Exterior Shot At Night

Hi Grasshopper:

Just what kind of budget do you have to work with? The scenes in the music video are very large scale, this was shot with a big budget, really big. There are a ton of lights at work here. Are you trying to get that shot with 50-100 people and multiple cars in it? The video quality is horrendous on You Tube but from what I can see, I would say Musco lights or possibly large HMIs mixed with helium ballon lights.

This is all big boy, expensive, top of the line stuff. If you have the bucks, your DP can look at this and tell you exactly what you need but if you are trying to do this on a low budget, good luck, you'll need it!

Dan
 
To get the same effect shrunk down, here's how I saw it. A soft source key coming from camera left. A hard edge, backlight from camera right (probably from the roof of the warehouse on the wideshot, and from the ground on the closeups). Lights on the roof of the buildings lighting the buildings across from each other, and a wetdown. Note that the closeups of the girls were lit differently. They added another soft source , and the edge/backlight was softer.

So say if you were going for the same effect in a small alley, you'd want access to the roofs for the backlight and building lights, and a hose for the wetdown (be very careful with electricity and water) and a 6x silk with a few lights blasting into it for your soft source. Good luck and have fun.
 
Electricity and water don't mix huh....? Got to right that down somewhere.

The problem I'm going to have is that the parking lot for the shoot is a big open space. There aren't going to be any building to light or hang lights off of.

Where do you rent the big HMI's?
 
Hi Grass:

http://www.cameraservice.com/
http://www.bexel.com/networknewyork.htm
http://www.goblininc.com/

And about a million more places in NYC. You are in one of the largest production markets in the world, everyone has them in NY.

If you have a large parking lot with no buildings, you are back to Muscos, giant outdoor lights that are also cranes. I used to work on Unsolved Mysteries and when we did car stunts at night, we would wet down the streets and bring in the Muscos, they work. But you are talking big generators, crews, permits and lots of $$$ in rentals and insurance. The helium balloon lights would work as well as long as there is no wind.

Best,

Dan
 
"Electricity and water don't mix huh....? "

get a experienced Gaffer .. if you are hosing down street/alley then gaffer will probably switch over to use DC instead of AC current ... also experienced gaffer can take a look at location - tell him what you want ( or show them video) he can tell you approx how big/many of lights you'll need ...

if low budget and large area like music video ... shoot the wide shoots at sunset magic hour ( approx 45- 1 hr on west coast - don't know about east coast- keep sky out of shot ) .. then rest of night shoot other shots ... then shoot wide shots again during morning magic hour = 2 chances to get wide shots ...
 
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