night battle scenes

[armughan]

I have to shoot a modern battle scene at night.

The location is a hill forest (ascending), I have 2 HMIs of 6k each. How should I place these lights especially in the Long shots (with about 70 men in the scene). are these lights enough for the requirment? if not how much do i need?

 

what are the options to shoot the night sequence in the day light?(what filters etc)

what time of day is good for that?

 

can other lights (like solors, 2k 3k etc) help me creating some interesting shadows and fills.

 

armughan

[Spider]

Depends on the look you want, does it not?

But I would perhaps go for some softer sources above the battlefield, like spacelights (3-4), and use the 6kW HMI, diffused. to do some background and to do some backlight on the soldiers.

I would make sure I have just the right exposure on the background. I think nightshots can look very stupid and quickly become flat if the background is not looking just right.

 

But it is just a suggestion! All depends on how you want it to look!

 

Spider

[armughan]

Thanks for the suggestion spider,

 

The look I want is darker.

I want to lit my background as the moon light and my soldiers in silhouette.

 

I might get a 12kW HMI as well. I think it can help me creating a good background (diffused) and I am planning to use 6KW HMI (diffused) to be used for backlighting the soldiers.

 

Another question is when using 12kW HMI (diffused) what height and distance should the source have from the main frame. (The master shot will cover about 100m in width the distance of the soldiers from the background will vary)

 

armughan

[Spider]

I like your idea with doing some moonlight on the backgrounds. My experience is that you often underestimate the amount of light you need to get that fine exposure, that makes it look really nice and get rid of the lamp character. I did a shoot on a music video, in a forest, recently where we used 6 Arri T12 to light the background. We placed them aproximately 60-70 meter from set. It didn't come out just the way we wanted it. And personally I thought it was too obvious that it was lamps. I am not quite certain what you are going to do, but I would bring another 6 kW SUN if your budget allows it. Remeber it is always fun to have something to play with in post.

 

About the 12 kW HMI. Depends on what diffusion you are going to use. If you want a beautiful backlight I would suggest getting quite a hard edge on those soldiers and not diffuse it too much. And perhaps do it a little whiter than the background.

 

Well its all just advice that might not be worth much as I havn't seen the location and am not quite sure what you are doing, but I hope you do some great stuff - it sure sounds really nice.

 

Good luck!

 

Spider

[Spider]

I like your idea with doing some moonlight on the backgrounds. My experience is that you often underestimate the amount of light you need to get that fine exposure, that makes it look really nice and get rid of the lamp character. I did a shoot on a music video, in a forest, recently where we used 6 Arri T12 to light the background. We placed them aproximately 60-70 meter from set. It didn't come out just the way we wanted it. And personally I thought it was too obvious that it was lamps. I am not quite certain what you are going to do, but I would bring another 6 kW SUN if your budget allows it. Remeber it is always fun to have something to play with in post.

 

About the 12 kW HMI. Depends on what diffusion you are going to use. If you want a beautiful backlight I would suggest getting quite a hard edge on those soldiers and not diffuse it too much. And perhaps do it a little whiter than the background.

 

Well its all just advice that might not be worth much as I havn't seen the location and am not quite sure what you are doing, but I hope you do some great stuff - it sure sounds really nice.

 

Good luck!

 

Spider

[Bob Hayes]

If you are using two 6k HMI?s it sounds like you have a bit of a budget. One approach it to get a condor and put you 2 6ks and a lamp op up about 60 feet. Use one to side light the background and the other to back light the scene. This will keep your scene looking dark and give you a lot of control. Add a 4k on the ground to add some fill. Use some small units to side fill the actors faces on close ups. Shoot most of your masters and angles where the 6k can work as a back light. Cheat the reverses enough to take advantage of the 6k that lights the back ground. Kill the back light 6k which is now to frontal and use the 4k to create a back edge moon light from the opposite side.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I have traditionally had problems with night scenes on video. You have to shoot it way, way up and then grade down in order to avoid it turning into fuzzy, mushy horribleness. The last thing I shot like this was graded by a complete orang-utan (the trainee, I guess, since it was a freebie) and I was not invited to supervise, and it ended up being a desaturated, bright, low-con mess when I had been going for the standard T2 blue night.

 

I haven't actually tried this, but my plan "next time" is to work out roughly what three stops under is on the monitor's brightness control, and shoot it all for that. This will encourage any compressing VT system to place information throughout the useful range of the tape, and then shoot some kind of colour chart or try to supervise the grade, or at least send notes.

 

Phil