Car headlights to light an actor during an outdoor daylight scene?

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Filmkid2003

Well-known member
Anyone know if its possible to use headlights to light an actor outdoors since I won't be able to use reflectors and I will not have a power source for lights? And no, I can't afford to rent a genny. Anyone know the color temp of halogen headlights? Maybe if I put gels over the headlights?
 
is it an ECU of someone two feet off the ground?

You'd be surprised what some white beadsheets and foamcore can do.
 
I thought this forum was created to help others with constructive ideas, not stupid comments. You obviously did not read my entire thread. As I stated, I cannot bounce the sun off of a reflector due to the sun's position and the location of the actor. If I cannot use a reflector, then how is foam core going to help? You must have a low I.Q.
 
Filmkid2003 said:
I thought this forum was created to help others with constructive ideas, not stupid comments. You obviously did not read my entire thread. As I stated, I cannot bounce the sun off of a reflector due to the sun's position and the location of the actor. If I cannot use a reflector, then how is foam core going to help? You must have a low I.Q.
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First off, lighten up dude. Their just bustin your balls a little. Have a little sense of humor, there's no need for personal attacks over a simple question.

The headlights will be in the range of 2800-32oo kelvin. (i'm guessing) but when you white balance, you can dial it in to your liking. You will need to diffuse the headlights, in essence, there's not much difference between a headlight and a tungston fresnel, as they both have a lens to brighten and spread the light. The problem is the car is only a few ft off the ground, I would get some white muslin and hang it in front of the headlights, try bouncing the beam to where you need it with some white foamcore. I think your just going to have to experiment. have you looked into some cheap battery operated led lights? they might be enough if you get them close to the talent.

There's really no need to gel the headlight unless your were trying to match the color temp to another light with a different temp, like say a keno. you only need to whitebalance to the source your using.
 
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Yes, I will draw that diagram and upload it when I am done giving my fish a bath. Kinda busy right now, guy.

No, but seriously, the actor is walking out of one end of a tunnel, towards the camera, while the sun shines through the opposite end of the tunnel. It's a long tunnel, too.
 
Halogen headlamps are between 50-100 watts maxing out at around 130 watts on high beams.
they will be close to tungsten as far as color temp. If you do intend to gel them I wouldn't go higher than
1/2 CTB. Spreading the beams a little would be nice as well but nothing as thick as muslin (i don't think you can afford the stop)
This really only plays if your subject is close to you. I wouldn't be afraid to play more of a silhouette.
 
First you'd be amazed at what a really good silver reflector can do in terms of sending light across a long distance. If you can film outside the tunnel facing the sun with your actor coming towards you then you can reflect light into the tunnel. Of course it depends exactly how far from the camera he's going to be. Are there any close up scenes taking place in the tunnel walking towards the exit, or just him coming out of the tunnel? (By the way, an extra car headlight could easily be hooked up to the car 12v battery or cigarette lighter and raised higher to meet eye level.)

Second, remember that always matching color temp is not a written rule. Most people new to film think its a must but go watch some films and you'll actually see its rarely done. Color is often used to separate objects or elements of a scene. Eventually the more time you spend lighting you can figure out how to make different color temps actually work for you. Only certain scenes or lighting setups require "matched" lighting color sources - so ask yourself is your scene one of them?

Think about two things: if the light at the opposite end of the tunnel is so far back and so small and insignificant in your frame is anyone going to notice its got a slight blue tint to it if you were to white balance to 3200k tungsten source? You could actually balance to somewhere in the middle and end up with a less "warm" look on the actor and less "blue" look on the tunnel. Also, to get a working exposure on your actors face the opposite end of the tunnel is going to be pretty blown anyway so its not as if you have to worry about the color appearing there as unrealistic - you most likely won't see anything but clipping anyway.

Hope this helps...
 
I've once used a cars headlights to light my actors for a night scene.
It was a campsite scene inside a tent. The sun went down just before we finished and had to use my cars lights as this was still when I owned just a camera and no lights and had no money (which I kinda still don't have any)
Anyways, I had nothing with me, so I had to angle the car on an angle so the light wasn't so direct on the actors.
I'm not sure on the Temp. Of the lights, but you can always gel the with a bit of CTB if you can. If not, I'm sure it wouldn't be too big of a problem if balanced right as mentioned above.
But you can try diffusing it a bit by putting like a sheet or something in front. Or, like mentioned before, angle the car (if possible) so not so much light hits the actor. Bounce the lights towards the actor more if needed.
It is duable as I've done it before for my High School films.
 
