Shooting scene in moving car

PaPa

PaPa

Major Contributor
Hey gang,

A few weeks away from shooting a scene in a moving car with 3 actors, two up front and one sitting in the middle rear. We are most likely going to be shooting this on some sort of suction cup car mount with an af100.

I wanted to know from the experts here how you would best recommend lighting this without actually rigging lights on to the car as we do not have the budget or the resources to do this. What's the next best thing?

From my little knowledge of how this might be achieved, I'm thinking to:

1) keep wind-shield very clean
2) use polarizing filter
3) Shoot only when the sky is cloudless and blue
4) Shoot at around noon so that sun isn't coming from any angle
5) Places bounce boards outside passenger and driver's side window at 45 degrees to the window to bounce mid day sun straight into the car from the sides
6) Place a couple of small LED lights inside the car for a little extra fill

Out of any experience you guys have of doing this, is there anything else I should be or could be doing to improve the quality of the shot without a budget? What are your thoughts and suggestions as this is really all i can come up with and i know shooting through car wind-shields isn't the easiest thing especially when you don't have a ton of light inside the car.

Thank you for all your suggestions.
 
U have a pickup? Have it as a chase car infront with a PA pushing light into the car frok the front. I'm assuming the shots are from the side of the car?

Also, why not a comp shot? Rear projection? This way you can control the light, and insert the backround later... the car stuff from macgregors Similo was rear projection.
 
Best solution is to rethink what the scene is actually about. Most of the times the convo is not about anything truly related to the car driving so why not have that convo happen when they pull over at gas station to refuel or at side of the road when one of the characters has to take a leak or change tire or something - that way you have more control as the car is not moving but also potential for way more interesting camera placement.

Now if you do have to shoot in moving car then get 2 cameras (one attached to front door and another to the back - that way your continuity won't suffer. Then try to tow the car with some HMIs (though some diffusion) lighting (from the towing vehicle) or if you plan to do it in truly ghetto way - ND9 the windows in the frame and make sure to shoot close to sunset/sunrise with character back lit by the setting/raising sun.
 
I appreciate the response guys, however we don't have access to anything described. I was looking for tips on the best way to achieve this without a budget. No access to rear projection either. I have though about green screening but I doubt we will achieve something that is very believable.

Patryk, so you would recommend shooting with with backlit characters? What do you think about shooting mid day so that the sun is directly above the car, then having bounce boards placed 45 degrees around all the windows so light can bounce in?

The shot does need to take place in the car because it is their discussion of scenarios that could happen on the way to job interviews. Perhaps shooting solely from the sides might be the easiest solution, but it would be very good to have frontal shots as well. If only i had access to a pick up and large HMI's... But I do not. Need to find the best solution with what little gear we have, so its goign to be a mix between the best time of day to shoot, with the clearest sky and any other suggestions i can get.
 
PaPa said:
What do you think about shooting mid day so that the sun is directly above the car, then having bounce boards placed 45 degrees around all the windows so light can bounce in?
Click to expand...

The question I have is how to attach such 'wings' to a moving vehicle, and make it so that the bounce doesn't wobble, producing light variations, along with, how does this get 'down the road', without some form of law enforcement person thinking, 'that doesn't look street legal'... I'm sure Kanuckistan has some form of laws about what can be attached/hanging from a vehicle in motion, on public roads...

While it is true that the 'advice' I've seen for moving cars, is one can be running at 1/2 or so the 'normal' speed, and still give the viewer the impression of normal motion, running a car at 15 mph on a posted speed limit of 30, will have traffic problems in addition to 'why are all the other cars passing the car where the movie 'action' is'...

As a note, if you were to think about greenscreening this, you could experiment with the following. Get a 'small' greenscreen, just enough for covering the talent when they move. Other parts of the car can be rotoscoped
to punch out window sections that would been in the shot, but don't have an actor's head bobbing through it.

Take shots with real cameras setup inside a car, from the various POV's of the greenscreen camera setups. May require multiple cameras to get the continuity correct if you cut from a passenger from the driver's side, to a frontal, and one sees the stuff that was on the passenger's side, drifting back and away through the rear window...

The other thought would be to rent a trailer, and with a small car, you may have room to put this sort of stuff on it... don't know about the legality of driving it down the road with people in it... but that would allow you to up in some heavier duty attachments.
 
