daytime lighting

[scottwilson]

have a scene we are doing outside but due to all the trees the sun wont shine through so its too dark, but the spot is perfect for the scene other than the lack of light. Anyone have a trick for lighting something like that in order to make it look natural like the sun coming through? Ive set up some lights and it looked ok but im having trouble trying to get a natural look. Its either too bright or too dim. thanks in advance.

scott

 

[Scott Lovejoy]

Do you have access to lights? If so how big?

Depending on how much space you're trying to light you could use a slightly warmed light to mimic the sun coming in, but remember that you'll also need to bounce other lights back into their faces.

 

[Paul Hudson]

If budget is a consideration and HMI's are out of the question try using various materials for bouncing your light from the sun. There are a wide range of bounce sources from the not so cheap Matthew's 4X4 to the very cheap insulated board from Home Depot. Best of luck!

 

[Eileen Ryan]

have a scene we are doing outside but due to all the trees the sun wont shine through so its too dark, but the spot is perfect for the scene other than the lack of light. Anyone have a trick for lighting something like that in order to make it look natural like the sun coming through?

These are all great suggestions for “grip lighting”, but Scotts problem is what to do when the sun goes away part way through the shoot? As a gaffer in New England (about which Mark Twain famously quipped “If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and it will change”) I don’t go outside without a lighting package – especially if we are shooting a dramatic scene that will take all day.

If, you pre-plan your shots you can get away with nothing more than a 12x12 overhead silk, a 4k Par and 1.2 Par which you can run on one of the new modified Honda EU6500is gen-sets that provides a single 60Amps/120V circuit.

If possible shoot the establishing master shot when the sun is on your set and in a position that offers the best modeling or effect. I then shoot the coverage under a full silk and/or when the sun has moved into a backlight position. Shooting under a silk offers a number of advantages. It takes the directionality out of the sun and knocks down the ambient level by two and half stops, which enables you to use smaller lights to model your talent to mimic the direction of the sun in the establishing shot. The ideal situation is to wait to shoot the coverage until the sun has moved around to a back light position. When in this position, you are shooting into the shadowed side of the talent so small lights will have even more of a modeling effect. Shooting into talents down side under a silk, I find that a 4k Par through a diffusion frame is a sufficient key source for a two shot. And, if the sun does goes behind a cloud for a time, a 1.2 kw is usually sufficient to bring back the edge that was lost.

In this position, your background is also back-lit so it does not over expose because of the discrepancy in levels under the silk and outside the silk. Also, your background looks better because it is not flatly lit, but has some contrast. Finally, with the sun in a backlight position all the shadows of the silk frame and stands are thrown forward, which enables you to frame wider before picking up the shadow of the hardware.

An example of this approach is a scene I lit for a low budget feature that took place around a grill in a backyard surrounded by woods. We knew the scene was going to take all day to shoot because of its’ extensive dialogue, so we figured out where the sun was going to be throughout the day and where it would look best for our establishing wide shot. Where it was a two shot, mostly over the shoulder of one character talking to the second character who was standing with his back to the grill with the woods behind him, we decided to wait until the sun had moved into a near back light position. Surrounded on three sides by woods, we knew that we would lose the sun altogether at some point and would need lights. So we shot our close coverage first with nothing more than a 4k Par and 1.2k Par under a 20x silk. The 4k was heavily diffused and positioned so that it gave the talent the most attractive modeling. The 1.2kw was positioned where the sun would be when we would shoot the wide so that there was always an edge.

When the time came to shoot the establishing shot, the shadow of the overhead silk frame and stands were thrown forward and did not interfere with the wider framing. Since we were still shooting under the silk, we were wider open on the iris and so our exposure dug into the dark woods and brought out more detail. As an added bonus the smoke from the grill drifted into the woods, creating shafts of light where the sun broke through the tree canopy. What could easily have been a plainly lit scene, turned into a beautifully lit scene, and was accomplished without a lot of amps. The whole scene was lit with nothing more than a 4k and 1.2k Par and powered by nothing more than a 60A/120 circuit from a modified Honda EU6500is. If you can’t wait for the optimum sun position, the same modified generator will run a 6kw par that you can use to fill direct sun.

Night exterior scene lit with nothing more than a Honda EU6500is

In fact, we shot a whole film on the Red with nothing more than a modified Honda EU6500is. A dual wattage 2.5/4k Par was our one big light. Not only did the Par configuration give us more output but it was also more versatile. When we needed a lot of light for day exteriors we lamped it with a 4k globe. When we didn’t need the punch of a 4k Par, like on a night exteriors, we swapped the 4kw globe for a 2.5kw globe giving us more power to run additional lights on the generator. When you consider that a Kino Flo Parabeam 400 uses only 2 Amps , the 15 Amps we saved by burning the smaller 2500W globe enabled us to power quite a few more Parabeam lights on the small generator.

A Honda EU6500is & 60A Full Power Transformer/Distro powering PFC 2.5 & 1.2 HMI Pars, PFC 800w Joker HMI, Kino Flo Flat Head 80, 2 ParaBeam 400s, and a ParaBeam 200

For example, on night exteriors we ran a package consisting of a lighting package that consisted of a 2.5kw HMI Par, 1200, & 800 HMI Pars, a couple of Kino Flo ParaBeam 400s, a couple of ParaBeam 200s, and a Flat Head 80. Given the light sensitivity of the Red Camera, this was all the light we needed to light even large night exteriors. Use can this link - www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/hdfilmstrip4lg.html - to see the final results, and get more detailed information on the lighting package we used along with more production stills from the movie.

Eileen Ryan, Boston Gaffer

 

[Paul Hudson]

These are all great suggestions for “grip lighting”, but Scotts problem is what to do when the sun goes away part way through the shoot? As a gaffer in New England (about which Mark Twain famously quipped “If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and it will change”) I don’t go outside without a lighting package – especially if we are shooting a dramatic scene that will take all day.


This is not a problem we have to often where I shoot (Arizona, California, Texas and Florida). As they say, experience counts. Thanks for pointing out an obvious problem I failed to recognize.