Making it Rain and Using Smoke.

[craigbowman]

On a project I'm DPing at the moment we've had requirements to make it rain for certain scenes. Under certain conditions and certain angles I've found that the rain doesn't show up very well unless you ad a diffusing element like smoke into the mix.

This is what you'd always expect to see:

But in fact many of our earlier shots don't look so much like its raining at all:

But if we add smoke into the mix:

Even that first shot at the top has our no-budget rain falling through our no-budget smoke to make the rain show up better.

 

[Jeff Anderson]

Nice, wasnt aware of that trick. Looks great! What did you all use to create low budget rain and smoke?

 

[craigbowman]

For the downpour style rain we found an area where the foliage of nearby trees overhangs an old road. We brought in a truck with a big tank filled with water and used a gas pump with a hose to shoot water up into the air where it would fall through the foliage overhang.

For the light steady rain a couple of guys on ladders with garden hoses and nozzles.

Smoke: Someone in the crew borrowed a smoke gizmo from a local theatre group.

 

[Postmaster]

Wow! I would never expect it to make that much difference.
Is it the same amount of rain in picture 2 as in pic 3?

Frank

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Always try to backlight smoke and rain. The smoke simply catches the light and reduces contrast. It sure works. if you want rain to show up w/o smoke, more backlight!

 

[craigbowman]

Wow! I would never expect it to make that much difference.
Is it the same amount of rain in picture 2 as in pic 3?

Frank

Here is picture 2 from reverse camera angle:

 

[Paul Hudson]

Backlight is your friend, for sure!