Studio Lighting - Film Noir Recration.

 This post is from before I decided to no longer do this particular image. I have kept it as I still did some research and analysis on this image.


 Within our studio lighting brief are to produce a still life and a portrait images to demonstrate different 'specialist' lighting techniques.  One of these images had to be a recreation, and one was to be of your own idea.

Here is the photograph I am going to recreate for the portrait shot,  it's in 'film noir' style, and the woman is meant to be portraying a femme fatale character. :

Film Nor lighting is a very specific style requiring minimal lighting (often only one or two lights) usually one side to create shadowy contrasted images. If the lighting is straight on, shadows can be eliminated and the resulting photograph can appear flat, side lighting helps define features by catching on protrusions and creating shadows.
Additionally, if the scene were lit with light from multiple angles and/or sides, shadows would appear twice and would be more grey than black, as the lights would affect the darkness of each others shadows.

On this photo I stole from Google images and converted to black and white, you can see how even though the ball is lit from the same side by two lights, the different angles of light have caused there to be two overlapping shadows.

If more than one light is used to light the subject, the second light is often pointed at a separate part of the image, or pointed so that the shadow won't affect existing shadows and can fall outside of the frame.

You can see in this image that more than one light has been used, but one is lighting the actors and one is lighting the background. This helps give the pair a strong outline and silhouette against the lit background and allows their faces to also be lit. You can't see the shadow of the actors as it falls outside the frame.

Another technique used in film noir is something called a 'Gobo' abbreviated from 'Go Between' a gobo is an object that goes between the light source and the subject to cast a shadow.

In the photo I'm going to attempt to recreate it appears as if a gobo has been used. Gobos can come in a variety of styles, and are usually metal plates with shapes cut out that fit in to a holder in front of the bulb. However, these can sometimes be too rigid in their application and it is always possible to fashion your own; for example: to create the blinds effect I could literally hold a set of blinds between the light and the model.

I think two lights have been used here, one with a gobo attachment to create the effect of blinds lighting from the side to the right of the frame, angled down between 45 - 60 degrees. This is the main light.

The second light is behind the model - possibly on a floor stand - lighting the background slightly, and catching on the models hair as you can see some illumination on the back. 

It's possible that some blocking cards have been used as the light stops abruptly at the hair line and I think a reflector may have come in to play as the side of the face that is in shadow is not completely black.

Prop-wise it should be quite easy to gather the items I need, so I am focusing more on my
 lighting. I am yet to take a test shot and need to get a move on!

Another less obvious prop is the smoke from the cigarette. As this can't be replicated in the studio (it's illegal to smoke inside a public building) I will have to add this in in post processing. The video tutorial below gives a simple example of how to achieve the effect of smoke. As it is such a small feature in the photo I think this quite basic method will suffice to give the illusion of smoke. 

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