Fog and Sillhouettes. Please help

G

gusse

New member
I have been asked to film a music video for some friends. The inspiration/reference for the look they want is the DVD-cover of John carpenters The Fog (http://www.horrordvds.com/reviews/a-m/fog-se/fog-se_fl.jpg) and Metallicas Unforgiven video (the band performance parts) (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5cGvzApDZKI) .

Sillhouettes: lots of smoke and backlight in other words.


I'm guessing I'll mostly have 1-3 people in frame at once. It would be nice to squeeze them all in (6 people) at some point if it's possible but limited lighting resources will probably make that difficult.



We don’t have much of a budget, most of the equipment will be borrowed from friends.


We are filming with a RedOne using Nikon lenses in a room that’s about 15 * 15 meters all in all. Aiming for a f-stop somewhere between 2,0 – 5,6 I guess. Not sure if we will have any ND-filters for the camera.



We’ll be wanting a contrasty end result but with some flexibility for color- and contrasttweaking in post so I don’t want it to be too under/overexposed in the camera to begin with.


Can anyone help me out and tell me what lights and smokemachine I’ll need?

I can borrow 2-3 redheads, 2 kinos and a small lenslight from a friend for free so I’ll do that but I think I might have to rent a bigger lenslight for a stronger backlight/silhouette-effect? Any suggestions?


What smokemachine will I be needing to fill a room that big? (15*15 meters). They are not looking for a haze effect, they want thick fog.


Has any one of you filmed something like this? Can anyone point me to some similar reference videos.


Please help me out. Give me some suggestions.
 
I can't give you a specific fog machine to use, just some generic thoughts. I would set the band up high, and light them from low and behind. This way, you won't have the lights hitting straight in your lens. Maybe rent some scaffolding (or whatever they call them in Metric Land), and build your stage platform on top. Drape plenty of heavy blankets in front of the scaffold to block out the stray light, and shoot from slightly lower than the stage.
 
You might want to try double back lighting the scene. I was on a shoot where they did a lot of night shooting with fog, basically it looked best when background light for the fog came from behind because the light would bounce off all the fog particles and brighten things up a lot plus backlight the talent at the same time. (575w HMI as backlight, Diva for fill, shot on HVX200 + Letus 35 w/Nikon Lenses) I found it a little surprising how much brighter the background appeared just because of a little fog. Also like Capt Quirk was saying, try backlighting your talent from low down, that should give you a good amount of light to make your actors silhouettes. (I think you might even need two back lights on the talent otherwise it may become a kicker, you could also try booming out from overhead) If you want to have a little room in post to pull some detail out of the silhouettes then maybe put a very dim kino flo aimed at the talent from the front?
 
Last edited:
the video is done

the video is done

Hi again!

The video is finished and if you are interested you can have a look at it here: http://www.vimeo.com/2398873

The look and concept evolved a bit after I talked to you guys but the basic premise of lots of smoke and backlights is still there.

I wanted a dirty silhouette look so I crushed the shadows, blew out the highlights and added grain and scan lines. The end result isn’t really RED-reference material but we went for something a bit grittier.

My first ever music video. My first ever solo project. I learned a lot and the end result turned out ok but there’s lots of room for improvement. Next time I hope I’ll do a lot of things different from the first time. The next one should be better! As always ;-)

Feedback on the video is appreciated!

Thanks for all the help!
 
While the music wasn't my cup of coffee, I liked the video. I particularly liked the way you started the Lead's face in shadow, then brought up the light revealing him. Well done. The only negative in my mind, is that I would have brought up the Lead's voice just a touch, so that it wasn't so drowned out by the music... but again, that is just me.
 
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