Lighting for EXT, DAY

J

Jester2138

Well-known member
I've shot tons of stuff indoors day/night and outdoors at night, but never anything significant that's outdoors during the day. I've got a month to prepare and have looked around online for some tips on using things like negative fill, large overhead silks, bounceboards/reflectors, and mirrors in combination or even individually for EXT, DAY scenes.

It's a short cerebral war film set in the woods shot on the FS100. We can't bring in our own lights. Just gotta work with the sun.

Anyone have advice or articles with examples? It would be very helpful.
 
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By lights, do you mean only actual lighting units that consume electricity or can you bring nothing having to do with modifying the available light such as large overheads and reflectors?
 
Well... one of the greatest cinematographers in the world almost always shoots with available light.... so I would go with what you have read on overheads and bounces...
 
You can do a lot with a butterfly and a few bounces. It depends on the location. If you have shade, use it. Dappled light from trees is great. Let the sun work as a kicker or a back light and bounce the light back. That usually works well for me.
 
You'll have to choose whether you want the sun to be only backlighting the subjects or keying them, or backlighting one while keying the other. If it's sunny out and you want the softest look, as others have said, let the sun backlight your subjects and use the white side of a bead board to give them some return for a key. If you want direct sunlight on someone, you can either use time of day to your advantage and not modify it at all, keeping it the most realistic looking, or you can diffuse it for close-ups. I wouldn't even attempt to change the lighting for very wide / establishing shots, time of day is critical for this type of coverage.

If you have two reflectors, you can use them to reflect the sun in virtually any direction. With one of them you're limited to only certain angles, but if you bounce the sun from one reflector into another, you can have the light coming from just about any direction, as long as you're not lighting up a very large space.

Depending on how dense the woods are, you might run into trouble trying to find enough space for larger rags. A 4x4 frame is plenty for covering two people in a tighter shot though, and it will be the quickest to set up. If you go with these, I would probably have one skinned with hampshire frost, one with hilite / soft frost / shower curtain, and maybe one with 251 or opal as well. The latter two will cut the light much more though.

If it winds up being cloudy and you want more contrast, neg fill will be your friend. Keep in mind that although both sides of a flag are black, one side is almost always less reflective than the other.
 
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