Exteriors: does time of day play on tape?

[klwilbur]

I will be shooting exteriors in the daytime. I've never shot exteriors before so this is new for me.

The script I have calls for scenes in the morning and afternoon. The morning does not mean dawn with a rising soon...just an early morning.

My director has suggested that we might need to actually shoot the morning shots in the morning even though we don't plan on having the sun in any shot. I didn't think that the angle of light on the actors would necessarily play in the shots. In other words, with all the other adjustments that we'll most likely have to make (placing actors in shade or using reflectors, etc.) I didn't think we'd notice the original angle of light enough to tell if the shot was actually shot in the morning or not.

I wanted to get the opinions of more experienced shooters.

The question: do you have to shoot in the morning to have a convincing morning scene?

Please let me know if I can provide more information to help answer this question.

Thanks,

Kelly

 

[khmuse]

The angle of the main light source (Sun) is very important to conveying time of day in a shot. You can of course get this angle with either the sun rising or setting as long as there is no other reference to the East/West line. If you are shooting in open shade and using a large single reflector, you might be able to make a convincing low angle main illumination source. You might want to use gold soft bounce to further sell the look.

 

[Icarus2005]

what you can't do is shoot mid-day for morning.

The big problem with shooting sunrise or sunsets is time - you run out of it very quickly! Also the shaddows move very fast, meaning you may not be able to cut takes together.

Try and choose a locations where no sun shaddows will be in your background. Also try and avoid sunlight hitting the characters directly.