Keith,

I worked in Hollywood for over 30 years beginning in the late 50's. My first job was as an assistant to Bernard of Hollywood, and later worked with Frank Bez one of the last of the classic "studio" photographers that photographed the stars with the major studio's.

I was somewhat of a devote of William Mortensen and visited with him in his studio in Laguna Beach while he was still living. Later as Feature Editor at Petersens' PhotoGraphic with the assistance of Mortensen's widow and the national office of the PSA I put together a large retrospective of Mortensen's photographs published in an issue of Petersen's.

I also did an extensive how-to on classic Hollywood portrait technique and lighting that was published in Petersen's, in part because Petersen's studio had a full complement of the Mole-Richardson tungsten motion picture lighting that is really essential to replicating that classic glamour look. Most of the lighting is done with Fresnel lens focusing spot lights, and sometimes just one soft scoop providing light for a fill.

The lighting used by the classics photographers like Bruno, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Bernard, George Hoynigen-Huene, and Horst P. Horst, even Edward Steichen was almost entirely tungsten indoors or natural light, and large format B&W film, most frequently 8x10, was the medium.

Replicating the Hollywood look of the 30's and 40's with modern equipment and films is rather difficult. Studio electronic flash Fresnel spot heads are extremely rare and expensive, and contemporary B&W films are very different from the high red sensitivity and long toe characteristic curve of the last one produced for and used for tungsten studio lighting, Kodak Tri-X Professional ASA320. Those films were very favorable to skin tones, brilliant highlights, and soft contrast shadows.

The best thing you can do is look in used books stores for large coffee-table books of Hollywood stars of that era, there were dozens published some quite recently. Then use the photo's as a guide to analyze how the lighting was created. There is quite a bit of motion picture production in New Zealand, so you might even find some old, used tungsten lighting equipment. If you can find a copy of the William Mortensen book on lighting, that will be a great help, he was the master everyone followed.

David, I thank you for taking the time to post a very helpful reply. I will investigate the Mortensen path.

cheers,

Keith

You might like to take a look at the George Hurell web site.

Ronk,

Hurrel was a fixture in Hollywood all the years I was living and working there. There is a reason I did not mention him in what I wrote here on the subject. Some people just don't ever seem to realize when their time is done and they should retire.

LOL! And I thought this afternoon's bread was crusty! ;)

David, is it even POSSIBLE to capture that Hollywood look on a small sensor ?

I kind of wonder how many young photographers even care for that look or are even AWARE of the Hollywood techniques. The ubiquitous softbox pretty much precludes that sort of lighting.

Worse, some young digital photographers consider black and white imagery simply a desaturated color file.

Bloo Dog,

Actually it might be a bit easier with a dSLR than it has been with recent films because with digital you can configure the sensor's sensitivities and then edit in Photoshop to come closer to mimicking the film response to tungsten light as used in the 30's and 40's

I would suggest using a Fresnel spot for a main light (no more than 500 Watts is needed) and a 200 Watt spot for a kicker (hair light). Small diameter flood with about 250 Watts for background, and even 24-36 inch tungsten soft box or even an umbrella with 200-250 Watts for a soft fill.

Set the white Balance on a dSLR camera to 3200 K, and if available and desired for convenience you can output to a B&W file. But if you capture in Raw RGB you can further manipulate Color balance to get the effect of using the very red-sensitive films of the 30-40's made for use with tungsten light, as I mentioned Kodak Tri-X Professional ASA320 was the last Kodak film made of that type. Then also a little Curve manipulation selectively adding contrast to the highlights and flattening the shadow values will make the look very close to the authentic recording of a long toe portrait film.

If I may add, although Hollywood classic B&W portraits were often retouched (rather easy to do with a pencil on an 8x10 inch negative) the tungsten light (reddish) and a B&W film that is biased to red sensitivity does not penetrate skin and exposes it to produce relatively high density recording red blemishes so there was little density difference from the surrounding complexion tones.

Very flattering compared to what electronic flash on fully panchromatic film does, recording every little skin irregularity and every pimple like a crater on the moon. Electronic flash without very efficient UV flash tube coating is even worse, and will even penetrate street makeup.

David,

Thank you for further detail. I've tried a honeycomb to get contrasty frontal lighting with a softbox fill, but it never quite seems to work the way I want.

I'm new to digital. I've been on a 10D for a year now, and it never occurred to me to set the camera to 3200k for B&W conversion. It makes sense now that I think about it.

Thanks!

>>I'm new to digital. I've been on a 10D for a year now, and it never occurred to me to set the camera to 3200k for B&W conversion. It makes sense now that I think about it.<<

Bloo Dog,

Just in case someone reads this and does not notice, this recommendation I made ONLY applies using 3200K camera setting to using tungsten lighting,

And, hard/soft lighting is the result of the size of the source relative to its distance from the subject. For instance when the sky is clear the sun is small because it is a long way away it is hard light and casts sharp shadows, if a thin layer of clouds covers the sky it become the incident source and is very large relative to its distance, and casts almost no shadows because the light is soft.

Using a grid over a softbox does not make the light harder, it just makes the beam narrower.