Night Exterior on 7222

[Seth Applebaum]

So here's my situation.

 

I'm shooting a student monster movie on Eastman Double X 7222. One of the scenes in the film takes place on a backwoods road at night. While the closeups I've planned shouldn't be a problem, the wides have presented me with a lot more questions. Basically what I'm trying to achieve for the wides is a soft baselight, enough to bring me up to decent exposure and give enough detail so that the road and subjects don't turn to mud.

 

As far as power sources go, we have a 6500w and a 4000w generator. I'm considering renting a 4K HMI SoftLight from High Output Boston, but I wanted some feedback first. The main objective is a very wide spread. Also, please bear in mind that this is a student film, so budget for lights and rigging equipment is limited.

 

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[inder mann]

since you are shooting b&w you can also do day for night

 

which is basically shooting towards the evening where you have sunlight and underexposing

 

watch some of kurosawa's work

[Daniel Carruthers]

Ive shot on 7222 a couple of times now

and I was amazed at how well the film held up under low light.

I had areas of the frame that where 2 stops under exposed,and it still held detail.

and wasnt muddy

Although Ive only ever used the filmstock on small interior locations.

My biggest light I used was a 650 fresnel,and I was purposely over exposing my edge lights by 5 stops

and I could of gone higher.

one advantage with black and white is you dont really have to worry about color temperature

or in other words you dont have to gel your tungsten lights.

thats what really saved me,and made my life easier.

although that being said bw film is more sensitive to daylight, so if you have HMIs

you should be well off.

 

And when ever I shoot outside at night I always try to use fog.

it can be hard to control,but its saved me a few times.

[Seth Applebaum]

We are renting a 1.2K HMI PAR and 12x12 silk. In addition to that, some of our larger sources are 2K fresnels and a 2K softlight. My gaffer was thinking that we would do a hard backlight with the HMI and then bounce that light back at the faces. If, as you said, the stock is going to react more strongly to the HMI, I think we should be in good shape. We also do have some fog machines that we weren't originally intending to use on the road, but now I'm beginning to think that a little fog could be very useful.

 

In response to your suggestion, inder mann, I had considered shooting at twilight, but I don't think we'll have enough time. If we get into a pinch though, I thought about shooting during the day, underexposing, and possibly using a polarizer to bring the sky down. Does that sound like something that would be reasonable to do?