PaPa said:
I appreciate the response guys, however we don't have access to anything described. I was looking for tips on the best way to achieve this without a budget. No access to rear projection either.
Click to expand...

TimurCivan" said:
U have a pickup? Have it as a chase car infront with a PA pushing light into the car frok the front. I'm assuming the shots are from the side of the car?
Click to expand...

This is probably the budget solution, though. If you get a sungun (a low-watt HMI) or even a tungsten light and a DC-AC inverter (1000W is about $100 from Harbor Freight or Best Buy; return it or sell it when you wrap), you could pull this off. Doesn't have to be a pickup for the lead car - any sedan with a sunroof could work.
 
with back light you get with pretty even exposure - the inside of the car being a bit under exposed. With sun at noon you have sun (outside) and heavy shade (inside) - not an ideal situation.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
with back light you get with pretty even exposure - the inside of the car being a bit under exposed. With sun at noon you have sun (outside) and heavy shade (inside) - not an ideal situation.
Click to expand...

I tried ND'ing the iwndows that are in frame which seemed to work very nicely, but have yet to try my idea of positioning small bounce boards at 45 degrees to the windows, out of frame to side light the actors. And because it's just a white foam core, I won't have to worry about constantly repositioning it as the sun moves. I should have a good 2 hour window where the sun is high enough in the sky. I'm hoping this will provide sufficient light. I guess it's just a question of doing as much testing as possible.

Will come back and provide feedback on what the tests have given because if it works I'm sure many will be happy to give it a try as well.
 
Why not shoot from inside the car? It looks good and saves lots of trouble. Filmtools has mounts that fit on headrests that are effective.
 
Because I cannot get my medium two shot from the front of them if i shoot that way. I plan on getting that, as well as shot reverse shot on the windows of the drivers/passenger's side. Also, putting the camera inside will bring my lens far too close to the actors which will result in me having to use a wide lens and having a distorted looking image.
 
Here is what i posted in someone's thread that was also asking quesitons about shooting in a moving car:

Here is what I was able to achieve with two bounce boards and two on camera LED's.

The sun was above but a little to the passenger side so we didn't get the best type of bounce for the passenger side subject as we did for the driver. But regardless, I think this sufficiently shows what is possible shooting mid day sun with bounce going right into the windows. Properly positioned and taped down well, wind didn't effect it in the least.

29489068409049049448305.jpg


testcarstills01sm.jpg
 
PaPa said:
Here is what i posted in someone's thread that was also asking quesitons about shooting in a moving car:

Here is what I was able to achieve with two bounce boards and two on camera LED's.

The sun was above but a little to the passenger side so we didn't get the best type of bounce for the passenger side subject as we did for the driver. But regardless, I think this sufficiently shows what is possible shooting mid day sun with bounce going right into the windows. Properly positioned and taped down well, wind didn't effect it in the least.
Click to expand...
Nice. I'll remember.
 
I read somewhere that a budget trick was a set or two of christmastree lights (power via cheap inverter from cars cigarette lighter socket), lights on actors laps can fake light coming from the dashboard
 
I've put space blankets everywhere I could underneath people in the car just to bounce some light back up into the shadows.
You can get Kino kits that you can tape up. Bounce a small HMI into the ceiling and power it from cigarette lighter etc.
NDing windows is always good.
 
Was the car parked? Cause from the looks of it, I see those boards flying away as soon as the car gains some speed. It also screams out "pull me over" to the cops.

PaPa said:
Here is what i posted in someone's thread that was also asking quesitons about shooting in a moving car:

Here is what I was able to achieve with two bounce boards and two on camera LED's.

The sun was above but a little to the passenger side so we didn't get the best type of bounce for the passenger side subject as we did for the driver. But regardless, I think this sufficiently shows what is possible shooting mid day sun with bounce going right into the windows. Properly positioned and taped down well, wind didn't effect it in the least.

29489068409049049448305.jpg


testcarstills01sm.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Nice, that's really cool. Can it do two shots through passenger/driver side window though?
 
Avoid mid day sun. That is when your ratios from interior light to exterior is at it's worst. Work early morning late afternoon. I have been using Bardwell McAllister LED tubes for awhile now. They are very bright and quite a bit cheaper that light panels. They are the size of Flo tubes and come in various lengths starting at 12 inches. Buy a cheap cig lighter inverter and a roll of velcro and stick them anywhere. They are light and unbreakable
 
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