diagram: elevate dental – interior dental office

Small interiors can be a hassle to light because lighting equipment is large and light tends to bounce around off white walls.

Three tools helped me control stray beams in this scene: bouncing the key, a grid on the Nanlite 120C, and multiple flags within the scene.

There was a giant wall where we’d normally want a key to go, so to resolve this, and in general to get a more appealing key light in small spaces, I set up a book light. An Aputure 1200d was fired into an ultrabounce floppy and redirected into an 8×8 rag of 1/2 grid.

A grid (not to be confused with aforementioned 1/2 grid diffusion) helps focus the spread of the beam angle of any light that its attached to. When used on a hair light like I did in this scene, a grid helps to keep the background from being brightened.

Floppies are great because they literally just block light from going where you don’t want it to. A 4×4 floppy was tented over the camera to block some light on the talent in our foreground, helping our lead actress to stand out.

Finally, another flag was placed below the Aputure 600d, controlling direct spill into the room while giving me the ability to lift the shadow side of the space by raking it across the ceiling.

client: Elevate Dental
prod: Esteban Obregon
dp: Gabe Fermin
1st ac: Noelle
gaffer: Tyler Trepod
sound: Mitch
pa: Chloe Magdalene