night time process shot advice

D

Despin

Member
So I have a little scene in a car with two people talking while driving down a dark country lane. Half of it will be with them moving and the other half with them parked up.

I guess I'm after some advice from you guys on doing this kind of shot.

I have an idea on how do do this type of effect digitally using green screens and have seen a bunch of info/tutorials for doing it. But most of them are set in the day time. I'm unsure of where to start for a night-time shot.

Now the location will be a country road so outside of the window would be quite dark anyway. It's not like there will be lots of lights/buildings/cars to see... I was considering a poor mans process kinda shot. It's something I've never attempted before and agin.. Would love some advice from you guys.

This is a real low budget affair. I have no pro lighting gear.. So it would have to be stuff I can cobble together from the local hardware store.

I'll be shooting on the sony EX1.

I'm gonna go out tomorrow and shoot some reference material at the location. see what the camera can do in no light and what can actually be seen outside the window while driving.

Any tips or advice on the subject would be great. Cheers.
 
We greenscreened exactly the kind of shot you're talking about -- two people at night in a car driving down a dark road. It was a nightmare -- and we had a pro lighting guy. I still don't have a good composite of that scene!

If I were doing it again, I'd forget the greenscreen and just use a car mount.

Good luck!
 
thanks for the advice mate. Will defo take it all into account. I went out a few days ago and got a bunch of reference photos and video material. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get away with having the car stationary, lighting for the characters within and having some movement on the car and some slight movement reference out of the window. Anyway.. We'll see how it goes.

I also have a few day for night shots Im gonna have to do for the exteriors.. Never tried anything like that before either. Seems to be a bunch of writing about it online. Can't wait to get stuck in.

Here's my very first test. Lots of problems with it. But I thin I know where I'm going wrong.

original shot
http://vimeo.com/2819727

and then there was night... kinda.. with a big fake moon. ha.
http://vimeo.com/2819745
 
Despin said:
Now the location will be a country road so outside of the window would be quite dark anyway. It's not like there will be lots of lights/buildings/cars to see... I was considering a poor mans process kinda shot. It's something I've never attempted before and agin.. Would love some advice from you guys.

This is a real low budget affair. I have no pro lighting gear.. So it would have to be stuff I can cobble together from the local hardware store.
Click to expand...

I have a script that I never got around to shooting that has a bunch of driving sequences at night on a remote wooded road.

I too thought about green screen, but a fellow filmmaker friend brought up a good point. It will most likely only work if you do the whole scene that way, as opposed to doing a shot here or there with green screen. Another thing to consider is if you can't get a good key, then you're screwed. I'd much rather have less be seen outside the car than a badly keyed shot. Plus, I'm of the school of thought that if you can do it for real or in-camera, then that is the best way to go.

What I was going to do for some shots was to have the camera mounted on or inside the car, shooting a profile view of the actress/driver, while out of frame in the back seat would be someone holding a light aimed out the back window. The other option would be mounting the light could on the exterior of the window or roof of the car. The idea was that the light would be moving with us, constantly providing light to illuminate the foliage along the side of the road. A variation on this idea would be to mount a light on the side of the car near the front to simulate spill from the head lights. I think the key would be to not overdo it, just a little bit of light so that the trees outside whip by.

Your dusk for night shot looks like a good start. Sky still seems a little bright and I'd try it without the moon. The moon looks nice but just seems a bit too big and bright. As for the interior of the car shots, since it is secluded and is nighttime anyways, you could probably get away with it being really dark outside the vehicle and just have some off camera lights sweep over the actors once in a while, and add a passing car sound to finish it off.
 
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Hi all, 1st post here.

Just thought i would start here i guess. I am working on a short and it also has night time driving scenes with dialogue etc, what i am thinking of doing is having the car sitting on a flat car trailor being towed by another vehicle to similate actuale driving. because the trailor is very low, the shots look real, because they are.

Plus, Actors can sometimes feel safer.

With this, it seems i may have a lot more control over the lighting as well as cleaner shots because of the ability to have 2 cameramen stand outside the side of the car (strapped on of course) and shoot in.

A much more controlled production.

ok, theirs my 2 cents worth!

cheers
 
Tyso said:
Hi all, 1st post here.

Just thought i would start here i guess. I am working on a short and it also has night time driving scenes with dialogue etc, what i am thinking of doing is having the car sitting on a flat car trailor being towed by another vehicle to similate actuale driving. because the trailor is very low, the shots look real, because they are.

Plus, Actors can sometimes feel safer.

With this, it seems i may have a lot more control over the lighting as well as cleaner shots because of the ability to have 2 cameramen stand outside the side of the car (strapped on of course) and shoot in.

A much more controlled production.

ok, theirs my 2 cents worth!

cheers
Click to expand...

More controlled, yes -- but also considerably more dangerous for the people standing on the trailer, straps or no straps. You may also be violating the traffic laws of your state. Around here (in NC), it's illegal for anyone to be in or on any towed vehicle.

Make sure you have lots of insurance!
 
chapelgrovefilms said:
More controlled, yes -- but also considerably more dangerous for the people standing on the trailer, straps or no straps. You may also be violating the traffic laws of your state. Around here (in NC), it's illegal for anyone to be in or on any towed vehicle.

Make sure you have lots of insurance!
Click to expand...

No worries Dave, I live in a rural town in NSW, Australia and their is no probs about laws etc as the town has many quiet, smooth, winding roads which miranda through the national pineforest and our police here are fine as long as they can see that OHS (occupational Health & Saftey) procedures are followed.

We dont have much issues here with regards to location licensing as filmmaking here (unlike the USA) is not considered the norm and as such when ever we are filmming outdoors, the police pop over and say gidday.

With regards to the saftey of the driving scenes, we will be filming the scenes as we move, but we will only be driving about 40kms and hr max, but from the angles, it will look faster ie: Appropriate DOF and the background images moving vertically etc.

The guys who work with me on most of my filming projects are also experienced riggers, so saftey straps & gear for awkward angles with the camera have aided us on many ocassions.

Cheers
 
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