how to make it look cloudy

Steve Laramie

Steve Laramie

Veteran
Shooting an out door scene where the director wants it to look like its about to rain. If we get lucky and its cloudy fine. But if its sunny we are still going to shoot. Whats the best way to get this effect. I figure allot of it will be post production CC. But my Idea was big frames with very large softboxes to make the sun a much softer light. I was going to position either a gray reflector as a key light and then maybe a soft frame over top for a fill. what would you do assumeing theres no power for lights?
 
well if its sunny and you have a long shot its going to be hard, however if your close in and have something behind you taking up the frame then you'll need a large buttterfly in the diy sevtion you can learn to build one cheaply.keep in mind any added light will need to be defussed and you'll need CTBs on cloudy days the sun it a gigantic soft light, huge in relation to everything you could shoot, so very very soft shadows and not much contrast

good luck
 
For a film I had to shoot, we needed the actors to be in a large empty area which was about to fall victim to a huge storm. We were using CGI clouds & sky replacement, but I needed that overcast look on the actors.

I made everyone get up at 4am and we shot just as the sun was rising, but not over the horizon. The ambient light will start to fill the sky, and once you have enough for minimum exposure the race is on. Close the lens down as the light gets brighter and it's a wrap when the hard sunlight starts to reach your location. The same can be done for sunset although I don't feel it's the same. Seems to 'sunsetty'.

This is of course for wide shots. CU's can use 12x12s or other types of diffusion management.


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You can see in this second still frame, how the suns direct rays were just starting to hit the furthest mound. We would have wrapped after this shot, or moved to CU shots and other ways to cheat.

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Cloudy is best represented by soft shadows, little or no strong highlights. Post CC will do little to hide the fact that the sun is shining bright.

So yea, use some large frames, 12x12 or 20x20 if you can muster it. Just bag the heck out of the 20x20 frame... Diffuse it as much as possible. Try to frame up a little tighter on the shots so you don't have to diffuse as large of an area. Also frame and comp to utilize the shadows. Try to avoid shooting into a background where the sun is going to be casting a strong highlight on a tree/wall/surface. Shoot into the shadowed areas.

If you can, get a 6x6 frame with a silver side and white lemay; use that as a key bounce to round out as much of the light as possible.

Also, some other tips... shoot early in the morning, before the sun is high in the sky, OR later in the evening. It'll be easier to avoid the sun's hard light. You can get a gloomy look pretty easy in the early morning I've found.
 
if you're stuck in sunshine-time, do your closeups with the butterflies and schedule a pickup day to grab the wideshots. It's a p.i.t.a. but hardlight is hardlight.

I was shooting a daytime exterior once on a scattered cloud day and I wanted everyone to have a soft filled ambience on their faces because I thought that harshness of direct sunlight didn't fit the mood of the the piece so I ended up pissing off the entire cast and crew by making them wait sometimes 20 minutes at a time just to make sure a large enough cloud was passing under the sun that we could shoot the entire take with softlight.

They were not having much fun but the results were pretty good, and that's all that matters, right? Do what you have to do, even if it tweaks out others.
 
Lairhair I think we would be able to help you better if you would post stills of the location, try to frame a few the way your planning on framing your shots
 
I am going to do a test shoot this saturday I will bring my nikon and take some stills. Its a very large cemetary with some rolling hills thats all I know so far. Shoot is next tuesday test is this saturday so ill get those up in between then.
 
lairhair said:
I am going to do a test shoot this saturday I will bring my nikon and take some stills. Its a very large cemetary with some rolling hills thats all I know so far. Shoot is next tuesday test is this saturday so ill get those up in between then.
Click to expand...

You should also remember that the 'color cast' of a cloudy day is different than a bright sunny day. While color cast can be adjusted a bit in post, you may want to think about one of the more unusual uses of 'white balance', where you use a cast of grey to give a slight change in color in the capture process.

I think this may explain the difference between shooting in the morning vs. in the evening, where in the evening the color cast seems 'warmer' than in the moring.
 
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