Daytime Exteriors - Keeping Them From Not Looking Budgetless

K

KyranFord

Well-known member
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. :dankk2:
 
^
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.
 
KyranFord said:
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. :dankk2:
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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?
 
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 :)
 
tommygdawg said:
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 :)
Click to expand...
Thanks for the thorough reply. I was actually thinking about this. A lot of the places we're shooting at are going to be down in valleys. During location scouting, I had noticed how, in so many parts of the area, there were beams of light coming into the valley through trees and different open spots, shining onto specific areas of rocks and rivers, etc. Some as small as a foot of light, and some as large as a field. I could try and make good use of this, especially with reflectors and diffusers. For example, here are a couple cell phone photos of what one of the valleys looks like:

http://i.imgur.com/B41l8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9P9oa.jpg

As for the underexposing and bringing up in post, I've tried that and it just doesn't seem to work very well for me. I'm using Canon DSLRs, by the way.
 
KyranFord said:
Thanks for the thorough reply. I was actually thinking about this. A lot of the places we're shooting at are going to be down in valleys. During location scouting, I had noticed how, in so many parts of the area, there were beams of light coming into the valley through trees and different open spots, shining onto specific areas of rocks and rivers, etc. Some as small as a foot of light, and some as large as a field. I could try and make good use of this, especially with reflectors and diffusers. For example, here are a couple cell phone photos of what one of the valleys looks like:

http://i.imgur.com/B41l8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9P9oa.jpg

As for the underexposing and bringing up in post, I've tried that and it just doesn't seem to work very well for me. I'm using Canon DSLRs, by the way.
Click to expand...

Get tons of white foam boards! they are great for daylight exterior!
 
KyranFord said:
Thanks for the thorough reply. I was actually thinking about this. A lot of the places we're shooting at are going to be down in valleys. During location scouting, I had noticed how, in so many parts of the area, there were beams of light coming into the valley through trees and different open spots, shining onto specific areas of rocks and rivers, etc. Some as small as a foot of light, and some as large as a field. I could try and make good use of this, especially with reflectors and diffusers. For example, here are a couple cell phone photos of what one of the valleys looks like:

http://i.imgur.com/B41l8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9P9oa.jpg

As for the underexposing and bringing up in post, I've tried that and it just doesn't seem to work very well for me. I'm using Canon DSLRs, by the way.
Click to expand...

The DSLR may be why. I've never used a Canon DSLR, but from what I understand, the codec isn't quite as robust as the AF100. I like that location a lot, it looks really nice, the great thing about all that foliage is you get a lot of nice, natural diffusion. If you have someone carrying a small over head silk/diffusion above your talent, it can help cut down on harsh highlights when they walk through beams of light. This is all depending, of course, on what kinds of scenes you have and how they're blocked out.

Another cool trick, if you can manage some electricity, is a fog machine. Smoke up some of the background areas of the woods, it helps create some good contrast and can also work really nice to get some light beams and makeshift diffusion. I was surprised when I bought my first fog machine recently that it only cost me $30 dollars off of Amazon.
 
marvinhello said:
Get tons of white foam boards! they are great for daylight exterior!
Click to expand...
They're that good? I may have to pick some up. Just like these?

tommygdawg said:
The DSLR may be why. I've never used a Canon DSLR, but from what I understand, the codec isn't quite as robust as the AF100. I like that location a lot, it looks really nice, the great thing about all that foliage is you get a lot of nice, natural diffusion. If you have someone carrying a small over head silk/diffusion above your talent, it can help cut down on harsh highlights when they walk through beams of light. This is all depending, of course, on what kinds of scenes you have and how they're blocked out.

Another cool trick, if you can manage some electricity, is a fog machine. Smoke up some of the background areas of the woods, it helps create some good contrast and can also work really nice to get some light beams and makeshift diffusion. I was surprised when I bought my first fog machine recently that it only cost me $30 dollars off of Amazon.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Canon DSLRs don't handle highlights as well as other cameras, especially the T2i or 60D.

I'm glad you like the location!

I'll make sure to have the grips keep the talent diffused (it's just one character). There won't be access to electricity for miles, unfortunately. However, I have looked into fog machines in the past. I'll look into them more; thanks for pointing that out.

I think that shots like mediums or close-ups, with ND filters/opened up, giving shallow DOF and a nice, creamy bokeh, while reflecting some fill light and using the natural light as key should be okay for keeping it from looking budgetless. What do you (or anyone) think?
 
Well, you don't *have* to keep them diffused. I've seen really harsh sun light on talent in professional productions, it's all a matter of the look you're going for in the scene. I love shallow, creamy bokeh. Go for it! :D And, for what it's worth, either way this will be a learning experience. Either it comes out great and you learn what to do in the future, or it turns out less-than-great and you learn what not to do. Win/win in the end :)
 
tommygdawg said:
Well, you don't *have* to keep them diffused. I've seen really harsh sun light on talent in professional productions, it's all a matter of the look you're going for in the scene. I love shallow, creamy bokeh. Go for it! :D And, for what it's worth, either way this will be a learning experience. Either it comes out great and you learn what to do in the future, or it turns out less-than-great and you learn what not to do. Win/win in the end :)
Click to expand...

Film just handles it better. Digital kills film in the shadows, but films handling of highlights just destroys digital. That's why I try to avoid it.
 
for me, when shooting outdoor ext. day ... everything is composition

these are not mine but the compositions are what I would aspire to

47f95b872eb0f.jpg


always, always, always be aware of your horizon line and make it work for the shot

4ac29f31326ab.jpg
 
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Sorry I had to

dzcmm8.jpg


Nothing a few floppies can't do on a sunny day.
Its summer, make sure to tell your driver to load a few more in :)
 
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