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    Daylight Car Lighting?

    I've searched and looked through about 10 pages of the lighting thread and can't find anything. I know this must've come up before. Anyway....

    I have a shoot coming up for a hip hop video where I will have to shoot a couple people driving in the front seats of a car. I'll most likely be using my stickypod for most of these shots from different angles. My director wants them to "glow" so he'd like to try to add as much light as possible to make it look good. I'm kicking around a couple of options but I'm not sure which is the most practical. If anybody can help, it'd be greatly appreciated.

    My ideas are:

    1) Attaching 1 or 2 650w (or 1K) Britek heads to the hood (In some DIY way) shooting into the windshield powered off an inverter of some sort.

    2) Shooting the car with the visible window greenscreened. Bounce the car to make it look like its moving.

    3) I thought about hiding flo's inside the car but I think I'd need really powerful ones to shoot during the day.

    I have problems though with each of these. In the first scenario, I'd have to run off an inverter (I think) because the car would be moving. But all the inverter's I've been seeing attach directly to the car battery. Wouldn't this make it impossible to drive the car? Is there a cigarette lighter adapter that I can run the lights off of that can handle these lights? Will 1 or 2 650w lights be enough to light black people in daylight?

    With the greenscreen, I would have more control because the car would be still, but I only have a relatively small collapsible greenscreen, so it would take some creative composition. I've also never lit/shot one myself, so I'm kinda scared about it.

    Which do you think would look better? Do I have any other options? Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this. Thanks.
    -Ryan
    Check out my website.

    #2
    1) I think that coming up with an inverter (and connection to the battery) which would power a couple of 650s or 1ks is really a little too much to consider. Not only are you competing against the sun but you will loose a fair amount of light going through the windshield and matching the color temperature will be difficult.

    3) Again, you are competing with the sun and this isn't a battle that you are likely to win.

    2) Your greenscreen idea is by far the best one as you will have the most control. As far as lighting the screen is concerned, be certain to have it very evenly illuminated and make sure that the color is as pure (single channel) as possible. DV Rack is an excellent tool for setting up a chroma key shot like this.

    The best suggestion is to be certain to test (all the way through post) your setup first. Trying to create a solution when your talent is on set isn't the best way to impress anyone.

    Comment


      #3
      If you have the car on a lowboy trailer, you can do much more. For instance you can place a putt-putt in the back of truck and run even more lights outside of the car. I've always used flos above and peppers below (if you have room).

      Comment


        #4
        A low boy is good. I have used a tow bar to good effect and shot from the back of a pick-up truck. Khmuse is right, an inverter is not the answer. While the can go up to 2000 watts, this requires extensive modification to the electrical system of the vehicle. A portable generater would be much easier. Since this is a music video, I do not think you need sync sound, so any generator would do (as long as it has the output you need). To cut down on light through the windows, gel them with ND gel or scrim.

        You know the simplest thing would be to find a convertable!
        "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations"
        -Orson Wells.

        "To me the great hope is... people that normally wouldn't be making movies will make them and suddenly some little fat girl in Ohio will be the new Mozart and will make a beautiful film using her father's camera-corder and the "Professionalism" of movie making will be destroyed forever and it will finally become an art form."
        -Francis Ford Coppola.

        Comment


          #5
          Did this last summer with a VW bug on a trailer. Setup a pair of 1K's in the back of a pickup powered by a Honda 5500W generator. The results were, well, acceptable, I suppose. It was overcast, so that helped. HMI's would be preferable obviously, but our little openface Arri's were better than nothing. There was no dialogue, so generator noise was not a problem.

          Comment


            #6
            HMI's would be the ideal choice. There are a lot more considerations, we have not addressed, such as windshield reflections (use a polarizer), camera isolation from vibrations and bumps (chose as smooth a road as possible, maybe a stablizer, test car mount.), communication between vehicles (walkie-talkies, pre-agreed upon hand signals), and of course, safety. What ever set-up you go with, test it before production. Car interior work is, IMO, a pain in the ass and goes much slower than you expect. Give yourself plenty of time and be prepared. If it can go wrong it will.

            Good luck.
            "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations"
            -Orson Wells.

            "To me the great hope is... people that normally wouldn't be making movies will make them and suddenly some little fat girl in Ohio will be the new Mozart and will make a beautiful film using her father's camera-corder and the "Professionalism" of movie making will be destroyed forever and it will finally become an art form."
            -Francis Ford Coppola.

            Comment


              #7
              HMIs would be best, but as you are shooting w/ a sticky pod, You probably don't have the grippage available to support it.

              I would try and not fight nature. Gel the back window heavily, possibly the sides too. This will "bring up" the foreground brightness. Use a linear polo to cut the reflections, or a 4x4 solid (flag) above the windshield to block reflections.

              Or shoot greenscreen.

              -j

              Comment


                #8
                On almost all bigger features that I have worked on we have used 1200-4k (with 216 type of diffusion on the heads) pars in the daytime. Kino's won't even come close. I've also seen a rigid reflector rigged really well to the trunk to bounce sunlight into the car. This is a tough one with NO budget. I like J's idea of knocking down the rear window.
                Good luck and please let us know what worked. You could do some trail runs first, attempting a few different lighting set-ups.

                Comment


                  #9
                  If you are not going to tow the car on a purpose made trailer , i would say going for a fully lit driving shot is like purposely shooting your self in to the foot. Newer mind trying to get the sleek pimp daddy look. The only cheep/doable driving shot is ND on the windows and daylight, maybe a small battery powered fill for the talent. Polarizing filter on the cam and monitor with long extension for monitoring from the back seat. Not to mention you wont be able to drive it anywhere in public with a cam and a light stuck to the hood. And even if after an enormous effort time, crew and considerable amount of gear you will manage to get something half ass, you gona have spent a whole day for a few seconds of half ass, hhhmmm, no! not really.
                  And green screen means you gona have to light quite a bit as well, wouldn't say its close to easy, and if this does not represent a large part of the clip it seems like a lot of work for very little bang.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Green screen is the best option by far.

                    forget about the 650s they won't do a thing. Best to slow down the exterior light some flying a 12x and bring up your interior with kinos

                    Important thing to know for the background shot is to have the camera right side of the road. it should out in front og the vehicle at the proper height. otherwise cars that go by will not look the right size.

                    forget about shaking the car, you don't need that, there will be enough slight movement in the BG to make it look like right. if you do add any motion in the vehicle make it very slight and intermitant.

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