Color temperature is the least of your problems with this application. Any daytime ambient light level will overpower car headlights by about a thousand percent (give or take). Unless you can place the headlights a few feet away from the actor (with no correction and no diffusion), there's just nowhere near enough light coming from them to register.

You need what you don't have. You can't change the laws of physics.
 
^- if you read his post he is planning to aim light into dark tunnel so I don't imagine there would be any competing outdoor daylight anyway. He can expose for the skin of the actor and the worst thing that will happen is the light at the opposite end of the tunnel will be clipped. If I was shooting this I would actually prefer it clipped as to not reveal any destracting detail in the background.

Where is the starter of this thread? Have you thought some more about your approach on this and made any decisions?
 
starcentral said:
^- if you read his post he is planning to aim light into dark tunnel so I don't imagine there would be any competing outdoor daylight anyway. He can expose for the skin of the actor and the worst thing that will happen is the light at the opposite end of the tunnel will be clipped. If I was shooting this I would actually prefer it clipped as to not reveal any destracting detail in the background.
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"... the actor is walking out of one end of a tunnel, towards the camera, while the sun shines through the opposite end of the tunnel."


I did read his posts and I'm experienced enough to know that car headlights (on a car?!?!) are woefully inadequate to compete with any kind of ambient daylight, regardless of where the sun is.
 
Chris Santucci said:
"... the actor is walking out of one end of a tunnel, towards the camera, while the sun shines through the opposite end of the tunnel."


I did read his posts and I'm experienced enough to know that car headlights (on a car?!?!) are woefully inadequate to compete with any kind of ambient daylight, regardless of where the sun is.
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Yep! aint ever gonna get anywhere in the daylight! That diagram on the lighting would have helped everyone see if there was a better way. Though I can imagine no light being available to reflect off of, in daylight thats the exception not the rule.

And just in case the OP is still reading his thread, I was thinking similar to your idea bout headlights too, but I was going for Aircraft Landing lights, 1000w each, and getting five to start.
 
tom_wise said:
Yep! aint ever gonna get anywhere in the daylight! That diagram on the lighting would have helped everyone see if there was a better way. Though I can imagine no light being available to reflect off of, in daylight thats the exception not the rule.

And just in case the OP is still reading his thread, I was thinking similar to your idea bout headlights too, but I was going for Aircraft Landing lights, 1000w each, and getting five to start.
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I remember reading, in AC probably, that Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC used Aircraft landing lights to shoot with, at least at the time he did "Bulworth". If I remember correctly, they were some wacky voltage, like 35 volts I think.

Tom, how were you thinking of powering lights like that? Also, where you would you get them?

To the OP, for 12 volt systems, there are higher powered flood lights, like those found on ambulances, fire trucks and utility vehicles that might be better, but I gotta say that even those types of lights would be hard press to make any kind of difference in daylight, even at the mouth of a tunnel.
 
David G. Smith said:
I remember reading, in AC probably, that Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC used Aircraft landing lights to shoot with, at least at the time he did "Bulworth". If I remember correctly, they were some wacky voltage, like 35 volts I think.

Tom, how were you thinking of powering lights like that? Also, where you would you get them?

To the OP, for 12 volt systems, there are higher powered flood lights, like those found on ambulances, fire trucks and utility vehicles that might be better, but I gotta say that even those types of lights would be hard press to make any kind of difference in daylight, even at the mouth of a tunnel.
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David, I'd looked and found them here (skygeek). they're GE 4557 and work at 28 volts DC. I was simply thinking of using two 12v Marine Deep cycle batteries so i could realistically get some time out of them turning them off/on as necessary to spare their life..since they're only rated at 25 hours. I wanted a portable system that I could put on a wheeled cart and take over terrain if needed, also not having to worry about Aux power.

