Sun Light Rant

capitalP

capitalP

Veteran
I know many of you guys have faced this before, I was doing a shoot this Sunday, and it was dialouge between 2 actors in a car, I must of done 20 different takes and believe it or not not one of the 20 takes had the same lighting, the sun kept on going in and out like every 20 seconds(no joke) and the dialouge involved about one minute each between the actors.. I was so frustrated, I know this was something I had no control over, not on this level of production.

I have no idea how in the hell I'm going to cut this scene. With each angle I cut to, the lighting will be different, not just little difference, I'm talking big sun spotlight one second and complete shade the next... I'm currious what have some of you done in situation like this, there's probably no way to fix this in post, is my only option left is to schedule a re-shoot...?

This has been my first dvxuser rant... feels good, thanks for reading.:kali:
 
i had this same problem where both my actors were on a park bench and the freakin sun came out like 15 different times and kept going behind clouds. there were big differences in the takes where the sun was in their faces on one and it's darker in another. i thought i could fix it in post, but i was wrong. it helped about 2%. i ended up redoing the shoot. lighting is my weakness.
 
I'm assuming that it wasn't a moving car?

The trick here is diffusion. I actually had to cope with a similar situation this past weekend.

Check out the stills here:

http://www.caliburnproductions.com/DSDayOnePics.html

In the last three frame captures, the actress would have had direct sunlight hitting the left side of her face. If you look at the sixth Production Still, you'll see how we handled it. We used the inner section of a 5-in-one flexi-fill to diffuse the sunlight hitting her face, resulting in a nice, soft light.

The thing to remember is that you don't want to actually cast a full shadow, you want something that will still allow a diffused light through. Shade cloth will probably also work.

There will still be a bit of variation as the sun goes in and out of the clouds, but it won't be anywhere near as extreme. Also try to avoid a background that will have the sun hitting it full-on.

As far as fixing what you've already shot in post, there's not really much you can do. "We'll fx it in post" should always be the absolute extreme last resort. It's far better, and usually in retrospect far easier, to get it right on the day.

Cheers
Pat
 
The car was parked. I'm not one of those guys who says "We'll fix it in post" I usually like to get it right the first time, but the Sun was something I had no control over, atleast not with the type of equitpments I had on location.

I still haven't watch the footage straight through to see if it's even usable, my biggest fear is to have to re-shoot...

DAMN Clouds.
 
Does it have to take place in a car, or during the day? I don't know anything about your project, but if you want more control, maybe just shoot it in a situation you do have control over, like indoors or something.
 
Billy Pilgrim said:
Does it have to take place in a car, or during the day? I don't know anything about your project, but if you want more control, maybe just shoot it in a situation you do have control over, like indoors or something.
Click to expand...

Actually yeah, it has to take place during the day and outdoors, plus it's a continuation scene from a previous part in the film which is during the day.. so I'm stuck!

I filmed before during the day, it was just this particular day the clouds were out to get me.
 
Ugh, I never, ever, EVER go with the "We'll fix it in post" saying. This is what happens when you believe you can do anything in post.

IMO, it should be as close to perfect as possible in the camera - post isn't a time to be "fixing" your production, it's time to make your production shine. Getting into the mentality of fixing things in post is a shortcut of filmmaking and the attitude of people who don't properly plan out before they go and shoot.
 
You guys are lucky. I live in England and this is the worst Summer I can remeember. I bought a DVX100 over a week ago, an have had barely a good day to go out and do a test shoot, let alone actualy schedule something.
 
Sorry capitalP. I didn't mean to imply that you were one of those chronic "fix it in post" types. It's just that a lot of the posts that you see on forums like these are along the lines of "I screwed up on set. Is there a magical piece of software that will save my @ss?"

Basically what I was trying to say is that, without seeing your footage, it sounds like your best bet might be a re-shoot. It will most likely be a major pain having to organise, especially if you've already finished principal photography. But you need to ask yourself, do you want your final product to be a half-there effort, or something that people will look at and go "wow!"?
 
Add a comment in dialog regarding this weird cloudy-sunlight-keeps-shifting weather we're having...?
 
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