Continuity for exteriors

F Bulgarelli · November 10, 2004

Hello Forum

I'll be shooting a couple days of exteriors and wanted to get your thoughts as to what's the best way to go about it.

It's a 7 page scene which involves two actors in a parking lot. We have one day of mainly technocrane shots and the second day will be steadycam and handheld.

Being a 7 page scene and the sun moving around throughout the day, the main concern is continuity, in other words, making it look like it happened in a short span time.

I like to shoot c/u during the early morning or late afternoon because the quality of the light is much better, leave the wide shots for the middle of the day and cheat it when necesary.

What's your experience with this kind of situations.

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

By the way, all we have is 2 1200 HMI's, reflectors, mirrors, silks, etc.

Francisco

John Sprung · November 10, 2004

In the late 1970's, I got some books on celestial navigation, and figured out how to run the mathematical process the other way around, to get from a known latitude and longitude to predicting the direction and elevation of the sun throughout the day. A few years back, I saw at Showbiz Expo than somebody was selling the same thing neatly wrapped up in a computer program. That's what you need. You can't control the sun, but you can predict it.

The other thing you need to determine is the compass direction of the streets around your location, and of the walls of large buildings that will be in your shots. With that info you can explain to the director that the huge building over there is going to be backlit, and the wall we see will be in shadow, until 10:47 AM, and thereafter it'll be in full sunlight for the rest of the day. So maybe we should shoot away from it in the morning, and turn around after the sun crosses the street. Either that, or make damn sure we're done with that direction by 10:40.

-- J.S.

DavidSloan · November 10, 2004

You guys can afford technocrane and steadycam but only have 2 1.2k HMIs?

Regarding exteriors I say nay..lol I hate them, they are a royal pain in the ass. Choose your location wisely and as John said, know where the sun is going to be at any given moment. I once did a video shoot where I tracked the sun for 2 days, until I was absolutely certain that I could predict where it's direction was going to be at any given hour, and the shoot ended up cutting perfectly. What I find much more annoying is clouds passing by...waiting for them to pass for what feels like eternity, is very frustrating.

Phil Rhodes · November 10, 2004

Hi,

You can afford techn.... oh, ah, yes, what he said. What kind of 7-page short can afford all that hardware? Seriously, I'm interested!

As for continuity - come and shoot in merrie Englande, where the light fades up with just a slight colour temperature shift between 8 and 10am, remains an approximately constant 8000K from ten to two, then fades off more or less lineary until nightfall at - sob - around 4.45pm. Easy to shoot from a continuity standpoint but it's like trying to flag a softbox the size of the sky.

Phil

F Bulgarelli · November 11, 2004

Thanks guys,

Well, the technocrane is a sort of "donation" and the steadycam is a friend of mine willing to help me out for little money. As far as the HMI's, Not much power around where we are and we can't afford a generator.

Anyway, would you guys go with c/u early morning first and wide shots midday?

Thanks again

Michael Nash · November 11, 2004

It depends on the action, the coverage, and the location. In seven pages I imagine there's got to be some moving around by the actors, not just two people standing and talking for seven minutes.

Take the time to block out the scene and find camera angles that work to your advantage (technically and dramatically). Then figure the best time of day to shoot each angle, and figure if you can even squeeze the "ideal" shots into the schedule.

As a general rule about day exteriors, as long as the overall quality of light is the same, you can get away with big changes in direction. For example, a 3/4 backlight on both reverse angles AND the wide 2-shot may not be logical, but the quality of light is consistent between shots and you sort of don't notice it in the cut.

You can do a lot with color timing to blend changes in the time of day, as long as you don't cut from sunrise to noontime in the same scene. Even then, movies sometimes do that and get away with it.

Jayson Crothers · November 11, 2004

Sunpath and an Inclinometer & Compass have made a world of difference for day Ext shooting in my work - removes any and all guess work and lets me make scheduling decisions as far in advance as I need to. The learning curve is brief and it's relatively easy to use.

It's also great for making use of natural light when shooting Interiors as well.

November 11, 2004

Does anyone here try and push for chronological shot ordering of a scene for shooting exteriors? I realise we can't always have two cameras on every shoot...

Andy O'Neil · November 12, 2004

It's sad, but all I have is a Sony DCR-TRV25. I've found that shooting exteriors is really my only option when it comes to capturing any bit of image quality at all.

