shooting on low sunlight

[Justin Hayward]

Before I write amything in this forum, I want everyone to know that I'm a director. I'll shoot something for no money, occasionally, because I love film. I really enjoy shooting. It helps me with what I do.

 

That in mind, I'm curious to hear some stories about shooting is low sunlight. When I make my own films, I tend to be the most creative when I'm sitting in a bar/coffee shop by myself and coming up with every shot I plan to... well, shoot. However, when I D.P. other people's films (again, for no money. I don't wish to steal anybody's work. The people whose films I shoot, can't afford D. P.'s. If the could, I would honestly recomend them to sombody else.) I do my best to make it look interesting and try to visually express the story.

 

I'm shooting a very, very low budget feature at the moment and there are a few exterior scenes. Naturally, I prefer to shoot in low sunlight, no matter what time of day the scene takes place in. It seems, if you do it right, it'll look like just about any time of the day... but just a little nicer.

 

I'm interested in your stories about shooting in low sun and running out of light. And how you delt with it. The only way to sum up the buget on this film that I've been working on is this: we do not have a generator.

 

Any stories?

 

Justin

[Carlos M. Icaza]

You could do what Vilmos Zsigmond did for McCabe & Mrs. Miller, my understanding is that he only filmed during twilight hours. Early morning and Early afternoon, in order to achieve the look for the film.

 

I really don't have any stories about running out of light. My last short called for a night scene at the beach, furtunately, I had a 7,000k genny to power up two 1200k pars and one 650 Leko and there was enough humph to power up video/sound and makeup city.

 

Out of curiosity, are you shooting film or miniDV ?

 

Good luck,

 

C.

[Felipe Perez-Burchard]

Days of Heaven was shot "entirely" during magic hour, but the crew was obviopusly there way before and scenes were rehearsed and then they just shot for a little while.

Nestor Almendros usually split the difference from his spot reading of the sky and that of the shadow side of the face; giving him enough exposure on both ends to print it to get the desired effect and keep some semblance of consistency (did a good job).

 

Lazlo Kovacs shot some film up in a hill and after studying the position of the sun mapped out were everything would be cheated to and made it work so that matching angles were in backlight (technically wrong but visually it makes sense... I think there was a post about this recently).

 

Robert Richardson used a lot of negative fill and shot in backlight for The Four Feathers.

 

hope thats useful.

 

-felipe.

[David Mullen ASC]

Sometimes we call it "Tragic Hour" instead of "Magic Hour"...

 

There's no problem with shooting until the light is gone as long as you get all of your work done in that time. The main problem is continuity since the levels and colors will be changing shot to shot. You sort of have to imagine what it will be like at your last shot in the light and match your earlier shots to that. And when the light is gone, you go home.

 

The problem is that there is always one more shot needed and often the DP gets bullied into doing it when there is insufficient light, so you end up with this murky or grainy shot with no depth-of-field, etc. that doesn't cut with anything. Hence why I hate shooting in those conditions because I'm always the guy to give everyone the bad news that we can't shoot anymore.

 

This is why it's good to have some lights because you can design your coverage to end up in a shot that is easy to light and match, like a close-up against a wall or bush.

 

Depending on where in the world you are shooting and the time of year, and the weather conditions, magic hour may be so short as to only allow one or two shots. Using multiple cameras is not a bad idea either to get more set-ups in as the light fades.

[Justin Hayward]

"Out of curiosity, are you shooting film or miniDV ?"

 

Hi,

 

Super 16.

[Jayson Crothers]

As David mentioned, if you can save your close ups for the end, you can light them. It helps to have your lights on stand by, with all scrims, nets, and different gels ready to go. My last shoot, we had a fairly important scene to shoot at magic hour - I had one crew member literally standing by each of the three lights we had up; after each shot (or even take) they could pull or add scrims, and swap gels to maintain color matching and lighting ratios - EXTENSIVE prep is needed to fully realize a tragic hour scene.

[Frank DiBugnara]

Shooting a short film almost exclusively exterior really forced me to examine the exact quality of light in various circumstances. We ended up shooting two days under very cloudy skies and finished the second day without having completed a few last steadi-cam shots. So we got up early the next day (which was perfectly cloudless) and picked up those shots during the very brief time when the sun was coming up and giving enough output for exposure and still not crested over the horizon so as to illuminate the subjects directly. The shots ended up matching very well.

[Xuefei24p]

The battle sequences in Full Metal Jacket were filmed nearly always at Magic Hour.

 

It is that perfect time when everyone is exhasted and the lighting is perfect.

[Paul Bruening]

Magic hour is a hastle because you have to hustle. If you have an average length scene to shoot you may be there a week for three hours (two of that setting up and taking down, packing and unpacking) a day just trying to get a couple of pages of script shot. I can't waste money on such an indulgence. Usually, you get as much out of a location as quickly as possible. That means shooting between twilights. Save magic hours for those shots of the principles kissing while the sun creeps over the horizon.