I first got a clue to this on Mystic River when the director mentioned he had Nav lights installed into a car for a scene to make the scene f/stop actually work, otherwise regular-car lights would have either not shown or looked dead~

...and I just realized as a caveat to this OP's thread, this was a night shot and car lights would have looked dead. In daylight...Like Chris said...woefully inadequate~
 
tom_wise said:
David, I'd looked and found them here (skygeek). they're GE 4557 and work at 28 volts DC. I was simply thinking of using two 12v Marine Deep cycle batteries so i could realistically get some time out of them turning them off/on as necessary to spare their life..since they're only rated at 25 hours. I wanted a portable system that I could put on a wheeled cart and take over terrain if needed, also not having to worry about Aux power.

I first got a clue to this on Mystic River when the director mentioned he had Nav lights installed into a car for a scene to make the scene f/stop actually work, otherwise regular-car lights would have either not shown or looked dead~

...and I just realized as a caveat to this OP's thread, this was a night shot and car lights would have looked dead. In daylight...Like Chris said...woefully inadequate~
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I like that... I looked around a little for what Vittorio Storaro does, and from a thread over at Cinematography.com there is quote from AC about his use of landing lights. I guess he puts together 16 or 36 28 volt 1000 watt landing lights into a a rig called a "Jumbo". Sounds like a Maxi-brute/9 light on steroids!


"From the May 1999 American Cinematographer

"DP [Oliver] Stapleton added further dimension to the woods [in the film "A Mid Night Summer's Dream ]by using powerful Jumbo lighting units provided by the Rome-based company Iride, which is run by Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC?s longtime gaffer, Filippo Cafolla.

The cinematographer explains, "They?re basically aircraft landing lights?giant, 36-kilowatt lights which are very strong because they have 36 bulbs in them and they?re very spotty. They cut through atmosphere, smoke, branches, leaves and trees, and gave me highlights of leaves that are completely unique to that type of light. These lights were so strong and directional that they made 20K or 24K tungstens look like babys in comparison. Since they?re very hard lights, I used them to make the moonlight beams and the backlight. They also solved the problem of making the backlight cooler, since they were near 3400° Kelvin."

An excerpt from Vittorio Storaro's "Writer of Light": also found in the June 1998 American Cinematographer article on "Bulworth"

"Jumbos"--large, multi-globe frames with 16 28-volt landing lights each--and a whole range of "Mini-jumbos" in diminishing sizes, as well as a series of "Tornado" lights using 120-volt Fay globes. They all run on 220 volts and are always pre-rigged to be dimmable with his small, state-of-the-art digital panels.

"Jumbos" provide incredible punch outdoors. At great distances they become "puntiform" sources, except that, unlike conventional Fresnels, the arrays can be spread out horizontally. Vittorio's gaffer, Gary Tandrow, says, "They are only 10K each, but put out as much [light] as two or three Xenons. The bang for the buck is unbelievable."

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=5151
 
I get the feeling the OP is going to use headlights regardless of the advice he receives here.

That said, to answer the question the OP asked:

Sure.

To answer the question the OP should have asked:

No, it's probably not going to look very good.


To give some unsolicited advice:

Look at what the others have said. There are different ways around what you're doing to get a good look. Reflectors probably WILL work. If there's enough sunlight to get an exposure, there's enough sunlight to bounce (almost always the case, yours probably is too).
If there's not enough sunlight to get an exposure, your best bet is probably going to be to just let it be underexposed. Tunnels are dark. It's okay for them to look that way. (i.e. the silhouetting example someone else mentioned).
If the key part of the shot is when the person walks OUT of the tunnel, having them be dark inside and illuminated outside should work fine. If the key part is them INSIDE the tunnel, given that most tunnels are fairly symmetrical you can probably just switch sides and shoot with the sun at your back, cut when the subject walks out.

In all likelihood, using car headlights will probably make a worse image than not using them... UNLESS for some reason you can establish that a car is parked in front of the tunnel with its headlights on... during the day...
 
Can you afford a power inverter? You can get a 1000 Watt inverter for less than a hundred bucks. Hook it up to a car battery and plug in a big light (well, as big as you can). Inverters are awesome and you'll get a lot of use out of it, especially on low budget productions. They are awesome for car shoots and remote exteriors. If you get one make sure that the wattage listed on the box isn't something dumb like the surge output, it should surge at almost twice the standard output.
 
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