ominpresent lowkey night exterior

[G McMahon]

Hello all,

 

About to undertake a short on16mm. The night exterior is set in a rather dense garden. To be congruent to the story at that particular time I would like to achieve an overall, omnipresent, soft low-key light. So it doesn?t appear to come from only a few sources, or hard back edges. I am racking my brain to try and achieve this, and besides tying old bed sheets high up in the trees and bouncing sources into them I am at a loss. I do not have the luxury of a crane holding a silk over the main areas.

 

I am looking at shooting on 7217(200T). I may be thinking of grabbing a couple of rolls of faster stock, but I am concerned that the lack of strong contrast will give the image too much grain. The nature of this shoot enables access to any lens package or filters I want. Filters I am thinking Promist white or smoque or fog, I do not think I could contain any artificial smoke (fog) I put in there.

 

The lighting package, I am tinkering with at present. I am hoping to get my hands on 2 x 2.5k and a 6k HMI. They were mainly for the day exteriors. I suppose I could grab numerous redheads, but having the HMI?s sitting around doing nothing is such a waste. If was to string the redheads high up, flooded, I would not get the evenness.

 

Thank you all, hopefully the still shot can give you an idea of what I am dealing with.

[David Mullen ASC]

Maybe a bunch of the largest Chinese Lanterns up in the air?

[G McMahon]

Maybe a bunch of the largest Chinese Lanterns up in the air?

 

The type that you place 100 w bulbs in?

 

Forgot to attach photos.

 

Thanks

[Bob Hayes]

You might want to look into white weather balloons. The eight foot size cost about $25 each and if you fill them with air that?s your total expense. Then just tie them up high to your trees and hit them with a spotted in HMI.

 

Also where is the garden you are filming. It looks great!

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Have you considered shooting day for night? Might work so long as you keep the sky out of the shots. For a recent example, check out Pan's Labyrinth and the day for night work done in some of the forest scenes.

 

Without some sort of large soft source on a crane, the already suggested bounce tied up into the trees and blasted with the HMI's could work for ya. The bedsheet's not a bad idea, but you might want to try some material with more reflectance if it's going to be your main light source.

[timHealy]

I agree with David and that would be my first choice.

 

A movie with a budget will usually use space lights over a large area and then sometimes add a large silk underneath to create a base exposure.

 

For a more modest budget a few rows of Chinese lanterns would give a similiar look. Just be sure to put some diffusion on the bottom with some tape so there is no direct light. You can either hang each row off one piece of zip cord or run zip cord cable to the ground from each bulb. That would give you the most control if you wanted to easily turn some on, off, or dim them. But that would eat up a lot of zip cord and quick ons.

 

One would just need some rigging time and ladders to get the lanterns up.

 

My second choice would be using several helium balloons with internal or external lighting. That would require some rigging time as well. They would be more flexible during shooting.

 

Good luck

 

Best

 

Tim

[David Regan]

The type that you place 100 w bulbs in?

 

I think you are probably thinking of the right type of latern, but just so your aware, you can use larger than 100w bulbs. I've seen up to 500w 4800K bulbs used, just keep in mind you must use a much larger lantern to avoid fire hazards between the bulb and lantern material. Also be sure your socket is rated for at least 500w.

 

Good Luck

[Ram Shani]

great minds think a like my first thinking was

 

Chinese Lanterns

 

my second was day for night

 

:)

[G McMahon]

Also where is the garden you are filming. It looks great![/font]

 

Location is someones private garden in southeast Queensland (Australia). I had to fight some contrast, see how it handles soon (photo was taken on overcast day).