Getting that "scenic forest" look, like The New World", tips, insights?

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

MatthewC, its great that you're visiting your location(s) and posting images and footage even if its just quick 'n' dirty stuff for the moment. The cinematography section is a lot more fun when we get to see visuals of what people are discussing. I started posting images recently hoping that someone else would follow suit. Maybe its a B.C. thing? Anyway kudos! Keep it coming!!

At the present moment, most of So. Cal. is turning a dingy brown, and we would have had significant brush fires by now... but the temperature has been about 5 degrees lower, at least along the coast than normal, and more overcast than usual as well.

But still it's dingy brown...

So, who wants to see dingy brown 'brush'...

The Wife went to Victoria last year, and has lots of 'rainyday' pictures... none moving pictures though...

 

[MatthewC]

That is going to very critical. The references you sited, Roger Deakins, and "The New World" were shot on film (and with budgets I imagine you do not have). With color negative film, it is easier to expose for the shadow details, and still maintain highlight detail. With a video DSLR (or any digital video camera for that matter) you can not do that. With a video DSLR you are going to have to expose so that your highlights do not peak/clip (Over expose) and in that forrest environment you may (most likely WILL) have shadows that fall off the toe (the bottom end of your dynamic range) and go black. The issue is that a digital camera, including video DSLRS, will not render underexposed shadows as black, but will introduce noise in the the shadows, which sucks. You will need to have a method to get some light into your scenes and decrease the luminance range of the shots (Bring the shadows in the shot up above the toe, for proper exposure). Of course, renting a grip/lighting truck with HMI lights, and a generator is the preferred answer, however, we can't always afford that. If budget is an issue (When isn't it) I would suggest lower budget alternatives. Large reflectors, mirrors to bounce light into reflectors or onto the scene and low powered/high output daylight lights (CFLs and regular fluorescents) powered by generators or by AC inverters, should be considered.

Thanks for the great feedback! Were renting a little Honda generator, and bringing in some HMIs and kino-flo's to help bring the light levels. Kinoflows more for the actors, and HMI/Fresnels for the background, etc. I would love to have everything above the toe, but I don't mind a little black to go with the feeling of the show, I just don't want grain. Mirrors, hadn't thought of that, if I can grab a few patches of light coming through and bounce it around that would be a great help. We're going to have some 12x12 diffusion/ultrabounces to help out. Any HPX-170 settings that could help would be nice, anyone got tips on those? Also, those photos are iPhone photos, so yeah, not the best.

To stay within your limits you could find a clearing and shoot with the sun behind the camera. Deep woods will be a huge problem in terms of image quality on a video camera with no lighting.

I would love to, unfortunately there aren't many areas like this, and the scene requires deep forest. We're shooting in a provincial park so areas are limited for shooting. However, we are hoping for overcast but bright, which would really help us out in this situation. I've got an 85mm f/1.8 coming in, so I'm going to go up one day by myself with my adapter, and spend a few hours in the woods just setting up my pretty frames and getting exactly what I'm looking for when I'm not rushed for time.

MatthewC, its great that you're visiting your location(s) and posting images and footage even if its just quick 'n' dirty stuff for the moment. The cinematography section is a lot more fun when we get to see visuals of what people are discussing. I started posting images recently hoping that someone else would follow suit. Maybe its a B.C. thing? Anyway kudos! Keep it coming!!

This is my first serious project. I'm Directing and DPing it, so I'm trying to get ahead of the game as much as possible. I'll post some video footage on Sunday from the extremely quick camera test we did on Sunday, but I'll be going back up for real stuff soon. Always good to hear from fellow BCers.


Thanks everyone, I'm so glad I posted this thread, this community is awesome and everyone has been extremely supportive! I'll keep updating this thread.