Big Lebowski
Published by Misha Mazor on January 12th, 2014
NIGHTINT
The bowling was shot in an alley in Hollywood that is no longer there. We re wired the whole place with new florescent light fixtures which gave us enough light for the high speed work.
CARtag
Van driving scenes mostly poor mans process. That was soooo simple really. The lighting I used was two poles with, I think, three 100 watt bulbs fixed tightly together at the end of each. Each 'unit' was gelled with 1/2 CTO and wired back to a dimmer. An electrician wafted each pole across the windshield as though it were passing under a series of street lights on either side of the route whilst the dimmer was used to enhance the feeling of the light growing and diminishing in intensity. I have also done this with a large 'windmill' type of rig which rotates over the vehicle but for 'Lebowski' I was in a very low tech mode ( SPINNING WHEEL: from speed rail and fix flood lights at the ends of the spokes so that, when they are reflected in the windscreen, they look like the street lamps themselves). I don't remember having anything special for the back seat although there might have been a panning white light of some sort. [white light on left side & lights on dollies in BG for sure]
NIGHTEXT
The night 'bag drop' scene was lit using two BB Lights, I think. It may just have been two Condors with two 12K HMIs on each. I used some bounced 1.2 HMIs on the floor to edge closer shots and that was about it. For a scene like that it is important to find the optimum position where you can place your lighting units in order to cover the most shots with the least amount of change. We shot the scene over two nights, I seem to remember, and they were short nights. I shot on tungsten stock and used no correction on the lamps as I wanted a blue grey look to the scene.