Minimum grip gear for an outdoor shoot

[Jon Chema]

Your input on the minimum required for decent looking day exterior during full sun and overcast throughout a day...obviously "decent" is subjective. I'm shooting with a 7D so I have a little more latitude due to sensor size. As far as actors go...no more than 3 in a scene at any given moment. Example locations include: outdoor restaurant patio, lake front, and parking lot.

Thanks for the input...

 

[Huy Vu]

If it's overcast, you're screwed. No amount of grip equipment will do you any good unless you can afford big HMI setup and generators. In sunny weather, shiny board is always useful for reflecting, as well as 6' x 6' or 12' x 12' overhead with silk to take the punch out of the sunlight. You'll need the frame, the fabric, at least two combo stands and a generous helping of 20 lbs sandbags (preferably heavier).

 

[lifestylefilms]

maybe add an opal to the list.
you'll also need 2 50' lengths of rope and 4 dog sticks if you're flying those frames outdoors.

you might want a standard and a brute flag kit
I'd go at least:
Standard flag kit
solids 4
doubles 3
singles 3
silks 2

Brute flag kit
solids 3
doubles 3
singles 3
silks 3

4'x4' bounce and maybe a 3'x3' as suggested above

 

[Michael Carter]

If you can't hire a lighting truck & power, you either need that perfect slightly-hazy day, or focus on fabric & reflectors.

There's all sorts of googleable DIY butterfly frames, or hit a big-city rental joint.

Myself, I really like more gauzy silks (white net) vs. solid nylons. I think they look more real & pretty. You still get shadows & modeling, just opens the shadows & softens the highlights.

 

[Brooksy]

If it's overcast, you're screwed. No amount of grip equipment will do you any good unless you can afford big HMI setup and generators. In sunny weather, shiny board is always useful for reflecting, as well as 6' x 6' or 12' x 12' overhead with silk to take the punch out of the sunlight. You'll need the frame, the fabric, at least two combo stands and a generous helping of 20 lbs sandbags (preferably heavier).

What are you talking about?!

There is plenty of lighting you can do outside without having to turn on a single light, let alone an HMI.

First off lighting is more about control then throwing "stuff" at a shot. If you have wide shots there isn't a whole lot you can do other then some good shot design (which should be done regardless). However when you move in for your close ups you should focus on using negative and different types of bounce cards as well to achieve lighting that isn't flat. I would also never use a shiny board or reflector on a person either. Maybe to make the background pop but that is about it. You should be using white cards, foam core, bead board, celotec, etc. Remember it is more about control and less about throwing lights at your subject.

 

[Huy Vu]

First off lighting is more about control then throwing "stuff" at a shot. If you have wide shots there isn't a whole lot you can do other then some good shot design (which should be done regardless). However when you move in for your close ups you should focus on using negative and different types of bounce cards as well to achieve lighting that isn't flat. I would also never use a shiny board or reflector on a person either. Maybe to make the background pop but that is about it. You should be using white cards, foam core, bead board, celotec, etc. Remember it is more about control and less about throwing lights at your subject.

Without getting pissy about it, outdoor lighting is a wide discipline, and I have my preferences and you have yours. My methods have worked well for me as I'm sure that yours have for you. So please put a little tact into your answer before assuming that I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[Eileen Ryan]

... when you move in for your close ups you should focus on using negative and different types of bounce cards as well to achieve lighting that isn't flat. ... You should be using white cards, foam core, bead board, celotec, etc. Remember it is more about control and less about throwing lights at your subject.

These are great suggestions for “grip lighting”, but I have to agree with Huy that when the sun goes away you need lights? 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 dramatic scenes. But, you don’t need as large a lighting package as Huy suggests here:

No amount of grip equipment will do you any good unless you can afford big HMI setup and generators.

There is a middle road. If you pre-plan your shots 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 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 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. It takes the directionality out of the sun and knocks down the ambient level by two and half stops, which enables you to use a smaller light like a 2.5/4 HMI Par to model your talent to mimic the establishing shot. 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 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, if the sun does goes behind a cloud for a time, a 1.2 kw is usually sufficient to bring back the edge that was lost.

In this position, your background is also back-lit so it does not over expose because of the discrepancy in levels under the silk and outside the silk. Also, your background looks better because it is not flatly lit, but has some contrast. Finally, with the sun in a backlight position all 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.

An 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. We knew 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. Surrounded on three sides by woods, we knew that we would lose the sun altogether at some point and would need lights. 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 where the sun would be when we would shoot the wide so that there was always an edge.

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 added bonus the smoke from the grill drifted into the woods, creating shafts of light where the sun broke through the tree canopy. What could easily have been a plainly lit scene, 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. If you can’t wait for the optimum sun position, the same modified generator will run a 6kw par that you can use to fill direct sun.

Night exterior scene lit with nothing more than a Honda EU6500is

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 a 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.

A Honda EU6500is & 60A Full Power Transformer/Distro powering PFC 2.5 & 1.2 HMI Pars, PFC 800w
Joker HMI, Kino Flo Flat Head 80, 2 ParaBeam 400s, and a ParaBeam 200

For example, on night exteriors we ran a package consisting of a lighting package that consisted of a 2.5kw HMI Par, 1200, & 800 HMI Pars, a couple of Kino Flo ParaBeam 400s, a couple of ParaBeam 200s, and a Flat Head 80. Given the light sensitivity of the Red Camera, this was all the light we needed to light even large night exteriors. Use can this link - www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/hdfilmstrip4lg.html - to see the final results, and get more detailed information on the lighting package we used along with more production stills from the movie.

Eileen Ryan, Boston, Gaffer

 

[slondon]

Good info here. Thanks all, especially Eileen.