Shooting Interior of a Moving Car tips?

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Hey all. I'm working camera for a documentary that will include lots of person-driving footage in the middle of the day, and have always struggled with matching light on the inside of a car with the sun outside (especially with camera positioned on the passenger seat facing the driver + window).

I've got ND filters and Polarizers, but of course either the inside of the car looks great and the outside is blown out, or the outside looks great and the inside is severely underexposed. What is the best way to maximize my efforts and get the best looking footage? Would using small lights inside the car do the trick?

We are shooting with 5D's and 7D's.
 
You can always shoot it in the evening, or early morning, add tint to windows as suggested, you can find dark roads with lots of trees on both sides to even out the light, drive so the sun is on the opposite side so it's not in the shot, or rent an alexa and expose for highlights. I like the last the best.
 
Cheapest/Best solution shoot EARLY or LATER when the sun is coming up/down. In the middle of the day a dslr simple does not have enough stops of latitude to properly expose for the outside and inside of the car.
 
Here's some tips based off of my experience doing car stuff on S16mm.

-ND gel the windows you'll be using in shots (I used ND1.2 for shots during the day - metering outside ~f/16-f/22, inside ~f/2.0-f/2.8)
-use a private road or close down a road. We shot on a weekend and used the internal road of a driving school that weren't open on weekends. It was great, we could do as much as we wanted without having to worry about other cars, and stopping down roads, stopping traffic etc. We could ND the windows and it didn't matter if it was legal or not.
-Get the Kino car kit - this will help your inside exposure
-Get a lowloader

Some of these suggestions are more expensive than others ;)
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'll look into ND gel on the windows. The problem we face is that the documentary revolves around the driver's job, which involves him driving around during the day.

I have been watching lots of Parking Wars and shows of that nature to get a grasp at what they do, and it seems most of the time they leave the outside of the car blown out and just worry about the driver being exposed correctly.
 
My suggestion, particularly for a documentary, is what you suggested: just expose for inside and let the outside blow out. You're allowed to get away with a bit of "realism" in documentaries anyway, and blown-out exteriors will definitely feel "real" to me, as opposed to the beautiful properly exposed interiors and exteriors. Not to mention that, for a documentary, you'll probably have to be changing angles and settings on the fly, so gelling particular windows and not others is going to lead to a lot of problems.
 
As everyone else has said, the best/easiest solution is to film during magic hour. If this is not practical, the best solution is to gel the windows with nd.
 
I have only done car day exteriors for fictional narrative projects and used the techniques noted above; NDed windows, supplemental lighting and so on. If you are not able to gel the windows, and are cool with the windows going pretty hot, then I would suggest experimenting with your cameras and setting their profiles for the widest dynamic range possible, making use of natural light modifiers (Tree shaded streets, deep canyon city down towns and so forth) as possible and getting at least some type of quick, easy supplemental lighting in the car. There are a bunch of small, light weight lights available now, such as LED and Flo solutions, and I would get at least something to have with you. I would also throw together some bounce cards that you can put around the car quickly. Maybe something like 81/2X11, 18X24, or what ever, cards with white, stipple silver and stipple gold , that you can put around to give a little extra umph, when needed. After that, I think that it is just a matter of working with what you have and making the best of it. If where the locations the driver is driving through is important to the show, like if they are driving through a historic district or what not, and the driver is supposed to comment on it, then you are dealing with a coverage issue. If that is the case, then the scene will need to be covered with, as a suggestion, an external camera shooting the drive through the specified landmark, a camera in the car set to expose the landmark, maybe from a suggestion of the driver's POV, and a camera on the driver, making him/her look the best possible, even if that means blown out windows, commenting on the landmark. In a situation like that you might want to also have a second unit to do glamor shots of the specific landmarks, you know... slow motion, slow shutter stuff,or what ever. Cinematography is about doing the best possible for the whole of the story and not necessarily about making every shot perfect.
 
You know, I seem to remember lowel making a light specifically for this, it even plugs into your car's socket. The l-light I think. Probably not enough power to compete with daylight, but worth looking into.
 
Any kind of lighting is going to be problematic (dangerous) if he's actually driving. I've lit the hell out of the inside of a car before, but it was on a trailer. The talent wasn't actually driving it.
 
You mean in terms of dazzling the driver.. indeed .. I was going to bring this up!

Fine on a trailer of course

I think the nd on the window is brilliant, mix that with a bit of light in the car.. maybe even white sheets over the seats that are out of shot and that is probably the best compromise that can be made for doco shooting

deep ND and bright lights are for private roads etc only

For those who own a Dedo DLH4, (like me :) ) a 12v lamp and a lighter plug is avaialble which make a handy light that is easy to rig and daylight (with filter) but dazzling..

S
 
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