poor man's fake driving rain?

roei z

roei z

Veteran
Hi all-
my problem is:
i shot beautiful driver's POV driving in various rain conditions (evening-night)
BUT-
i may no longer have rainy days and i need to complete the actor's shots while driving in the rain
(again, these are evening-night shots so might be easier to fake).

so how can i fake some rain decently? (10-30 seconds required)
i even thought of shooting CU's in car wash tunnel... :)
the camera placement will be around here.
CU rain drive ref.jpg

any suggestions, past experience? any poor man's brilliant solution?

thanks in advance!
 
We had to fake rain for an entire scene last June and it didn't rain the entire month. In fact there was barely a cloud in the sky the entire month and we needed to have a vehicle pulling a trailer hit a person in a driving rainstorm at night from both inside and outside. Then the person they hit is murdered with a hunting bow and a shotgun and finally set on fire. (And that scene was just the teaser at the beginning of the show before the credits.)

rain_onelight_001.jpg


rain_onelight_000.jpg


rain_onelight_003.jpg


rain_onelight_012.jpg


You'd be amazed at what can be accomplished with a couple of well placed hoses and a couple of crew standing on ladders. That last shot with the fire, the rain is two PAs with literally garden hoses. I know so many ways to fake rain for cheap right now from doing this project, its insane.
 
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thanks, impressive.
but we're talking about a moving vehicle driving on a highway ! what hose?
 
i think those are over my budget.. thanks.
and also, it needs to 'rain' on the back sit window and back of the car (as seen in the jpeg above).
 
The only thing I can think of is a truck in front of the car, If you get a generator, and a small pump, you may be able to pull it off, fill a bunch of five gallon buckets, or the a bigger bucket the better, a 55gal drum would be best, Put the pump in the drum, plug the pump into the generator, and pump the water through a tight nozzle, or a device with lots of tiny holes to seperate the water with air. Shoot it at an upward angle. And see how it looks. Maybe add some in post to mesh with it.
 
maranfilms said:
The only thing I can think of is a truck in front of the car, If you get a generator, and a small pump, you may be able to pull it off, fill a bunch of five gallon buckets, or the a bigger bucket the better, a 55gal drum would be best, Put the pump in the drum, plug the pump into the generator, and pump the water through a tight nozzle, or a device with lots of tiny holes to seperate the water with air. Shoot it at an upward angle. And see how it looks. Maybe add some in post to mesh with it.
Click to expand...

huh... the only budget i'll have is a small water tank, pump and hose/sprinkler .. i have to think of some ingenious way of building it on the moving car and specific angles.
 
can the car haul a small low trailer, which could carry the tank, pump etc? Obviously this would restrict your shots, but might be worth a try.

Also, if rain is absolutely hosing down, then the outside is pretty much just a watery blur. So you may be able to fake the movement, i.e. film a stationary car with hoses pouring down on it, while crew move small lights past the car occasionally to fake the impression of exterior things moving past.
 
i had a crazy idea:
water tank in the luggage + hose piece from it + connected to a water hand pump + another hose piece + sprinkler rigged outside...

but all this for a 30 sec shot? (and probably might not work) ;)
 
hmmm, didn't think of that.
but you pose another problem now: with the shot above, the natural lighting etc.. you just put a green paper on the windows?
this lighting won't do (as far as i understand).. how can you make this night lighting into chroma material?
 
Trying to light for greenscreen when your main action is an intentionally underlit night scene - yuck, that's even harder than trying to light greenscreen for daytime scenes. Not impossible, but hard - I wouldn't recommend it unless your team has good greenscreen experience.

Is the camera locked off (i.e. doesn't move) for each shot? You may be able to do an equivalent of greenscreen by adding a mask in post-production and showing rain through the mask. But if your actor is in visual contact with the windows, that could mean a lot of frame-by-frame mask manipulation :( Talk to your visual effects person.

also talk to your camera person about depth of field - if you can get that really shallow, with only the driver in focus, then the windows and outside will be out of focus anyway and your fake rain less noticeable, or even unnecessary.
 
clang said:
also talk to your camera person about depth of field - if you can get that really shallow, with only the driver in focus, then the windows and outside will be out of focus anyway and your fake rain less noticeable, or even unnecessary.
Click to expand...

you mean talk to myself? :)

i will try my 50mm 1.4 to see how shallow i could in this frame. this might be the only true poor man's solution.
 
test and learn. and 30 seconds is a lifetime compared to a good explosion which takes a lot more rigging that this. don't forget the importance of the moment to your narrative.
 
roei z said:
thanks, impressive.
but we're talking about a moving vehicle driving on a highway ! what hose?
Click to expand...

I've got all kinds of shots from in the vehicle at various angles, but a lot of the source material is over at our production facility. This is just some stuff I had kicking around.




car_rain_004.jpg


car_rain_001.jpg


We had cars and all kinds of things go by including light standards etc. which accentuated the "rain?" as they helped occassionally backlight the rain.
 
Thats nice looking stuff craig. On the op's issue, Somtimes you have to come to the conclusion that it's just not doable at low budgets. I have gone through many scenes that I would have loved to shoot in past films, But budget restrictions made un able to work. Is there any way you can rewrite the scene to work with the resources you have? Sometimes it's the only option.
 
We actually never spent a cent for any of the rain gear. Everything we did was dreamed up over a coffee break the day before and it was all hey let's try this 'cause it should work. Even dreaming up lights passing by was a last second ad lib.
 
You could fake the driving part. Have people move past the car with two flash lights in the opposite direction occasionally. Or red lights for simulated tail lights. Hit the car with a hose or two.
 
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