Backlit garage opening scene advice?

[firehawk]

Hi all.

I was hoping for advice for this scene.

The camera is in the center of the inside of a large auto garage with vehicles lined on both sides.
The garage door opens and people walk into the garage. The shot is a wide shot showing the vehicles on both sides and the opening garage door.
The obvious challenge is the interior of the garage is fairly dark so as soon as the garage door starts to open, massive light pours in and then either the garage exposure becomes too dark or the outdoors becomes way too hot.

So I've been kicking around a number of ways to try to cope with this and am asking for advice.
Changing the time of day is not an option.
I cannot use high powered lights to light the interior of the garage because the people entering as the door opens are visiting and it's a surprise. I want to get their reactions as they peer into the garage.
Otherwise I'd likely blue gel my 750watt tungsten lights and light those cars.

One small help I do have is that the opposite end of the garage also has a garage door which could be opened to give some light, but since the garage is so long, it won't be a lot.
Since the final product will be HD, one idea I had was to use my Sony FS700R locked down on a tripod to record in ProRes 4K to give me some extra information, expose the shot so it's not blown out and then in post, mask the darker garage portion and raise it while not raising the levels on the outdoors area. I'm guessing the FS700R has more dynamic range than my Sony A7Sii or Panasonic FZ2500.
Thoughts?

 

[Grug]

Do you just need a relatively quick shot of the door opening, and the group walking through the threshold into the gargage?

If so, you could lock the camera off on the tripod and then bracket your exposures - so expose for the outside light when the group walks in, then expose for the garage space in a couple of increments. Then in post you could stitch them together to keep things from clipping.

 

[CharlesPapert]

Would it be out of the question to have your wide shot as you described (Grug's stitching idea is sound), but also have a camera tighter on their reactions that is off to the side, so the background behind them is interior walls vs the blown out exterior?

Reminds me a bit of the Pepsi spot I shot some years back where I had to bring up the level in a warehouse to avoid blowing the exterior out completely, but again couldn't light it up to oblivion (a few HMI bounces sprinkled around the space--some got on camera, despite my entreating the operators to avoid).

https://vimeo.com/88798755
starts around 4:13

 

[markfpv]

I'm not sure I follow this..."I cannot use high powered lights to light the interior of the garage because the people entering as the door opens are visiting and it's a surprise".
Does the garage door have small windows? If not, won't the "surprise" end exactly when the door opens anyway - whether or not you have some bounced hmi's etc to help bring up interior?

that's a wicked piece Charles - thanks for sharing

 

[firehawk]

Thank you all kindly. Sorry about my attempt at describing the scenario ( I was and am very tired).
The garage has no windows anywhere.
Regarding the surprise..What is happening is a group of people will enter the opening garage and be wowed (is that a word?) by a large collection of valuable vehicles. So for the first little bit, they will be oohing and aweing, but the main thing he wants are the first reactions as the door opens. So yes, it's a short shot.

Great idea on bracketing. That was one of the ideas I was kicking around, even possibly shooting it once locked down before they come and then again in the same locked down position when they come, and mixing it together. I didn't think I could explain it coherantly.

Great idea of the side angle too. That briefly crossed my mind but I originally tossed it. But after you mentioned it I see I need to re-consider. That worked well on the amazing Pepsi video.
I figured asking on here would be good. You guys have a lot of experience and talking about things helps to get out of the one-track-thinking I sometimes have.