Lighting OUT/DAY, but overcast

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simonfilm

Member
I have seen many examples of how to light outdoor in a sunny day, but never on a cloudy or overcast day.

I know that it is possible to shoot without any setup but I think that film pros use lights and relectors.

Any idea or photo of lighting setups for such situation?

Thank you!.

Simon.
 
I'm DPing a project right now where its been overcast and raining almost solid for the last few weeks, yet I have to make everything look like its sunny outside. I generally have a number of HMIs set up. For example, in this scene on the front porch of an eccentric local's place I had a couple of 1300w HMIs placed outside and a 500w HMI scrimmed down for fill, bouncing inside off the ceiling. (We put umbrellas over the 1300s to keep them from getting soaked.)

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For this kitchen once again 1300w HMI outside the window at the right, and one on the foliage in the background with ND gel on the back window.

kitchen_01.jpg
 
why is it sunnier in one shot, a bit different on the medium close, and the guy is turing green like a constipated hulk. what does it look like the shots are on sticks?

what camera did you use?
 
Amr Rahmy said:
why is it sunnier in one shot, a bit different on the medium close, and the guy is turing green like a constipated hulk. what does it look like the shots are on sticks?

what camera did you use?
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None of the grabs have had proper color correction done. These were sitting around in the grab bin where everyone and their grandmother has been mucking with them. I just threw them up as a response to the question.
 
looks interesting tho, but seems slow paced.

maybe if the production is pumped up a tiny bit it, it would be something beautiful, excellent work.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
looks interesting tho, but seems slow paced.

maybe if the production is pumped up a tiny bit it, it would be something beautiful, excellent work.
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Amr, Im not entirely sure how you could deduce all that from a couple of frame grabs Craig graciously provided the OP.
 
Just curious, I have never seen 1300 watt or 500 watt HMI's. Plenty of 1200 watt and 575 watt. Who manufactures these instruments.
 
That's what I was wondering too, but then I saw that he lives in Canada. Who knows what kind of crazy things they got up there...:)

But, I've worked with a few different ASC DP's on overcast days and they do absolutely nothing. Sometimes that's okay.
 
phudsontx said:
Just curious, I have never seen 1300 watt or 500 watt HMI's. Plenty of 1200 watt and 575 watt. Who manufactures these instruments.
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Just before we started the shoot I asked Don, our gaffer, what we had in the way of HMIs and he said the two larger ones were 1300w and the smaller ones were 500w. Twice since he reiterated same. However, nothing unusual branding wise as they're all ARRI.

Until you brought it up I've never thought to question Don on his lights, but I'll be back on set in a few hours and will get clarification.
 
I'm from Toronto Canada, have been looking into renting HMI lights and all I can find are 1200 watt and 575 like phudsontx says. Unless they were more, like a 2k and 1200 watt, but with gels and scrims or whatever the output is about 1300 watt on the 2k and 500 from the 1200 w. ?

Mostly I had to reply to ask Amr Rahmy how or why he would say something looks slow-paced just from a few grabs?
If I posted this: http://s92.photobucket.com/albums/l12/film_guy01/The%20Dark%20Knight/DarkKnight010.jpg

and you didn't know what the movie was (Dark Knight...so yeah, you probably know) one may think it is slow paced, like a silent film of a guy's life at his office job or something, like one of those artsy 20 second wide shots, or perhaps a very slow dolly-in on the man. But one may not have known it was during a very well paced action-ish bank robbery.
 
no, it's clear. and it's clear on the second grab that it's an action sequence about to happen,

i can see the amount of time it took you to set up the master, for the close shot.

from the place of the door and the plant, and the characters sitting, they don't have anywhere to move.

you have a scene were 2 people, one of was not there in the first place(the uniform), another pretty comfortable(not the sleeper), and they have a conversation of importance enough that you created a master and a close up, you can see reaction shots prepared, and they talk for some time, enough to establish a slight turn of events, and the second reaction shot, that takes time on screen.

and you set a scene, were the uniform suspects something, that will intentionally neglect to the close to end of the movie, that means you added too much filler after this scene.

i'm not going to analyze the movie bit by bit, but you went a bit off track with the genre.

i have seen enough movies to tell what it's about. maybe if they were different grabs it would have been a different story, maybe they would be more vague to deduct the story.

but it's excellent work. if it wasn't, i would not have said anything.
 
