Shooting inside a car at night

RandomHero

RandomHero

Well-known member
Hey all,

I ran a search for this, and nothing seemed to quite answer my question, so I figured I was safe to start a new thread.

I'm working on producing my first short wall-to-wall, (Directing, DP, script, etc) and one or two scenes will feature multi-angle shots inside of a vehicle at night (or dusk). I'm just wondering what the best way to light this is, without getting reflections from windows and such? Do I leave the side windows down? Coat them with something? Is this better just done in front of green screen?

Thanks for the input.
 
What type of lights do you have access to? There are a lot of ways one could do this but it depends on the gear available.
 
@PhilJackson: I have access to a pretty good array of lighting, both on camera and portable or studio, tungsten or daylight.
@Emretufekci: That's kind of the question. Obviously the idea is to make it look like it's in motion, so the actor could be driving, the car could be pulled so he could act, or it could be green screen, really depending on what would get me a good amount of light without distracting reflections or being too overpowering.
 
Rosco LitePads do a good job and can be hidden anywhere. Obviously, taking some time rigging various sizes of the pads will get you better results than you see on most reality shows, where these are most popular. A great feature is that several fixtures will run, dimmed or at full, directly from lighter outlets.

You can buy a really well-stocked kit or each fixture and accessories a la carte.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=litepad+ho&N=0&InitialSearch=yes
 
I'm not so worried about hiding any lights, as I'm only going to be shooting one camera for primary, and these won't be dialogue shots, just one person driving. The issue is I want the scene to look like it's at night, but obviously the character has to be lit, and i don't want reflections or other tell tale signs in the car.
 
You could accomplish a lot with the Rosco 3" dots. I've done car night interiors convincingly on a dark soundstage, though nothing beats being out on the street with real atmosphere playing outside the windows. Assuming you don't have a process rig at your disposal, try to keep it simple. That's why I suggested the 12V DC Rosco system.
 
In my opinion unless you have a full tow truck/camera grip truck is to do it in post. The problems with permits, power, safety and weather is very difficult to pull off in a actual moving vehicle.

Of course the believability factor of post work is critical, for example here is a sample from the best guys in the industry. (Half way through the reel they have samples of moving vehicles).

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/casestudies/6503.html

So what can you afford? I would highly recommend picking up a copy of serious effects and compositing from Videocopilot.

http://www.videocopilot.net/products/seriousfx/

It will teach you step by step how to create good quality effects for your production.

Hope this helps,
 
emretufekci said:
In my opinion unless you have a full tow truck/camera grip truck is to do it in post. The problems with permits, power, safety and weather is very difficult to pull off in a actual moving vehicle.

Of course the believability factor of post work is critical, for example here is a sample from the best guys in the industry. (Half way through the reel they have samples of moving vehicles).

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/casestudies/6503.html

So what can you afford? I would highly recommend picking up a copy of serious effects and compositing from Videocopilot.

http://www.videocopilot.net/products/seriousfx/

It will teach you step by step how to create good quality effects for your production.

Hope this helps,
Click to expand...

Naturally, if you've got a really involved scene with multiple pages, characters and so on, you could easily get into a full-blown speed rail and hostess tray style shoot. I suggested the LitePads because we use them for self-drive "process" work all the time in reality shooting.

I've done poor-man's process on a sound stage too, but that kind of work takes much more in electrics and grip and manpower to pull off and the end result is usually at the level of "Meh..."

What is the context you're asking in? 5 and some eighths pages with four people talking or a solo protagonist driving alone with the radio in the background? With a better idea, we might be more helpful.
 
Thanks for all the input so far.
The context: a montage with music playing, showing scenes of the main character alone driving in the car in between cut aways to another scene(s). No talking, no interaction except with the car and perhaps some tapping to the music. The mood is supposed to be fairly dramatic/somber, and the story calls for night. I could adjust to twilight hours if that'll make reflection off windows far less likely, or perhaps leave the driver's window down or something.
I figure it'll be ok in this context to just basically set up camera in the passenger seat as the actor actually drives, especially considering most of the shots will probably be fairly close up. But the lighting is still kinda baffling me.
Thanks again for the input.
 
I'd put a 3" LitePad dot in the dash cluster at maybe 40 - 60%. If you're driving through practical streets, you might read some of the practical lights / headlights playing through naturally. You can always Hollywood another 3" dot as clear or gelled red near the windshield to simulate oncoming headlights or brakelights from a car in front of him.

These other effects are just an enhancement to everything else the camera is seeing peripherally.

When we do this stuff on stage, we're literally putting small fixtures on light stands, Comets or other mobile grip equipment and moving them through the scene in interactive or randomized ways. I've put red LEDs a couple feet apart on a light stand behind the picture vehicle and switched them on and off for shots where we needed to see tail lights in a rear-view mirror.

Drive around one night and look at what happens to light in the car cabin as you do. It is easier than you'd think. Avoid overly repetitive interactive lighting (like the same light passing through the scene again and again like a Flintstones cartoon background) and you'll be good.
 
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I did my first interior green screen shoot last week. I simulated moonlight using 1 dp light. I lit the screen with 2 dp,s. Im happy with the footage. Well see how it holds up when i add the background plates. One interesting thing i found on creative cow is to backlight your subjects to seperate them from the background and use a magenta lens to minus the green rim. Goodluck!

I have a question since this is related. When shooting background plates off the road going by. Should you use a wide-angle or a 50mm lens. Thanks!!
 
I do have some experience with using lights to create such natural effects, so I'm begining to think doing this on a stage with green screen will be best.
Used a couple of LED's with a grip shaking them and waving hands in front of them to simulate television glow for characters playing a video game, it looked so natural!
Thanks for the input everyone, I'm excited to give this a shot.
 
lee caropolo said:
I did my first interior green screen shoot last week. I simulated moonlight using 1 dp light. I lit the screen with 2 dp,s. Im happy with the footage. Well see how it holds up when i add the background plates. One interesting thing i found on creative cow is to backlight your subjects to seperate them from the background and use a magenta lens to minus the green rim. Goodluck!

I have a question since this is related. When shooting background plates off the road going by. Should you use a wide-angle or a 50mm lens. Thanks!!
Click to expand...

Your background plates should be shot with the same focal length that you shoot your live action with. A little wider is not to bad. To be safe I would shoot the plates with a varity of focal lengths and see what works best for your shot.
 
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