• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

Lighting hard with flourescents.

H

harmonica44

I want a hard shadowy film noir look for a movie in some office scenes. I want the office to be lit with fluorescents, to give that office feel. However, fluorescents do not give off a hard light, but a soft one, therefore less shadow of course. I tried halogen lights and white balanced them, but although the halogens come out white, they still don't lool like fluorescent lights. It's more of a warm white, and not a cool white, I guess. It just doesn't look like it.

So can I light hard, but still have a flourescent look? I don't wish to use CFL bulbs either though, as they are just not bright enough for wide deep focus shots I want. I couldn't find any tutorials on this style specifically. Thanks.
 
Last edited:
Sort by date Sort by votes
Plus green or minus green lighting gels will give a green or magenta spike respectively to a halogen lamp… although I would argue that the look of an office lit by fluorescent lights is as dependent on the quality of light (i.e. how soft or hard it is) as it is the colour.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Film noir isn't about necessarily creating realism in lighting - just because they're in an office doesn't necessarily mean the lighting has to be motivated as fluorescent, especially overhead fluorescent.

Softness of a light is directly related to it's size. Therefore it's also related to it's distance (I.e. as a light gets further away, it will become 'smaller').
Small lights are harder, big lights are softer. Fluorescents are already big and soft, so you're going to have a tough time making them hard if that's what you're trying to do.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yeah, cause it's film noir I'm not going for realism. I just want the fluorescents look to go with it for style. However I don't want green fluorescents. I want them to white in some scenes and that blue flourescent look in others. So if I put green gel over the halogens, then white balance it, will still look like fluorescent, or do I have to white balance the light first, then put the gel on after? I don't want them to appear green in the shots though.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I definitely would not use fluorescent lighting- like it's been said- very soft. If you want that hard noir look and are too cheap to invest in some eBay Chinese Fresnels- buy those $8 tungsten work lights at the lowes/HP. The color temps will be all over the place but it may not matter (b&w?)- or fix it in post.

How soft? I shot a short film and I used over 2K of fluorescent (that's 2,000 watts- that's right-wow).

Absolutely nothing but soft light. Bright but soft.

Now, if it's a sci-fi project.. well.. that's the way to go!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oh I already have work lights, and they are bright. They just don't have that fluorescent office feel which I am going for. I'm planning on doing this in color, but film noir in the sense of hard lighting.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You can make florescent lights hard by moving them FAR away from the subject. The inverse square law then requires that you increase the amount of light to make up for the distance...

Florescent lights are large lights relative to the subject, large lights are soft. To make large lights relatively small, they need to be moved away (like the sun -- large light, far away) which will make them hard lights.

Geeky physics reason: specifically by considering only a smaller angle of the photons emitted from the source makes their vectors more aligned (collimated) which reduces the soft edges (penumbra) of the shadow. The reduction of the penumbra makes the shadows hard.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay thanks!

scottspears said:
You're fighting an uphill battle. Fluorescent light is always going to soft. Your request is kind of like saying I want to jump in the ocean and not get wet.

Tungsten or halogen is the way to go. There are a few focusable LED lights out there now, too. (http://www.zabolight.com/inc/sdetail/z_mini_fresnel/567)

Just like was suggested, adding a green gel will give you that flo-feel.

Scott
Click to expand...

What do you mean by 'flo-feel'?

I am doing some tests to make flourescents look a little harder. However I need lights that are bright enough for mastershots, since I would like to keep hopefully more than one person in focus at a time. I can gel the halogens green for that, but what's the point of white balancing lights with green gels on them, if they are going to just go white anyway?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Can you take a hammer and mash screws into wood?
Yeah, you will most likely manage to do that as long as the hammer is big enough and screws are quite small.

But wouldn't it be better to use a screwdriver instead?

I hope you get the allegory
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top