Ah, sounds like you know more about the film than I thought....like you watched the movie, or know the script(or plot outline at least) maybe from another thread or a link from the poster's profile...or something.

If that is the case, I retract my last post and apologiese. Sorry, I just found it odd that someone knew the pace of a film based on 4-5 screen grabs. Guess I didn't know the whole story of where you were coming from.


when you say "the second grab" do you mean the one with the woman and man in the kitchen? How is it clear that an action scene is about to happen? (if that is the grab you meant)
...or did you mean my Dark Knight grab. If that's the case, I would have to disagree. If someone never saw the film or heard of the movie (so...someone from a bizarre alien planet then) They would't guess it was action based off that grab.


Anyway, good insights you have about the scene with the people in the room with sun shining through (the one the craigbowman said was shot during overcast/rainy day and got "sunlight" from using HMI lights)
 
i have not seen your posts, but will look into it, his talented.

i have only seen the dark knight once, it looks very clear from the framing that the camera was moving at a slow pace starting to make the audience anticipate what is about to happen, you can see the angle of the shot and the upper portion, and the character looking, indicating what the camera will do next.

if it's a key shot, it's suppose to tell you where it's coming from and where it's going, or else it was not done right.
 
Amr Rahmy said:
i have not seen your posts, but will look into it, his talented.

i have only seen the dark knight once, it looks very clear from the framing that the camera was moving at a slow pace starting to make the audience anticipate what is about to happen, you can see the angle of the shot and the upper portion, and the character looking, indicating what the camera will do next.

if it's a key shot, it's suppose to tell you where it's coming from and where it's going, or else it was not done right.
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You are so quick to point out what you think is a good shot or sequence, I'd love to see some of your work, if its as indulgent as your comments should be fun to watch.
 
The green color on the guy looks like it is from the ambient bounce. Should not be an issue once the film is CCed. Of course, that looks like the colors of the boards around him and maybe shouldn't be corrected too much. Different places have different colors.
 
i'm currently working on manga and graphic novel projects, but it would be sometime before the first chapters are released. they will act like story boards for films.

not sure if i'll post them on a film-making forum tho.

if your making a film in egypt, and have a nice story, and need a filmmaker, i'll be glad to help out.
 
simonfilm said:
I have seen many examples of how to light outdoor in a sunny day, but never on a cloudy or overcast day. I know that it is possible to shoot without any setup but I think that film pros use lights and relectors. Any idea or photo of lighting setups for such situation?
Click to expand...

On over cast days the "pros" use lights to bring back the contrast that is not present when it is overcast. They have to use lights because there is no sun for boards to reflect. One of the principle reasons to use lights outside on cloudy days is to maintain continuity between shots. Again, if the sun is behind a cloud there is no light for a board to reflect to bring back the modeling you lost when the sun went behind the cloud.

As a gaffer in New England (about which Mark Twain famously quipped “If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and it will change”) I don’t go outside without a lighting package – especially if we are shooting a dramatic scene with a lot of coverage. But, you don’t need a very large lighting package. If you plan your shots properly, you can get away with nothing more than a 4k Par and 1.2 Par which you can run on one of the new modified Honda EU6500is/Transformer gen-sets that provides a single 60Amps/120V circuit.

The approach that I find works best is to shoot the establishing master shot when the sun is out and its’ position offers the best modeling or effect. I then shoot the coverage under a full silk and/or when the sun has moved into a backlight position. Shooting under a silk offers a number of advantages. If the sun pops back out and it is in the wrong position for continuity, the silk takes the directionality out of the sun and knocks down its’ level by two and half stops. Now a smaller HMI light like a 2.5 or 4 HMI Par will model your talent to mimic the establishing shot - where without the silk you would need an 18k. The ideal situation is to wait to shoot the coverage until the sun has moved around to a back light position. When in this position, you are shooting into the shadowed side of the talent so small lights, like 2.5/4ks, will have even more of a modeling effect. Shooting into talents' down side under a silk, I find that a 4k Par through a diffusion frame is a sufficient key source for a two shot. And, as the sun goes in and out of the clouds, a 1.2 kw is usually sufficient to bring back the edge of the sun through the silk that was lost.

