Love Between Storeys

This marks the end of our Elevator Set series. Hope you had an enjoyable read!

Here’s a handy index page for every update: Making Love Between Storeys Index.
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The emergency light mode kicks in when the elevator goes from complete darkness into a power saver mode. The top light and ceiling spots are off and the only available light comes through the doors and the floor at this time. This was the most interesting sequence lightingwise for me (Nils-Erik) as I love dark and moody stuff.

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A very common question for beginners on the film-making scene is, how do you light darkness? The answer is, you can’t. You need a light source somewhere for the audience to realistically be able to see anything. There’s a scene in the script when the elevator goes dark, and we used the gaps in the elevator doors to get some light into that darkness.

When the elevator goes dark, we switch the lights off mid-shot. First, the lights are on...

... then they're out. See the boxes of light left to give some light to the actors.

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Normal light mode is the general light set up for when the characters hang out in the elevator. All our light sources (ceiling, wall spots, doors and floor) are in use during this mode. There’s slight variation in how much power is channelled into the ceiling lights depending on which stage of the elevator sequence we’re in.

The light is a bit more harsh (harder and less soft) at the beginning and the end of the elevator sequence. This was achieved by removing some of the garden plant cover from the sides of our soft and powerful top light, and also by channeling more power into the bulbs through our dimmer. This subtle variation was done to get a softer mood in the elevator while the characters get to know each other.

I’d imagine that without access to a dimmer pack, we would’ve simply switched a bunch of the 150 watt bulbs to 100 watt (or less) bulbs.

Here’s a couple of framegrabs where we break down what exactly is happening lightingwise to give you a practical idea of how we worked on our shots.

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Jenny and Adam standing in the lift (before blackout). All our lights are in use

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In this section we cover the different light modes in the elevator and what different moods they give to the elevator sequence.

We had three different light modes in the elevator:

1) Normal – When the characters hang out in the elevator

2) Darkness – During the power outage

3) Emergency light mode – When the elevator is in power saver mode

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We decided the emergency console and floor labels needed a light of their own so that the audience could see them. This was done by rigging a lamp behind the console.

We also slapped on a blue filter to get a mechanical sheen to the labels. This would also make them stand out a bit more.

Testing how blue the buttons should be

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We used fluorescent tube lamps to shoot light from the floor. These were normal household tube lamps, not unlike bathroom lighting. The lamps consisted of two tube lamps under a milky plastic cover.

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The doors to the elevator are actually two pieces of elevator ceiling that we decided to adapt to our own purpose. The metal pieces had rectangle shaped holes in it to let light flow through them, which suited our need for an extra light source quite well.

We covered the holes with diffusion gels and blasted light through them to create boxlike shapes into the elevator. Not only did this bring mood to the scene, but it actually provided us with something else: we’d be able to use this light to establish when the elevator moves. Having several shapes move across the actors looked way cooler than a simple line of light which you usually see being used in fiction.

In these two shots from the movie you can see the light boxes giving light to our actors:

If you look closely, you can see slivers of colder light on Lyston's suit, Aurélie's coat and the Prism logo. In motion they are much more pronounced.