rain on window

[Travis Cline]

I shot some tests tonight for a film I am shooting soon and I ran into more trouble than I bargained for. There are a couple of scenes in the film where we would like to have the shadow of rain drops on a window cast onto our talent. Very Conrad Hall-esque. In Cold Blood and the such. I tried using a fairly hard light, a Source 4 ellipsoidal with a 19 degree lense, through hampshire and put the "rain" on the diffusion, but that didn't work too well. Then I tried the same light into a mirror and put the "rain" onto the mirror. What proved difficult though was to get a well defined rain drop to move across someone's face unless they were extremely close to the mirror. Obviously I want to get the light as hard as possible, but aside from that, any suggestions? How to apply the rain? What to shoot through? Has anyone tried this, because if you haven't, believe me its harder than it seems. Thanks gents.

 

Travis

Edited May 31, 2007 by Travis Cline

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

I should think an open face light, undiffused, pointed through a pane of glass with water dripping down should do the trick.

 

You'll have to get the light relatively far from the glass as what you're trying to do is get that light to hit the rain drops at a point where the lights spread & falloff isn't so drastic and thus creates acute shadows on your actor's face.

[David Mullen ASC]

Hall had a fan blowing heavy mist/rain onto the window that then collected and dribbled down the glass of the window. Then he had a very sharp light source and the actor standing close to the window. You want the rain droplets to be as close to the actor as possible and the light source to be as sharp and far away as possible.

[Gabriel Rochette]

In low budget production witout weeks of test ...trial and error it,s a problem...BUT

My trick is to put a magnificion glass (kind a magnifificion glass for retro projector system) between windows and actor. It,s verry good for sure but you have to find 2 of them cause the rain will be inverse if you use only one.. Conclusion... 2 magnifying glass ..and ...thats it...

Gabriel

Québec

Canada

[Michael Nash]

I tried using a fairly hard light, a Source 4 ellipsoidal with a 19 degree lense, through hampshire and put the "rain" on the diffusion, but that didn't work too well.

 

The Hampshire is what killed the effect -- that diffuses the light. Also, the optics of source 4's are designed to focus a sharp shadow of the slide that's inside the unit, not focus shadows from subjects outside. With enough distance you can focus a sharp shadow from subjects in front of a Source 4, but then you could do that with other units as well.

[Chad Stockfleth]

This might sound stupid, but I've done it before and it works pretty well, is a hard light shone through glass like everyone's said, and then use a little plastic squirt gun to spray onto the top of the glass, letting it drip down. Makes nice rolling streaks.

 

Nash is right, lose the Hampshire.

[drew_town]

There's a BTS shot of Donald McAlpine's setup in Romeo + Juliet on the DVD with this effect. If I remember right, he uses a sheet of Plexiglas with a wooden frame at a 45-degree angle and pours water down it. It's lit from behind. He goes into detail on the shot in the commentary. You might want to check it out.

[Bobby Shore]

go open eye on a fresnel unit... that'll give you some nice, hard shadows.

 

 

Bobby Shore

DP

LA/Montreal