Lighting in the rain?

MatthewC

MatthewC

Well-known member
I've got an upcoming 2 day shoot this weekend, and it's supposed rain heavily. Besides the obvious issues of using a Letus Extreme on an HPX 170 in the dark rainy weather, I really dont want the rain to show up on camera. My film school teacher told me to backlight if I want the rain to show, front light to hide it. How much of an angle off the front can you go before the rain starts to show up? Any tips or advice for shooting in the rain without it showing would be great!
 
Oh great, you do know that you have jinxed yourself, right? If you WANTED to see the rain, it would not show up, but since you do not want to see it, it will be in every shot! You may want to light a candle, or sacrifice a virgin to the filmmaking gods before it it too late!! LOl!

That is the standard formula, to back light the rain to see it, and front light it to not see it. That is going to be tough, especially if shooting during the day and trying to avoid the sky. If the rain is a light drizzle, and you shoot with flat light from behind the camera, there should be no issue with seeing the rain falling. The problem is going to be seeing the effects of the rain on the ground and the actors. I guess keeping a lot of towels around and being careful with your framing would be in order. If you could hang some overheads, large muslin or the like, that may help also.
 
You could always raise your shutter speed to eliminate the rain, but I'm pretty sure it's gonna be useless since your talents are going to be wet anyway.
 
and even if they are under cover and remain dry and you don't see the rain drops it will sound like it is raining
 
Is it actually going to be raining?

Why wouldn't you want to see it then?

Are you using hoses to simulate rain and worried it might not look real?
 
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