Daytime Exteriors - Keeping Them From Not Looking Budgetless

[KyranFord]

Okay, so I'm kind of in a bind. The next film I'm shooting is going to be all daytime exteriors. Now, it's usually lighting that keeps a film from looking budgetless. But, my question is: How exactly can I pull off all daytime exterior scenes while keeping a cinematic, higher-budget aesthetic to the shots? I don't really have options of basic lighting that would be used in daytime in general either, as the locations are pretty remote. Will this be all in the color grade, cinematography techniques, and VFX? I'm extremely nervous about how these are going to turn out.. I need them to turn out great.

If someone can please enlighten me, that would be great. In fact, if you gave me some good answers, I would thanks credit you in the credits and on IMDb.

[nothing]

Reflectors and silks.

[gonzo_entertainment]

^
This.

You probably won't be able to fly the massive silks you'd need for wide shots, but you can use smaller silks and reflectors to at least make the mediums and closeups look better.

[David W. Jones]

Okay, so I'm kind of in a bind. The next film I'm shooting is going to be all daytime exteriors. Now, it's usually lighting that keeps a film from looking budgetless. But, my question is: How exactly can I pull off all daytime exterior scenes while keeping a cinematic, higher-budget aesthetic to the shots? I don't really have options of basic lighting that would be used in daytime in general either, as the locations are pretty remote. Will this be all in the color grade, cinematography techniques, and VFX? I'm extremely nervous about how these are going to turn out.. I need them to turn out great.

If someone can please enlighten me, that would be great. In fact, if you gave me some good answers, I would thanks credit you in the credits and on IMDb.

I guess I don't understand when you say... "You don't really have options of basic lighting that would be used in daytime as the locations are pretty remote".

How are you all going to get to the location?
Why can you not get lighting & grip gear to the location the same way?

[KyranFord]

Reflectors and silks.

^
This.

You probably won't be able to fly the massive silks you'd need for wide shots, but you can use smaller silks and reflectors to at least make the mediums and closeups look better.

Well, yeah, I was obviously going to use reflectors and diffusers, but will that be enough to do it justice?

[nothing]

...I was obviously going to use reflectors and diffusers...

Well you didn't say so. We aren't mind readers here.

...but will that be enough to do it justice?

Depends. For some situations, no.

[KyranFord]

Well you didn't say so. We aren't mind readers here.

That wasn't intended to be a rude 'obviously', so sorry if it came off that way.

Depends. For some situations, no.

Then what do I do, live with my options and do what can be done?

[David W. Jones]

So if you don't mind me asking, what's stopping you from renting the needed lighting, grip, power?

[KyranFord]

So if you don't mind me asking, what's stopping you from renting the needed lighting, grip, power?

Budget

[tommygdawg]

Make use of available lighting options. Recently, I shot in a park on a very bright sunny day. There was some good shade, but shooting directly under the shade darkened the talent too much, so the background clipped horribly. Then I came up with a genius idea (sarcasm, it's very simple), move the talent half-way under the shade of the tree and the direct sunlight. It helped brighten them up and give some nice definition to their faces, so the background wouldn't be too blown out, without brightening them too much. Unless you're in desert plains where there is literally NOTHING around, there's a lot of things you may not even think about that you can use to help with lighting.

Also, what camera are you shooting on? One of the tricks I use is to underexpose the talent a little bit, then bring them back up in post by using secondary color correction to simply raise the levels of the shadows. This only works to a certain extent, and depending on the camera and how noisy the footage is, it may not work at all. I shoot on an AF100 and find I usually have quite a bit of latitude, and it's made a lot easier by the waveform monitor on the camera so I can see if my shadows are clipped. As long as you have some detail in the shadows and they aren't pure black, you can pull them up and brighten them with color correction. Just something to keep in mind