impossible to shoot video in daylight?

C

c.g._eads

Veteran
i'm shooting a movie on DVX where a lot of the action takes place in a moving convertible. a d.p. friend of mine says it'll be impossible to shoot video in an open car and make it look good (cause the sun will blow everything out). i guess I can use an ND filter or two and shoot later in the day. But then my schedule would be like 80 days long. So will this happen? Will it look bad?

What are my options to make it look good? Money is tight so cheap suggestions first.
 
Video does have problems with white ( avoid white ) in the sun. The cinegama curve should help you keep the highlights from burning out. Cloudy days or at least clouds in the sky help reduce sharp contrast from sun to shadow. Do you have clouds in Ca? We are a little short of them here in AZ
 
Move to England...lots of lovely cloud cover to soften hard lighting.

If only God was my Gaffer.

Does it have to be a convertible? You can shoot in a normal car and ND the windows that are in shot.

It isn't "impossible" to use a convertible, but your DP friend is probably worried about the lack of contol he will have over the lighting, leading to blown out highlights possibly - fair enough. Try some tests and see if you think it looks acceptable, but remember, it looks different in different weather. Personally I hate direct sunlight when shooting on video, so lucky I never see any of it then!
 
Avoid the hours between 10-3 at all costs, and use the sun as a backlight, but void overcast skies unless you're okay with them being totally white and blown out. You should probably light the talent in the car a bit, although by virtue of it being a convertable they may be lit well enough, and unless you shoot really late in the day, you won't have a powerful enough light source. Try color-corrected flourescents or bounce cards for close ups or deal with a little underexposure.

DPs HATE shooting dialogue in cars. I've read some turn scripts down if there's too much of it, but if you can deal with slight imperfections, it can be done well enough.
 
A polarizing filter can help bring the sky in a little more. Not as good as a graduated ND filter, but better than nothing.

Dan
 
Obviosly you friend hasn't a clue
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Hahaha. I've seen stuff shot by family members on our little GS70 from a moving vehicle in Barrow Alaska (white and cold as hell) and it came out quite well. You can get good footage if you know what you are doing. Are there better situations? Yes... but it's certainly not impossible!

Regarding overcast skies... I don't think the skies are blown out. That's just what the sky looks like. Technically you aren't overexposing the sky :).
 
Shaw, the skies don't always blow out, but they very very often do. I met some guys shooting with a varicam and they couldn't get the skies exposed under 100IRE, so they used a promist and doublefog filter to create a diffused "dream-like" effect and soften the harshness around the sky.

The issue is that skies drop the level of sunlight, then they backlight the clouds. So, less sunlight on the subject, tons of sunlight diffused in the sky (on one side of it, at least), so a very high difference in exposure. I suppose if you shoot with the sun facing the talent it would be okay since you'd be shooting the side of the sky that has less light, but I've heard that the sun makes a better backlight. But overcast days are virtually shadow-less anyhow so it doesn't matter.


Oh well....I'm no DP, either. Clearly. I'd ask your DP friend for advice, then try it out.
 
Superb points. Now that you mention it I remember having difficulty with a few shots on overcast days. Not all of them but enough to note. As you suggest, I think this is related to shooting into the sun (or not). Interesting... will have to shoot a bunch of tests just out of curiosity now!
 
What about rigging an overhead diffuser/silk, and maybe rigging a light or 2 to light the actors? That may not be in the budget, but it could work. Are these mostly medium or close shots on the actors or is the camera all over the place during the scene?

steve
 
You can frame so that most of the shot is of the principal(s), seats, headrests and pillars - keep the sky out of the shot to whatever extent possible. If you're executing a great deal of process shots, have a professional window tinting company apply ND.6 or ND.9 to the rear and rear passenger windows for better control.

To add a stop or two, I like to use two single Molefays on the hood using Woods 6" suction mounts.

e
 
polarizer-sun to the back of camera-shoot later in the day- and underexpose it a bit: you can bring some shadow back in post with gamma adjustment

OR

green screen (tricky with DV, can look like crapola)

OR

go old hollywood, and rent a rear projection screen, get some rear POV footage from the road, and set up the vehicle stationairy in a garage. Throw some fans on the actors and shake the car a bit.

impossible-shmossible
 
Think simply-

The way to hold your highlights and avoid plugging shadows is with a lower contrast lightsource. Easiest and cheapest way to get a large, low contrast light source is shoot on a cloudy day. Or, if it's a short segment, shoot just before the sun comes up or just after is goes down.

