Some lighting styles, like the overall soft light from above, will generally require greater use of eye lights. To obtain a clear sparkle in the eye, such light will usually be situated very close to the lens. But due to the curvature of the eye, some people’s eyes will pick up an eye light from the side as well. And some actors have to blink just before a take for more moisture in their eyes.
A small light mounted on the camera is traditionally known as an “Obie” light, because it was originally designed by the cinematographer Lucien Ballard for his actress wife, Merle Oberon. When this light is stronger, it can serve as a general fill light for a close-up, but often it is used at a very low intensity just to create glints in the eyes. Many times it will be a little baby or an inky dink, with a lot of diffusion or scrims, or both.
Philip Lathrop, ASC
For an eye light I use a little inky dink with a snoot on it. It is very soft. It does not fill the face. All it does is reflect in the eye.
For an effect like cat’s eyes in headlights, we can mount a 50 percent transmission front mirror at 45 degrees in front of the lens and shine a lamp into it. Light reflected by the mirror will hit the eye on the lens axis. By rigidly mounting the mirror and the lamp to the camera, we can execute pans and tilts with the light always staying on the optical axis of the lens. This method was used effectively by Jordan Cronenweth in Blade Runner.
The eye light does not have to be circular. Using snoots and black masking tape, we can create other geometrical shapes. A strangely shaped eye light can add a bizarre feeling to the scene. A special eye light is of course superfluous if there is already a frontal fill light employed.
To create a very accentuated light reflection in the eye, the light must come on the optical axis of the lens. To obtain this condition, a 50 percent surface mirror is mounted at a 45° angle in front of the lens, and an inky lamp is pointed into it. A one-foot-square mirror and the lamp are rigidly mounted to the camera to remain in alignment during the camera moves.
Stephen Burum, ASC
Projected fill is a very useful tool. You can put an inky over the top of the camera with a snoot on and it gives you an eye light and it also cleans up all the little wrinkles that we are getting. You can put Micro-Flos (from Kino Flo), and if you want someone to look like a cat, you put them vertically, or you can put them horizontally. You can put three or four eye lights, depending on what the mood is. If you have somebody as a bad guy and you don’t know yet that he is bad, you may choose not to have an eye light at all, so the eyes look dead. Or it can make someone look sad. That’s one of the tools you use to shape the character—the kind of eye light, the shape of it, and whether you have it or don’t have it. Somebody who has dark eyes is easier to manipulate. I made a film called The Shadow, and when the Shadow would hypnotize his subject, we had special contact lenses with a reflective coating, and we would put an eye light at 45 degrees and make his eyes change on the dimmer.
Dante Spinotti, ASC
For eye lights I use inky dinkies. I have a special technique for using them: I usually put them over the lens on top of the camera, slightly to the left or right of the zoom lens, half an inch on the opposite side to the key, full flood. You can control them with the barndoors. I just “feather” the light, checking it with my hand going up and down. And when I barely see it on the actor’s face, then it is the right level. Reflection in the eye is the main reason for doing that. Of course when you dim it down, you have to adjust color temperature with the gels. And I love having a big Kino Flo source, like a 4 × 4 ft., maybe even coming from the floor, from the ground on a camera side. I control it by using some layers of bobbinet till it is right. There is one position for these Kino Flos on the ground where they will give you a very interesting kick in the corner of the eye.
Richmond Aguilar, gaffer
When you use a fill light close to the lens, it becomes your eye light at the same time. With Laszlo Kovacs, we usually used a good-size fill light. Usually a 2K, roughly 24 in. square, behind the camera and pretty close to the lens level. It puts a glint in the center of the eye.
M. David Mullen, ASC
In theory, an eye light is just there to provide a bright reflection in the eyes and is not the same as the fill light. However, often whatever you’re using for fill will also be reflected in the eyes, so many times I don’t work on adding any additional eye lights. Sometimes a large, soft fill light will get partially blocked by the camera, operator, and focus puller when shooting in close proximity to the actor, especially when using wider-angle lenses for close-ups; you then may need to add a smaller fill light physically closer to get around the obstructions. This special fill light will usually act as a nice eye light as well. In those cases the fastest thing for me has been to tape a bare Kino Mini-Flo tube to the matte box, but lately I have also been using a Litepanels LED unit called the Micro. It takes regular AA batteries and it is very lightweight, so it is very quick and easy to put on a camera. It has a little dimmer knob on it. The Litepanels Micro only comes with 5500K “spot” LEDs, so it has a little 85 acrylic filter to correct it to the tungsten. They also provide a little diffusion panel to soften it a bit. Even the best fluorescents and LEDs have some tendency toward a mild green bias depending on how warm the unit gets, but when used as an eye light or a weak fill, it’s harder to see that color problem. When necessary, though, I will add some minus green correction gel. Some of these newer digital cameras seem more sensitive to that green bias than film does.
