diagram: first touch.ai – daytime office scene

Unbleached muslin has reached a certain level of mysticism amongst the film community. But it also has a significant warming effect when combined with a daylight-balanced light.

A light that starts out at 5,600K will end up near 4,000K after being diffused by unbleached muslin. While this warmth can do wonderful things for darker skin tones, it tends to be too much of an effect for lighter skin tones.

To remedy this warming effect, bleached muslin was introduced! It retains the CCT of the light being diffused through it much better than the unbleached kind.

But! If you’re like me, sometimes a consistent 5,600k light can feel too ‘sterile’ in a scene, especially on an actors skin tones.

The reason for this is that light from the outside world is bouncing off all kinds of things, like trees, buildings, the sidewalk, the sky, etc., before it reaches our eyes. So in order to simulate this, some companies like The Grip House have begun making patchwork muslins. Instead of being all one color, these quilted muslins are a mixture of bleached, unbleached, sky blue, and day gray muslins.

The checkerboard in this scene simulated the light coming through the windows into the rest of the scene, and has the added bonus of warming a 5,600K light to around 5,000k or so, giving a more lively look to our talent!

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An Aputure 1200d was more than enough for a key for this scene. It’s double broken into the muslin to help reduce specular highlights and increase softness. A nanlite pavoslim 120c off a scissor clip provides the hair light, a Godox 60W little guy is bouncing off the wall on camera left to help fill in the shadow side of the background. Lastly, an Aputure 600d is adding some highlight detail through the rear window of the room!

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client: First Touch.AI
agency: Boulder Media House
prod: Aj Campli
dp: Bailey Miclette
1st ac: Dustin Wheeler
2nd ac: Sean Farney
gaffer: 🙋‍♂️
kg: Teej Morgan
pa: Deanna Schaekel