need D.O.P. advice for my shoot

[c.g._eads]

I am shooting a movie in May and b/c of budget will have to D.P. it myself. I'm no slouch but I'm no professional either. Most of the movie will be outdoors but the stuff I'm most afraid of is indoors (Most of the indoor DV footage I've seen looks awful)

It's a roadtrip romance so I want it to be as colorful as possible. Any advice at all about composition, lighting, shooting with few or no lights, tricks, traps, ancedotes, mistakes you've learned from, etc., would be much appreciated. Nothing is off-limits but in the end I'm trying to make this movie look as beautiful and as professional as I can.

thanks,
c.g.

 

[ajalali]

Re: need D.O.P. advice for my shoot

Yes, indoor shots are difficult on DV. I'm no pro either, but here's a few suggestions that come to mind:

1. Try to shoot in a larger room than necessary, so that you can pull the camera back and zoom in to frame. This makes it easier to get "soft focus background" shots, especially if you open up the iris.

2. Use lots of light if possible -- for the style of film you mentioned, stronger lighting will help make colors "pop out" more on screen. If you've got a window in the room, set up a 750W or 1000W broad light outside the window shining in (through some thin curtains for diffusion) to raise the overall level of illumination in the room. Only problem with stronger lights is that the camera may want to stop down the iris to compensate -- instead use ND filters in front of your lens so you can keep the iris open.

Don't forget - if you mix tungsten / halogen lights with natural daylight (coming from windows), you will probably need to add "daylight correction" gels in front of the tungstens/halogens in order to match the color of your "natural" light.

If you've got "few or no lights," open all the windows in the room to let in as much natural light as possible, and then use reflectors, cardboard, scrims, etc. to control your light.

3. MAYBE white balance slightly towards orange/red for a "warmer" overall look. Also, if you've got a DVX100A, you could try using "enriched" matrix - that setting seems to increase the saturation of reds, which might suggest a warmer look as well. And as always, check your lighting/composition on a CRT monitor to be sure...

Good luck!

 

[BEENYWEENIES]

Re: need D.O.P. advice for my shoot

I have actually had more problems with indoor shoots being TOO red, so how's that for a straight answer!
I would say use as much diffused lighting as you can, indoor footage looks real funky if there are tons of harsh shadows and people look blown out. Indoor shots in any room smaller than 10'X10' are a total nightmare because you have no room for decent lighting. If you have a limited budget, go to your nearest import store and buy three of those medium to large chinese paper lanterns. If they can take the wattage, maybe stick a photoflood bulb (unreliable color temps? anyone?) in them and they make decent soft lighting if they are close to the action. As for the mood of your film, soft lighting is unobtrusive and "pretty" so it may not scream bright colors, but harshly lit says Manson family home video, not wedding day. Above all else, do not underlight your scene, you will pull your hair out trying to color correct dramatically underlit indoor footage.
As for composition, you may have to forego such nice things if your space is too limited. You composition may be "I can fit here and still frame up the action. Good enough." but as the previous poster said, try to get distance and zoom in for any depth of field available to you. And good luck! Post it in the footage/screengrabs section when you're done.