Yes, that means you'll be dealing with changing conditions, but your budget won't allow for moving into a studio with a 20x flat and some killer HMI's.

If youi shoot downward, you won't see it's overcast, and if you want to snap the light up a bit, add an HMI on a boom or something to provide a little more direction. But the cloudy day is the simple solution.

fn
 
And, if worse comes to worst, have you characters wear non-white/non-light-blue clothing, then bring the sky down and the characters up in post using the brightness/contrast/contrast center controls (or whatever they're called in your NLE).

I just corrected a bunch of shots from my Parents' backyard where the birds were darkish and the sky was too damn bright.
 
The convertible would certainly be more manageable than a regular car as it would be no different than any other exterior. most low budget indies don't have the resources to compete with the sun and just have to learn to deal with it as best as they can.
 
c.g._eads said:
i'm shooting a movie on DVX where a lot of the action takes place in a moving convertible. a d.p. friend of mine says it'll be impossible to shoot video in an open car and make it look good (cause the sun will blow everything out). i guess I can use an ND filter or two and shoot later in the day. But then my schedule would be like 80 days long. So will this happen? Will it look bad?

What are my options to make it look good? Money is tight so cheap suggestions first.
Click to expand...

Your DP friend is correct, given the fact you don't have a real budget to use the tools that would make it possible.

In truth, these are situations better worked out in script rewrites for better shooting situations, than trying to force scenes you don't have the budget for and never end up with a product you like as a result. But most people are too hard headed to realize that. Driving scenes like you mention are best left as short establishing shots or small pieces of a montage.

There's not enough room here to explain to you how to do it and you don't have the budget or time to do it right anyways.

I will tell you this: the person that suggested you avoid midday and use the sun as your backlight, obviously wasn't thinking about your camera shadow, not to mention that your reversal would be shooting into the sun - since this is a conversation I assume there'll be reversals.

cheapest solution is to leave the top up and write it into the script. light the interior from inverters off both the picture car and tow car, you'll need two, trust me. Make sure you run two channels at least and get plenty of room tone because you'll be doing a lot of ADR. Shoot from around 10am to 4pm. use a polarizer. ND the windows if you can.

By the way, if you don't have permits and a couple cop on set you'll be looking at a very pricey fine.

good luck
 
daylight supression indoors

daylight supression indoors

c.g._eads said:
i'm shooting a movie on DVX where a lot of the action takes place in a moving convertible. a d.p. friend of mine says it'll be impossible to shoot video in an open car and make it look good (cause the sun will blow everything out). i guess I can use an ND filter or two and shoot later in the day. But then my schedule would be like 80 days long. So will this happen? Will it look bad?

What are my options to make it look good? Money is tight so cheap suggestions first.
Click to expand...
:thumbsup: i watched the lighting of " Arrested Development "
They shot it with 2 OR THREE BIG BROTHER PANASONICS i am not sure if they were useing the 900's ....
Anyway.We were on a ship shoting between 10 and three oclock and to bring down the burning effect of the window born sun light they used a material called bobinet it looks like fine black fish net .I never saw the final result of the shot but when looking through the master monitor it had a good effect and you could not tell it was there !!!!NOTE THE CAMERA WAS ABOUT AT LEAST TEN FEET AWAY FROM ALL WINDOWS AT ALL TIMES ..
NOW IF THIS STUFF WORKS THAT IS A BIG SAVINGS ON GELL WORK AND ND GELL WORK ON WINDOWS .

in other words,IN YOUR CASE could you run a patch of bobinet out side the car window? int shots in the car ?
IT COULD WORK IF you can throw focus to a shallow degree ,
i think IF YOU GET A CLOSE SHOT OF THE WINDOW youd be too close and would see the net if you could not get shallow focus .
Good luck and experiment !!!
 
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