of the exposure was from the real fire.

[liquidigital]

Tom I plan to use my Canon 30d to gage set-ups. Probably same lenses too, if I go with the Birger mount. In this situation (even though it's RAW) I might still throw a blue filter on the lense just to monitor it that way.

[Tom Lowe]

Be careful. That 30D might not match up in terms of ASA possibilities, noise, dynamic range, etc.

Why use a filter?

[liquidigital]

You have a good point, but my 30d is damn good with noise. It would be great to run a comparison, because I think it would make for a great tool on set. Ultimately, I'll still be lighting by monitor. I'd filter just cause it's a bit too, too warm for my tastes. But that's me. Of course this could be adjusted anyway in post, but the red tinge on the skin seems a bit too strong. Can't wait to see your stuff though. :)

[jbeale]

Any filter you add is going to reduce light and push your noise levels up, so if you've got a low light situation and noise is a concern at all, I'd think pushing the color around in post is preferable.

[liquidigital]

You could gel the torches.

Just kidding. lol

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah, because you are shooting RAW, no need for blue filters. You have so much control over the temp, exposure, hue, saturation, etc.

Then again, light is never "too warm" for me! :)

[liquidigital]

Yeah, because you are shooting RAW, no need for blue filters. You have so much control over the temp, exposure, hue, saturation, etc.

Yep, RAW is awesome. The filter would be strictly for viewing purposes (on the monitor). In Zodiac, they threw a magenta filter over the Viper to correct for its green cast, I believe.

[M Most]

Yep, RAW is awesome. The filter would be strictly for viewing purposes (on the monitor). In Zodiac, they threw a magenta filter over the Viper to correct for its green cast, I believe.

That's commonly done with the Viper, but it has nothing to do with monitoring. It is done to minimize clipping, by "presetting" the three color channels to have about the same response. This allows more information in the red and blue channels than would normally be the case because without it, the green channel would be clipping before the red and blue - at least in theory. If all you want is "proper" monitoring, you're better off using a monitor like a Cinetal and creating a viewing LUT that you then use on the monitor. That's the way it's usually done on both Viper and Genesis productions.

[liquidigital]

That's commonly done with the Viper, but it has nothing to do with monitoring. It is done to minimize clipping, by "presetting" the three color channels to have about the same response. This allows more information in the red and blue channels than would normally be the case because without it, the green channel would be clipping before the red and blue - at least in theory. If all you want is "proper" monitoring, you're better off using a monitor like a Cinetal and creating a viewing LUT that you then use on the monitor. That's the way it's usually done on both Viper and Genesis productions.

"...The DP did not use look-up tables, which typically allow on-set color correction (without impacting raw data capture) to offset the flat, greenish cast of the FilmStream mode when viewed on a dual-link 4:4:4 monitor. Through pre-production testing, Savides and Fincher arrived at a series of magenta filters to place in front of the Viper’s sensors, which made the image look “semi- normal,” in the words of Mavromates. “Not one hundred percent, but not nearly as flat and green as typical RAW digital capture.” "


This is from ..... http://www.cameraguild.com/index.html?magazine/0702/stoo.htm~top.main_hp

Link doesn't go directly to article for some reason. Have to search for "Zodiac" then it comes up.

[M Most]

"...The DP did not use look-up tables, which typically allow on-set color correction (without impacting raw data capture) to offset the flat, greenish cast of the FilmStream mode when viewed on a dual-link 4:4:4 monitor. Through pre-production testing, Savides and Fincher arrived at a series of magenta filters to place in front of the Viper’s sensors, which made the image look “semi- normal,” in the words of Mavromates. “Not one hundred percent, but not nearly as flat and green as typical RAW digital capture.” "


You're quoting an article that didn't necessarily give you the full story, and might not have interpreted Harris' comments correctly. Any time you put a filter in front of a lens, you are impacting the image that you are capturing. It's not just the monitor that sees the altered image, it's the camera itself. So if you're going to use optical filtering, you need to make sure that it's affecting the image - and thus the data - in a way you want it to, regardless of what a monitor is telling you while you shoot it. Having said that, I stand by what I said, as it comes directly from many people I know and have worked with - inside and outside of Thomson - who have done extensive testing with various filter packs in an attempt to maximize the usable dynamic range of the Viper. That would include Dave Stump, Geoff Boyle, Gary Demos, and numerous others with whom I have had conversations and experience with on this particular subject.

Bottom line: magenta filtering is not really for monitoring purposes. Although that's not to say that it can't be used for that, but you need to be aware of what it's doing along the way.

[liquidigital]

Bottom line: magenta filtering is not really for monitoring purposes. Although that's not to say that it can't be used for that, but you need to be aware of what it's doing along the way.

That's a very good point and I agree, no question about it, it's important to know.

[damonbots]

Four Tiki's allowed my little piece of crap point and shoot to grab this shot at 1/30 sec. The second experiment didn't turn out so well. With RED's full sized sensor, I'm pretty confident tiki's will work just fine for your scene, Tom.

Or... you could just rob a damn bank and hire David and crew to shoot it.:gun: