Need quick help with outdoor lighting. (Overhead Scrims)

[suicdekng]

My gaffer just dropped off my short film project to work a feature, so I am currently in need of some advice that would usually come from him.

I'm new to DPing, and as comfortable as I am with lighting interiors with anything from LED to quartz to HMI, I am not at all up on the outdoor shooting.

We have a few c-stands, flags, several reflectors, bounce cards and nets. Nothing is larger than 42". If the weather does what it claims to do, We will be shooting with the sun rather high (not directly, but mostly from above).

Due to some of the shots needing to show the actor standing on the street, a large overhead scrim's shadow will end up being visible in some shots. There are, however, several close and mid-shots that will NOT show the ground, so a large scrim could be used.

The question is - should I get one? (rent, naturally) I can get a 12 footer for just over $100 for the shoot. As much as I google and as much as I browse these forums, I cant find ANYTHING about outdoor lighting. I can find some cheap and indie tricks to get better shots, but I really want to know what one would do outside in broad daylight to get a great shot if one had several hundred dollars to put into it.

So, contrary to the usual direction of questions here; what can I spend extra money on to make an outdoor daylight shot better.

Thank you all!

 

[Barry_Green]

Well, the #1 thing to do is scout the location and find what time of day the sun looks best, and shoot that time of day.

Outdoor lighting is dependent on the same principles as indoor, except that you only have one fixture (the sun) so you have to soften it (with silks, etc) or bounce it (with a big white overhead, or silver reflectors, or mirror boards) to get it where you want. Problem is, if you're shooting a big wide scene, it's not easy to change the direction of the sun. If the shadows are falling the wrong way, they're falling the wrong way, and it's not something simple to overcome without maybe a big 20x20 or 20x30 overhead, and then you're going to be talking about huge stands and tie-downs and tons of sandbags and extra labor to handle it all... whereas if you just let the sun move itself (by choosing the time of day to shoot) it will do a huge amount of the job for you.

For the close-ups it's not hard, you either use a silk as a softbox for the sun and use reflectors to bring in the fill and the hairlights, or you light 'em from behind and use white or soft reflectors to fill in.

It's the wide shots that cause concern. You can spot-highlight with hard silver reflectors, and it can make a difference, but I'd say the #1 place to start is choosing the right time of day where the light is the right direction. Or, rent a big-enough HMI and big-enough overhead that you can blot out the sun and substitute your own, but that isn't cheap in terms of either money or manpower.

But mainly, there's a reason we call it "magic hour" -- that's when the sun's at a low-enough angle to make everything look great, it's easy to control, shadows look good... if you want the best-looking exteriors, it's easiest to get them during magic hour.

 

[morgan_moore]

I think 'midday' is one of the biggest challenges to the DOP/Director relationship

Im not too experienced in that field but have years as a stills photographer working with clients that cant 'see light' - they look but they dont see, well the better ones look anyway

Barry is correct - the solution is shoot at the right time of day, even write the script for the right time of day !

Actually persuading the 'boss' to do that can, however, be a big wall of communications skills to climb

I often show them set of images saying we can either move or reshcedule or rent this and build this, your choice..

"A shot at the wrong time of day means, blocking the real sun and hiring a new one"

On an indy budget you just need to do the best you can with reflector boards and 'silks' - I guess a silk is similar to the large frame I built that has net curtain material stretched over it

 

[Barry_Green]

A silk is a translucent white material, which is basically like the front of a softbox.

Morgan's statement is pretty much spot on: "A shot at the wrong time of day means, blocking the real sun and hiring a new one"

Moving the sun on a bigger budget means doing as Morgan did, blocking the old one with a massive black flag (or just toning it down with a net) and then setting up a new large HMI somewhere to get it going the direction you want.

On a tiny budget, it means waiting for the right time of day.

With a modest budget, it'd mean grabbing the sun with mirror boards and moving it to where you want it, and shooting tight shots.

 

[julian]

The mirror/reflector boards is a good non electric solution. If it's a clear blue sky day without clouds, you will only need someone (grip/PA) standing by to adjust the boards as the sun moves.

 

[Eileen Ryan]

Boards work great if the sun is out, but on cloudy or overcast days you 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 that will need to cut together. 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 smaller HMI Par lights like a 4k, 2.5, or even the new Arri 1800w Baby Max can 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 4, 2.5s, or 1800s, 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.

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 came out. The production in this picture is using 2.5 Pars to cross key their talent. But since the new Arri 1800w Baby Max lens-less par has the output of a 2.5 Par, and you can operate two of them on a modified Honda EU6500is generator with a Transformer/Distro, you could now do a set up like this without a tie-in or tow generator. Production has definitely changed and for the better.

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

 

[Leo Versola]

Excellent post Eileen and great example of how much extra consideration lighting outdoor scenes can introduce, even for such a simple shot...

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

Just to mention personal preferences... I find silk to be close to useless in any significant way of light adjusting - other then acting like a net cutting off the light. If you are going for diffused look - use light grid.

 

[slondon]

I dislike silk as well. It cuts so much light that the talent looks like it's in shade and the difference in exposure compared to the background, a couple of stops, is very noticeable. I've become a half frost fan. The sun is diffused, no squinting, shadows are softened, exposure differences between under the vinyl and the background are minimal. It's also pretty quiet.

Hiding the edge of the frame is tricky. Try to work it out so its shadow falls along a straight line such as the edge of the sidewalk or is hidden in the gutter. On a street you can't just tie branches along the frame to sell the edge as foliage.

Easy and cheap and very nice looking is to put the sun more or less at the talent's back and use it for an edge light while lighting them from towards the side with beadboards, and if you need a little more love, beadboard skinned with silver lame.

 

[nejuicer]

... since the new Arri 1800w Baby Max lens-less par has the output of a 2.5 Par, and you can operate two of them on a modified Honda EU6500is generator with a Transformer/Distro, you could now do a set up like this without a tie-in or tow generator. Production has definitely changed and for the better.

Yes, you can run two of the new Arri 1800w “Baby Max” lens-less pars off of a Honda EU6500is but you have to be careful about how you do it. Even though the generator’s Edison U-Ground receptacles are rated for 20Amps and the generator has two 20A circuits, it has been my experience that you can not run them reliably on the 20A receptacles on the generator’s power panel. The problem is that the draw of the 1800W Baby Max – 19.5A at 120V – is just too close to the threshold for comfort. If there is any line loss from a long cable run, or increased resistance from an overheated plug end, the draw of the ballast climbs over 20 Amps and trips the breaker. Since they are only rated for 15 Amps, more often than not the problem is that one of the stinger plug-ends has melted. The increased resistance that results from the heat causes the voltage to the ballast to drop and so it has to draw more power to maintain the 1800W load. In my experience the power drawn by the 1800W Baby Max is just too near the operating threshold of a 20A circuit for it to operate reliably.

I have found that the only reliable way to power a 1800W Baby Max on a portable gas generator is from its 240V circuit through a 240v-to-120v step down transformer. A transformer will convert the 240V output of the generator into a single large 120V circuit that is more than capable of powering the 19.5A load of a 1800W Baby Max. And, if you swap the Edison plug end for a 60A Bates you won’t have the problem of the plug ends overheating. We use 60A Bates when we lamp the M18 head with the 1800W globe simply because it is the next size up connector that is standard in distro systems. You could use a 30A/120V twist-lock connector but they aren’t very common in film distros. If the generator is one of our modified Honda EU6500is generators, a transformer will convert the enhanced 7500W output of the generator into a single 60A/120V circuit that is capable of powering up to three 1800W Baby Maxs. And where the 1800W Baby Max has an output comparable to a 4k, I have to agree with Eileen that production on exterior sets has definitely changed for the better.

For more detailed information on using transformers with portable generators I would suggest you read an article I wrote on the use of portable generators in motion picture production. Harry Box, author of “The Set Lighting Technician’s Handbook” has cited my article in the just released Fourth Edition of the handbook. In addition, he has established a link to it from the companion website for the Fourth Edition of the Handbook, called “Box Book Extras.”

If you haven't yet read the article, or looked at it in a while, it is worth reading. I have greatly expanded it to be the definitive resource on portable power generation for motion picture production. Of the article Harry Box states:

"Great work!... this is the kind of thing I think very few technician's ever get to see, and as a result many people have absolutely no idea why things stop working."

"Following the prescriptions contained in this article enables the operation of bigger lights, or more smaller lights, on portable generators than has ever been possible before."​

The “Box Book Extras,” site is also worth checking out because it includes other source material used for the handbook, articles by Harry Box published in other periodicals, related websites, a list of production oriented i-phone apps, as well as more in depth discussion of topics touched upon in the handbook. You can log onto the Box Book Extras site at http://booksite.focalpress.com/box/setlighting/ with our pass-code "setlighting." Use this link for my news letter article on the use of portable gas generators in motion picture production.

Guy Holt, Gaffer, SceenLight & Grip, Lighting and Grip Rental in Boston.