Mauro Fiore, ASC
I use eye lights quite a bit actually. I really think what shape a lamp will reflect in the eyes, whether it is going to be square or round, and that’s what I make my judgment on. That’s usually when I have my key light wrapping and I don’t want to use any fill light. One eye may have gone completely dark. This eye light has to be very little.
Robert Elswit, ASC
For eye light I always end up getting something far away behind the camera. I have to say that not interfering with actors or interfering as little as possible is a wonderful thing.
I’ll always end up taking like a Tweenie, putting a lot of scrim in it, a diffusion on the barndoor, putting a frame a couple of feet away, backing it up, and finding a good angle, and putting it on a dimmer. And hopefully it is just an eye light, and I am not seeing a shadow. On more modern film I may use a Kino, a small fluorescent.
James Plannette, gaffer
I find the Litepanel Mini ingenious. At the last minute when you realize, “Oops, there is no light in the eyes,” you can actually handhold it. It dims, so you can adjust intensity, and it makes for a wonderful eye light. Usually a big bounce fill is better because it gives a nice big highlight in the eyes. In a case where somebody is looking down or the eyes are deep-set, then the little Litepanel is very handy. If a person is looking into a computer, the computer screen isn’t enough; the little Litepanel sitting on the desk, hidden by the computer, does it. You can make them any color you want with gels. The dimmer is attached as part of the unit.
Len Levine, gaffer
For eye lights, before the LEDs we used the xenon flashlights. You just put a heavy diffusion, lots of diffusion for an eye light and a really long snoot to control it. It works for daylight and tungsten and there is no heat. For tungsten you just gel it. The Litepanels are fantastic for eye lights. We use them a lot.
Sometimes it is a single 2 ft. Kino, sometimes even a 4 ft. Kino. Sometimes it is just a bounce, just getting a piece of something, so an actor gets it when he looks a certain way.
Wally Pfister, ASC
Beginning with Batman Begins I had to do a lot of testing because I wanted to keep it very dark and I didn’t want to light up the latex cowl that Batman was wearing. In testing I wanted to know how dark I could go but still see the light in his eyes. On this first film I ended up using the Kino Flo light called the Kamio Ring Light. It is a circular light. I was able to bring it pretty close to the subject and I dimmed it way down. I ended up sh
ooting about three and a half stops underexposed, so I just got the dot in the eye but no illumination on the cowl. In The Dark Knight we did the same thing, but this time we were using Litepanels. My gaffer Cory Geryak and myself, we first tried it on The Prestige. We tried one of them and it wasn’t enough and it was very directional. So he ganged three of them together and we put a little lightbox at the end of it, what they call a Croniecone, with a diffusion at the outside. So that became what we used on Prestige. So coming back to Batman, we wanted the source to be a bit harder. So we got rid of the diffusion and we used a smaller LED panel, the Micro. It turned out to be really great because there is a dimmer on it so we could dial it exactly where we wanted it and Cory handheld it a lot of the time.
The traditional attitude of Hollywood producers used to be that if you pay an actor big money, you want to see his eyes. Following this reasoning, the most expensive actors would be given the most elaborate eye lights. Happily this rather naive approach is nowadays often modified by the conceptual requirements of the story. It was rather revolutionary at the time to have Marlon Brando very dimly lit in some key scenes of The Godfather, photographed by Gordon Willis (ASC). Nevertheless, the film became one of the cinematographic classics of our time. Once again, the thought expressed by many great cameramen comes to mind: what you don’t light is often more important than what you do light.
Chapter Seven
Lighting on Location
Even when a film is shot primarily in the studio, the crew goes out to location for some of the filming. There are different kinds of locations presenting a wide range of problems.
The cinematographer has to cope with the weather and the changing light angles on a day exterior. He or she is often cramped in small spaces and faced with mixed light situations on interior locations. Night street scenes often call for low light levels to preserve the existing light ambience of shop windows and signs. And car interiors multiply all these problems by movement.
Many of these problems can be identified and solved ahead of time if the cinematographer is hired early enough to scout the locations and help choose them. Director Robert Wise preferred to have his cameraman with him when scouting locations.
Robert Wise, director
I try to get a cinematographer at least three to four weeks ahead of the production if possible. If it is humanly possible, you should have your cameraman when you are looking for locations. At least he should visit the locations, talk them up thoroughly, and discuss the shooting and the shooting continuity, how best to take advantage of the light in terms of the shooting.
As well as planning the logistics for shooting at the location, the cinematographer can make some aesthetic judgments in preproduction.
Caleb Deschanel, ASC
One of the reasons the cameraman should be involved early enough to go along and help to pick the locations is that he is the one who has to translate whatever those locations or sets are into the visual elements of the film. Usually stills are enough to document locations, but now I am using video as well, because video can give you a sense of moving through a space.
One of the reasons you choose a location is because of what it is, and you say, “This is perfect,” because of a certain mood or atmosphere that it has. I think that a lot of cameramen make the mistake of going into a location and having something that is absolutely perfect and then lighting it in a way that is the total antithesis of what that is, ruining what you had in the first place. I think that is a terrible mistake to make.