With the sun in a back light position, your background is also back-lit so the discrepancy in exposure between when the sun is out and behind cloud cover is not that great and so is hardly noticeable. Also, when your background is back-lit it does not over expose because of the discrepancy in levels under the silk and outside the silk – it helps to strike a good balance. Also, your background looks better because it is not flatly lit, but has some contrast. Finally, with the sun in a backlight position, when it comes out, the shadows of the silk frame and stands are thrown forward, which enables you to frame wider before picking up the shadow of the hardware.

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The production still above is a good example of this approach. As you can see from the umbrellas covering some of the ballasts it has been raining. But there is blue sky, so obviously they took this approach to maintain continuity between when it was overcast and raining and when the sun camer out. Another example of this approach is a scene I lit for a low budget feature that took place around a grill in a backyard surrounded by woods. Surrounded on three sides by woods, we knew that we would lose the sun altogether early in the day and would need lights. We also knew that the scene was going to take all day to shoot because of its’ extensive dialogue, so we figured out where the sun was going to be throughout the day and where it would look best for our establishing wide shot. Where it was a two shot, mostly over the shoulder of one character talking to the second character who was standing with his back to the grill with the woods behind him, we decided to wait until the sun had moved into a near back light position to shoot the establishing shot. So we shot our close coverage first with nothing more than a 4k Par and 1.2k Par under a 20x silk. The 4k was heavily diffused and positioned so that it gave the talent the most attractive modeling. The 1.2kw was positioned as a backlight where the sun would be when we would eventually shoot the wide - this way there was always an edge in every shot for continuity.

When the time came to shoot the establishing shot, the shadow of the overhead silk frame and stands were thrown forward and did not interfere with the wider framing. Since we were still shooting under the silk, we were wider open on the iris and so our exposure dug into the dark woods and brought out more detail. As an unexpected added bonus, the smoke from the grill drifted into the woods, creating shafts of light where the sun broke through the tree canopy. What would have been a flatly lit scene without lights, turned into a beautifully lit scene, and was accomplished without a lot of amps. The whole scene was lit with nothing more than a 4k and 1.2k Par and powered by nothing more than a 60A/120 circuit from a modified Honda EU6500is/Transformer Gen-set.

In fact, we shot a whole film on the Red with nothing more than a modified Honda EU6500is. A dual wattage 2.5/4k Par was our one big light. Not only did the Par configuration give us more output but it was also more versatile. When we needed a lot of light for day exteriors we lamped it with a 4k globe. When we didn’t need the punch of a 4k Par, like on night exteriors, we swapped the 4kw globe for a 2.5kw globe giving us more power to run additional lights on the generator. When you consider that a Kino Flo Parabeam 400 uses only 2 Amps , the 15 Amps we saved by burning the smaller 2500W globe enabled us to power quite a few more Parabeam lights on the small generator for our night shoots.

Eileen Ryan, Boston Gaffer
 
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In the picture above are two 2.5 HMI's and one 1.2 HMI's these will never run off the Honda generator mentioned. Get a real Gen set if you plan on a set up like this.
 
phudsontx said:
In the picture above are two 2.5 HMI's and one 1.2 HMI's these will never run off the Honda generator mentioned. Get a real Gen set if you plan on a set up like this.
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With Power Factor Corrected ballasts all of the heads in the picture could run off a single modified Honda EU6500is. The modified Hondas with transformer distros give you a single 60A circuit. A 2.5 with PFC ballast will draw 23 Amps at 120V. A 1200 with PFC ballast will draw 11.5 Amps at 120V. The total load would be 57.5 Amps (23 + 23 + 11.5). If you want to play it really safe, you could plug the 1200 directly into the house and only draw 46 Amps on the 60 Amp circuit of the generator. You don't need a "real Gen set" to accomplish this kind of set up.

Eileen Ryan, Gaffer, Boston
 
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