Outdoor Commercial

lxjordanxl

lxjordanxl

Active member
Hey guys,
I'm shooting an outdoor Chanel Spec Commercial. The lighting is going to be essential and I have a few questions regarding outdoor shooting and what I'll have to take into consideration. The commercial is only a :45 second piece and it involves the model walking around in a beautiful long black dress in an abandoned golf field (stark contrast in fashion and environment). The fields at this golf course are pretty wide open with not many areas of shade and the time I set is from 1:30 PM est to 6:00PM. This commercial will be shot on a Red Epic and the equipment that I have access to are as listed:

1 M18 HMI
3 arri 1k
4 4x4bank kinoflo
c-stands
1 flag
bounce boards

The look that I'm going for is really beautiful soft light on my model, will attach photos for reference. Since this is my first time shooting video outdoors, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated on how to achieve these looks! Thanks so much guys!

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I'd get rid of all your lights and get an 8x8 or larger butterfly and silk. Use that and a good size reflector and you'll get the look in those pictures.
 
As other said...

Fill..and lots of it ( flat/shadowless) ...Back light ...loads of it ( controlled)...and post production CC/grade. (Vignettes, filters, masks, secondaries, track masks... etc)

Maybe camera filters of choice ( eg. promist, black Promist). Leave room for post filterings. eg dont over do it on camera.

Shoot protect your shadow and highlight detail and work it out in post. eg compress to the gamma area and reduce chromas.

Your samples are not showing one look or one lighting set up and they are all heavily posted ( photoshop). Thats fine...you can match any of them if you study them.

Tip: make up.
 
75% of those shots have the same lighting. Always take note of the shadows. There is a little butterfly under the noses and a bit of shadow under their brows. Then a few of those models have highlights on the lower portion of their iris's showing that there is also probably a very large bounce happening on a soft source like foam core, not a reflector. None of the shots have hard light, everything is done on an overcast day or they are in the shade.
 
lxjordanxl said:
How does that help me?
Click to expand...
Well, I think the point was -- much of the look in those photos wasn't done through lighting, it was done in photoshop... there's lots of use of selective blurring and diffusion filtering going on in those photos. Not really in-camera or lighting things.

I'd basically echo what bgundu and Shooter are saying.

Soft light outdoors is usually accomplished in one of three ways:
a) put the sun at the subject's back for a strong rim light and use bounce cards to fill in their face/front (can result in just gorgeous highly accented glowing angelic footage)
b) Use a huge silk/overhead/butterfly to diffuse the sun's light, turning the sun into a great big softlight source. That works very well for a softer look but the problem can be that your subject will be darker than the background, since undiffused light is hitting the background, but diffused light is striking the subject.
c) Use lots of light. That's expensive, and really limits your ability to move the subject around. A giant blasting HMI can overcome the darkening factor of the diffused light, but this would be more suitable for a stationary subject.

To me, the most practical option is putting the sun at the subject's back, and using big bounce cards (or overheads or whatever). The restriction with this technique is that it limits you to only certain hours of the day, and the best look is achieved at "golden hour", early in the morning or late in the afternoon. If you can shoot the entire project in that time frame, you can get inexpensive beautiful footage.

If you need to shoot all day, then you can't really rely on the sun like that, because the sun moves -- fast. If you need to shoot all day outdoors, with a consistent look, then you're going to have to get a big overhead and take the sun out of the equation, turning it into a large overall soft source, and then use an HMI or something to make an artificial sun for your hairlight.
 
I've been on many high end fashion shoots over the years, used to work as a photo-assistant, you will be surprised by the gear that comes out of the truck on some of those shoots. multiple 20x20 silks, 10 and 18K's and lots of assistants. It's not that easy to make something look simple. I've seen bigger crews on fashion shoots then a on a low budget movie set.

Of-course there are the ones that only need a 4x4 bounce and a tripod.
 
I want to thank everyone for their help, you guys are lifesavers. It's nice to know their are such awesome people out there!
 
mcgeedigital said:
If you can, shoot with "God's Softbox", aka an overcast day.

Excellent soft lighting.
Click to expand...


Hey Mcgee,
Would like to ask you something about shooting on overcast days. I had to postpone my shoot which was on Sunday because of rain and weather conditions. When you say "overcast", what type of overcast do you mean? The reason I ask this is because the last week here in Miami has been very dark and the clouds have been very heavy with very little light. Is this the ideal overcast you're referring to or maybe a day with some sun peering through the clouds? The days in this past week have been very dark and it would be tough to reflect and bounce....probably would have to use an HMI.
 
I'd take an overcast day (even a dark one) paired with a decent lighting kit rather than a bright sunny mid-day. You're basically given a huge soft light to start with. All you need to do is add light here and there as you see fit. If you've got the sun blasting down on you - you'll have to soften the light as well as add any rim light etc. I'd take the overcast option, unless:

Unless you shoot the video when the sun is lower in the sky - a huge portion of your sample pictures could have been shot with just a reflector either early in the morning or later in the day with the sun behind the subject (on a sunny day).

I've been shooting stills for a few years now, and I've grown used to shooting solo with a limited amount of gear. You'd be amazed at the results you can get with just the right time of day and a reflector - especially with the dynamic range of your RAW toting Scarlet. Okay, I'll say it - you could maybe even do it WITHOUT a reflector if you were quick on your toes and shot within the magic hour. But this is coming from a photographer who is used to only needing 30-40 final frames from a portrait session. You may need to control the situation for a longer period of time to get what you need, I don't know.

All the best!

- Cole
 
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