Apart from the aesthetic considerations, a cinematographer scouting a location should also investigate the logistics in depth. Carry a compass with you to establish the arc of the sun even on an overcast day. Investigate the power supply and the access and space for equipment. Once the action is discussed, you will be able to figure out how many hours it will take to light it.
Location Exterior
Leaving the predictability and comforts of a studio, one faces various challenges in terms of weather and logistics on exterior locations. At the same time they offer a rich palette of creative opportunities for the cinematographer.
DAYLIGHT
Film locations are infinitely varied and complex. Our chief interest here is the type of light encountered and used on locations. Let’s start with daylight exteriors. Daylight is certainly the most exquisite source and its nuances are endless. It constitutes a great challenge and requires careful study. Great cinematographers never cease in this effort.
James Wong Howe, ASC
Before the shooting is scheduled, I go there very early in the morning, before daybreak, and stay there all day till midnight to study how the light changes. I take still photographs on the same stock I use when filming. I take pictures every two or three hours from the same angle. I have positive transparencies made and project them on the screen.
Nowadays the cinematographer may not be given the time for such meticulous preparation, but it should still be possible to design the strategy of shooting the scene in relationship to the changing daylight. Unfortunately, the cinematographer is often at the mercy of the director and the schedule.
Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
On exteriors it depends on the director, the budget, and the schedule. If I can convince the director that we will still finish the day’s schedule and not pay all the big money for overtime, then he will let me shoot at the right time. But if it means a lot of money, they are not going to allow it. Then you just have to figure out how to make a scene look sunsety when you have to shoot at 2 p.m. You have this problem a lot of times. It is not easy but you just have to find ways of doing it.
The constant change in the character and quality of daylight causes many headaches for the cinematographer on location. There are several ways to tackle this problem.
Richard Hart, gaffer
Daylight changes. What you try to do is to shoot your wide shots first and design them so the light is best for you in the overall condition. Then you shoot your coverage, your closer shots where there is more control, under the butterfly. You can alter your background. The saying in the old westerns was, “A tree is a tree and a rock is a rock.” If they went by this rock but now the light is gone there and there is another rock over here with light on it, that rock is the rock. Now, if there is architecture or another identifiable thing in the background, then you have other tools to try to work with. You cheat a little bit and still see some of the building or whatever. You scout the location and you take into consideration what you are shooting and the time of the day you are going to be there. If you are going to be there all day, where does the sun come up in the morning and where does it go down? A lot of times they want to shoot the close-ups in the middle of the day. That way they can control the light with the silk over the top. Then they can light with additional lamps.
With the changing light and changing weather, day exterior shooting can be extremely challenging in the matching of shots. A scene may require a few days of shooting and over these days the light quality can be anything but constant. There are limits to what can be matched by skill and technology, so it often becomes the problem of a production manager and other people involved in planning and scheduling. Nevertheless, a cinematographer with an ingenious and cooperative director can overcome considerable light changes by planning and staging the shots, and by the use of overheads and filters. For example, if a scene started in heavy smog and it is continued the next day in much lighter smog and the day after in clear air, the cameraman is likely to use a light low-contrast or fog filter on the second day and increase the filter effect by using a heavy low-contrast or fog on the third day. A scene may be started on an overcast day, but there is a good likelihood of the sun coming through later. The cinematographer can buy some insurance by creating a sunny effect with the HMIs. If, on the other hand, the scene was started as cloudy and should continue as such, emerging sunshine can be blocked out in closer shots by a black solid overhead.
Often a skilled cinematographe
r can actually save time and money by creating lighting continuity in changing weather.
20 × 20 ft. overhead frame with silk for diffusing sunlight
James Wong Howe, ASC
When actually shooting on an outside location, sometimes one has to create a sun effect when the sun is covered with clouds. For example, I had this experience when shooting a film with John Garfield in the desert in Palm Springs. We were shooting around a shed where they were packing dates. We lost the sunlight, so the production manager called the studio to tell them that we could not continue shooting. The studio boss asked to speak to me and said, “Jimmy, I understand there is a problem there with the sun, but we don’t know when that sun will be out again. Now I want you to try to finish it and come back to the studio so we can keep on schedule.” I said, “Well, I can do it providing the director will let me pick the setups so that I don’t have to make reverse shots shooting out toward the desert. I cannot light that desert up, but I can light the packing shed.” He said, “Well, get the director on the phone.” Naturally the director had to agree with this suggestion, so I picked setups and had him plot the action so that we did not have to shoot the reverse shots. The packing shed was only about fifty feet across and I had four or five arcs. I could duplicate the sunlight and match it perfectly. Before we finished, it started to rain. Fortunately, with a light background (the packing shed was whitewashed), you could not see the rain coming down. We finished in time, packed up, and went home. The next day we looked at the dailies and this scene matched perfectly together with the sunny part.
Film Lighting Page 27