Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Night Shoot in the Woods

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Night Shoot in the Woods

    I am shooting a feature in 2 weeks in the woods on an HVX. 1/2 of the film takes place at night. I have a ton of lights but an trying to decide how large of a generator I want to get. I have both a 2k and a 5k Arri tungston fresnels and would like advice as to which one to use for the moon.

    I did some lighting tests with a 1k a week ago and it was ok but I think I need to use one of the larger lights. I am going to be mouning the "moon light" on a 35ft ladder up against a tree.

    Thoughts or suggestions anyone?

    #2
    If you are shooting with 3200k sources and you are looking for a "moon light" look, you will need to use 1/2 to full CTB on your lamps. This will reduce the output of your lamps considerably. For a 2k, you will need just under 17 Amps and for a 5k it is just under 42 Amps.

    I would always suggest getting a larger genny than you "think" you will need since a lightly loaded one is typically quieter than one that is working near capacity. On my last shoot I used a 100 kW diesel rig that was amazingly quiet. You could stand next to the thing and hold a pretty normal conversation. Used it for 14 days on location (10 - 15 hours a day) and never had any issues.

    Don't forget your distro requirements; you will need a lot of heavy copper for big fixtures.

    Comment


      #3
      We are actually going to put a 1/2 or full orange gel on the moon and white balance to it, then remove it and it should get the same effect with no light loss.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by TMFilms
        We are actually going to put a 1/2 or full orange gel on the moon and white balance to it, then remove it and it should get the same effect with no light loss.
        Actually, this will only work if you don't have any "real" moon light to contend with. Where ever your artificial lighting doesn't cover, any natural light will be hyper blue (like the look of the sky, background, etc). If you have planned your shoot to a no/new moon evening, you should have less issues work around, but with this approach, any natural light is going to be shifted by the artificial color balance of the camera.

        Another thing to consider, since you will be boosting the blue channel gain (by the false color balance) you may experience a lot more noise in your image. I would recommend advanced testing of the results to be certain you are OK with the results.

        Comment


          #5
          I was worried about that as well. We did some tests a few days ago and the natural light was pretty muc non existant with a 3/4 moon due to the thick tree cover.

          Comment


            #6
            Another thing you can do is just give any other fixtures (asuming you'll be lighting the scene with more than just the moon fixture) CTO in whatever strength of CTB you would have put on the moon fixture. (i.e. I want my moonlight half blue, so I'll give my set lamps 1/2 CTO, WB to those, and then clean tungsten will appear blue in camera) I wrote this out in much more detail in another thread once. I'll try to find it.
            Peace,

            -Harry
            EDIT: Here we go... http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread...ighlight=mired
            Last edited by dudeguy37; 08-20-2006, 06:07 AM.

            Comment


              #7
              Sorry I didn't elaborate a bit better. We are planning on doing basically that and then doing full or double CTO on any lights that are supposed ot be from a camp fire.

              Right now I am leaning towards the 2k for the moon since I can always put a 1k next to it if I need more and it will be a lot less hassle than the 5K.

              Comment

              Working...
              X