Interiors always yield yucky results with this low end camera.

I dislike how everything is in deep focus all the time, even if I zoom in on the subject.

Bill Totolo · November 12, 2004

Francisco,

I think your plan is sound. I would add that for Ext's grip gear will be your friend.

Overhead silks, flags and large bounce sources can help you shape your light. It's a tremendous advantage with little investment. Of course you will need a couple extra grips on set which might impact your budget. Check out Gunner, they've got small trucks that are very inexpensive.

What days are you shooting?

BTW, I saw Ridley Scott talk about Black Hawk Down. He talked about shooting continuity during all those exteriors. He basically said forget it.

Michael Nash · November 12, 2004

BTW, I saw Ridley Scott talk about Black Hawk Down. He talked about shooting continuity during all those exteriors. He basically said forget it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, but in that movie you're also talking about fairly chaotic action and camera angles, hard sunlight and deep shadows from buildings, and an increased contrast pallete to boot. All those things make it harder to track ANY kind of continuity.

Once you get into an action scene you've got so much more going on on screen that it kind masks small lighting changes. That's one thing I learned from our own Bob Hayes (Bob1DP), when I gaffed an action sequence for him over the course of three days. Lots of gunplay, stunts and explosions with two camera units from early morning to night, sunny, shadowed, and overcast. I haven't seen the final cut of that film, but I'm sure it will all add up to an exciting sequence.

Michael Nash · November 12, 2004

I might add that for a seven page scene, it's probably safest to go for a "generic daytime" look with each shot, that can appear to be any time between 10 am and 4 pm. Avoid shooting in the extreme early or late hours, and do your best to take the curse off the noonday sun, and you'll come out okay. This time of year the sun stays low to the horizon anyway, so that works in your favor.

F Bulgarelli · November 13, 2004

Thank you all.

This is really helpful.

I think the most important thing is taking care of the faces and I'll put a lot of effort into that.

I'm gonna try to backlight the actress as much as possible and use soft bounce for fill.

Bill, I'll be shooting next weekend (NOv 20th and 21st)

Francisco

Phil Rhodes · November 14, 2004

Hi,

> "generic daytime" look with each shot, that can appear to be any time between

> 10 am and 4 pm.

But it gets DARK at 4pm!

Sob, wail, gnash.

Phil

Michael Nash · November 17, 2004

Hi,

> "generic daytime" look with each shot, that can appear to be any time between

> 10 am and 4 pm.

But it gets DARK at 4pm!

Sob, wail, gnash.

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't feel bad, sunset is at 5pm even here in LA right now. I guess I should have also said a "generic" time of year, where there's closer to 12 hours of sunlight!

Don't you get long evenings in the summer in England? I love the summers up in Seattle where "magic hour" lasts THREE hours!

GeorgeSelinsky · November 17, 2004

I love the summers up in Seattle where "magic hour" lasts THREE hours!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

St. Petersburgh, Russia has an even longer magic hour during the summer. As a matter of fact you can get an exposure at 11 pm using a faster stock without additional illumination.

- G.

John Sprung · November 17, 2004

Yes, but north of the arctic circle, magic hour lasts six months.

-- J.S.

Tony Brown · November 18, 2004

You should most definately reverse your decision to shoot the close ups early and or late. That is when you should shoot the wides. The middle of the day when you have the higher light (though this time of year its not too bad) can then be used for the close ups. Its far easier to fly overheads and control (change?) the light for a close up.

Kim Sargenius · November 28, 2004

Hi,

In my limited experience I find that the key is always picking backgrounds that work in my favour, ie if at all possible I want to shoot against backgrounds that I can control to match (mostly by picking the time of day), and then I can use whatever (mostly very limited) gripology I can get my hands on to control the foreground. Quite often this means building the scene space in the edit, eg reverse shots in different directions/locations, etc. Of course this gets *veeeery* interesting when you involve Technocranes and Steadicams : )

cheers,

Kim Sargenius

cinematographer

sydney

Phil Rhodes · November 28, 2004

Hi,

Behind this very browser window is the ongoing edit of a dance arts piece which uses specialist UV compositing techniques; it's been shot in a black void, so I know all about building a space in the edit. We shot stuff all over the place, and my most common NLE effect is currently "flip horizontal"!

Phil