Lighting nightmare

[Hicarrumba]

I am trying to photograph the set, tried today and failed, the white balance is a mess. I have Halogen floods rear lighting up a white back drop, I have tungsten lighting the mid stage area where every conceivable colours is due to costume, I have argon gas foot lights front and worst of all I need to photograph the projected image that is hanging from a rail 13 ft above the centre of the stage.

All the lights are like this The arrows show the direction of the lighting/Projection

Rear Halogen
Bar
Lighthouse
Bar
Bar
Lighting bar Tungsten Reds Blues >><<
Bar
Bar
Projection screen
Tungsten Greens Yellows>><<
Bar
Bar
Bar
Curtain
Projector^
Pin Spots ( unknown gas)
Bar
Bar
Front curtain
Apron
Apron
Apron
Apron
Footlights ^

I am getting a mash of colours, and the projected image is lost, any Ideas?

BTW each lighting bar is between 4 and 10 750w barn doors, the pins are 500w white the footlights are all 1kw floods 10 in all.

Might have to do a composite, but hoping I don't have to

[Marvin]

Dead easy....!



.



.



.



.



Mono..! :D

[Hicarrumba]

To be honest I tried, it was a little better but not what the director wants.

[benjiblanco]

how easily can you turn all the lights on and off independantly, or atleast in groups of the different temps and how long have you got John?

[JamesStan]

i think i see where ben is going with this, doing multiple esposures with just certain lights at a time then blending together in layers and masks?

[Hicarrumba]

Live performance :D also if I had the time I would have to have all the actors freeze long enough to change settings

[Shaun]

got any test shots mate? finding it hard to get my head round whats going on

[Hicarrumba]

At the moment mate no, the theater won't let me shoot until Saturday afternoon, its a policy to stop plagiarism but I have told them its our Musical, my set design and our copyright, but they saying that it would encourage the rest of the audience to take pics too, which in all honesty we are not that bothered about as we own the rights if they try to use the pics etc, but its their call so we have to obey.

I will try and get shots tonight before but there will be no action in them.

[badbadman]

A dilemma John and no easy answer by the look of it.

Whichever is the dominant lighting would be the one I'd set WB for and try and resolve any issues afterwards in PS.
It might be a case of multiple copies being adjusted and erasing and blending them to get the right look? :confuse:

[benjiblanco]

i think i see where ben is going with this, doing multiple esposures with just certain lights at a time then blending together in layers and masks?


Kind of James, i was going to suggest at least getting a white balance reading for the individual lights and calculating the overall temp. but would of gone that far too.


Have you thought of the expo disc white balance thingies???

http://www.warehouseexpress.com/white-balance-filters-expodisc/b3074-m76

I know i read somewhere about using a pringles lid or a plastic cup as a cheap alternative.

[Hicarrumba]

Hey ben you hit it on the head, I got one from camera mart in York and it works, I also thought of another way which might work too, from the raw file, take a white reading from the white drop and shoot the shot, then in the raw file alter it to all the different temps and save a pile of Jpegs, do you reckon that will work?

[benjiblanco]

im glad the expodisc works, never used one myself.

If in understand your second bit, then yep.

Id think rather than create a pile of jpegs, id create a stack of curve adjustment layers on one raw file. there must be plenty of neutral stuff in the shot to get readings for.