help with BW car NIGHT shoot on low speed film

zoostory · October 24, 2004

Hey everyone,

In a few weeks time I need to shoot a parked car at night with a father and a daughter sleeping in the back (the father doesn't know she is there). I want the girl to be soft and moonlight, like she is in a dream, contrasting the father as a cheating low-life, interrigated by the streetlamps above. I want this to be subtle, of course. I'm trying to avoid what I see in all my peers movies, which is usually a 1k pointed straight through the front window!

The problem is we are shooting on Kodak 7231, which is ISO 64!!! We only have a few 1k and 650s to our disposal. I am contemplating getting some flourecents from Home Depot, or renting a small keno car kit... but I am new to all of this, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I see a ton of requests for shooting a car on DV at night, but I think this is quite different. The car we are shooting is also dark blue, so the highlights of that, as well as the background need to be pulled out as well.

I'm hoping to shoot at a 4, but I may have to drop down to a 2.8.

Any suggestions? Ideas? Experiences? or even other movies to go check out... would all be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Stephan

Allen Achterberg · October 24, 2004

whoa, 64? well I shot an interior car scene at night on vision2 200T and a lot of it came out dark even though i was shooting Wide open and half stop under. It looks great though. I would suggest placing your 1k fairly close to the car, like almost behind giving them a backlight and let that be your moon source. I may be wrong, But I highly doubt getting anything at a 4. unless you are just so tight you can bring lights that close. Well I had a 2K as my moonlight, had 2 tweenies giving them their fill. look at my pics and hopefully I am of some help.

David Mullen ASC · October 24, 2004

There's no reason to shoot a wide shot of the car at 24fps, since your actors are not moving and hopefully nothing else in the frame is. If you can drop down to 12 fps, you will gain another stop in exposure; at 6 fps, two stops.

For the interior, 1K's and 650 watts should be fine even for 64 ASA. Obviously the problem in b&w is that you won't have color to differentiate between the streetlamp and the moonlight, so the question becomes which is brighter? Probably the streetlamp effect, with the soft moonlight only providing some foreground fill, maybe from one side. The streetlamp can be coming in from a steeper angle, hotter, to hit the father in the backseat, maybe through the back window.

DavidSloan · October 25, 2004

Just an idea but could you get a car with a sunroof? That way maybe you can shoot a diffused light through it, and fill up the car with ambient moon light; then maybe a small instrument to give the father his kicker from the streetlamp?

As David adroitely pointed out, if the characters don't move you can drop down if needed.

Good luck :ph34r:

Greg Gross · October 25, 2004

Kodak has new 250D film. John has posted with info from Kodak.

Greg

Greg Gross · October 25, 2004

David do you think it would be practical to meter street lamp ,moon

with spotmeter as accurate value. The only thing is you can almost

logically think that the moon is less and more like fill. Do you think the exact

value is useful here at all? Just wanted your thoughts as a professional.

Greg

Laurent Andrieux · October 25, 2004

There's no reason to shoot a wide shot of the car at 24fps, since your actors are not moving and hopefully nothing else in the frame is. If you can drop down to 12 fps, you will gain another stop in exposure; at 6 fps, two stops.

In this case, mind that the scene should be filmed twice or four times the needed footage. If people move just a bit, like breathing, and have to stay not moving twice ot four times the action time, they might move a bit... and the moves will lokk strange if speeded up 2 or 4 times on screen...