Howdy. I've noticed in some movies and some high end television shows treated like a movie (though I can't for the life of me name any off the top of my head) will have a scene where the lights are very bright on the character. When this happens the part that is lit greatest becomes blurred or diffused. Almost as if the light itself is blurring the view into the camera. It gives things a "hotter" look, as if the temperature is high; or a surreal look. If you know what I'm talking about but don't know how to achieve this, could you cite an example because I just can't remember. Or if you know how to achieve this effect, how is it done?
-Kri
if your talking about that specific look that most soap operas have, there's a few of ways in which you can achieve this. but i think the easiest way would be to use filters. you can either use a filter on the camera lense or add it later on post.
i would give you the name of this type of filters but i can't think of the name right now.
I think I have an idea what you mean. I watched The Constant Gardener last night and there were a couple of shots where the lighting gave the feeling of heat (extremely bright around the edges of the character without washing out the rest of the image).
I don't know exactly how to achieve that, but I would suspect that if you're looking to highlight the edges of your characters, a strong backlight would work well (or you could place the light anywhere, really). If you've got a decent camera, you could also play around with iris and shutter settings (the larger the iris and the longer the shutter speed, the brighter the image will be in the end, especially if you've cast a strong, bright, hard light against something), as well as black level (to create a stark contrast between the bright light and the dark colors in the image). Now, this is all presuming that you really meant that it was hard lighting and not diffused lighting. Diffused would mean that the lighting was being spread out evenly (as indy said, much like a terribly plain looking ugly soap opera). I'm thinking you're talking about a lighting source so bright that it becomes washed out at it's brightest point, where the brighter the image is, the less detail and the more white you see. Hopefully I made sense...
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
a couple of shots where the lighting gave the feeling of heat (extremely bright around the edges of the character without washing out the rest of the image).
Yeah that's exactly what I mean, where the color is bright and washes out some of the image. I haven't seen that movie, but the way you describe the effect it sounds right.
Okay I'll experiment with it. And I'll also try in post. The Soap Opera feel is a bit much, but at the same time... maybe that's what I mean... Interesting.
Let us know how it works out, and how you achieved the effect:)
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
'In the life that man creates for himself, he too, creates his demise... and his legacy.'
