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Lighting Car interior Daytime


andrewzp

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Hello; i'm shooting a car interior, front two seats with two subjects during the day and wanted to know what kind of light would suffice. Obviously, there's the sun but it constantly moves throughout the day and of course, the car interior provides a lot of shadows.

As we're going to be out in the field would certain battery powered LED's (within spending range -- tried the litepanel micro.. It was too weak) or flourescents be powerful enough during the day to add some consistent illumination to the face?

 

Or, if you have a better solution please let me know.

Thanks!

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Hello; i'm shooting a car interior, front two seats with two subjects during the day and wanted to know what kind of light would suffice. Obviously, there's the sun but it constantly moves throughout the day and of course, the car interior provides a lot of shadows.

As we're going to be out in the field would certain battery powered LED's (within spending range -- tried the litepanel micro.. It was too weak) or flourescents be powerful enough during the day to add some consistent illumination to the face?

 

Or, if you have a better solution please let me know.

Thanks!

 

Car rigs are usually done with a tow or towed rigged platform, so one can use lights and the actors can concentrate on acting and not worry about driving safely. If you are having your actors drive the vehicle they must be able to see the road and not have their vision obscured by lights and cameras. Having said all that. If you go that way keep it simple and safe. I did this once on a closed road and had a white sheet taped to the hood. If you are not going through the shadow of trees the exposure can be consistant. if you are doing the low budget method you can expose for their faces and let the background go, but it may really go! You can wait for earlier or later in the day where the sun is low and hitting the actors face and the back ground won't be blown out. It depends on what your resources are in terms of money and rigging and manpower.

 

best

 

Tim

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A small 12V inverter, the type that plugs into the cig. lighter will give you 300w of 120 power. Thats enough for a few small Kinos or hardware store strip lights with color corrected tubes. The biggest issues, as already mentioned are safety and balancing the difference in exposure betweeen the outside and the inside of the vehicle. Driving away from the sun is a good idea, otherwise you might consider blacking out the hood with temporary hair dye, like Streaks and Tips (or is it Tips and Streaks?).

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Streaks and Tips, I think.

 

The inverter/Kino idea is a good one to get some light in the car , they have some high output for their wattages and are daylight balanced. Or, you can try doing all of this on a green screen stage.. but it's not something I'd really want to do.

Also, shooting format will help dictate how much you need to light. I've shot in plenty of cars on S16mm with not supplemental lighting because the stocks can handle the over-exposure outside pretty easily. Also, picking the area helps a lot too, like say a downtown where you have a lot of building shadows giving you a pretty even exposure, or a shady street etc.

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I'd be very wary of running 300W of lighting from a cigarette lighter socket! I've no idea what the max rating is, but 300W sounds at bit excessive. Last thing you want is a fire!

 

If I were going this route I'd run run some heavy cables direct from the battery to the inverter, and properly wired in, not just croc clipped. And don't switch the lights on until the engine is running or you could get a flat battery!

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IIRC 150W is the max standard for a typical lighter; though personally I've never gone over 100...

 

theres 12 to 220v converters that can be plugged directly to the battery.

on my last feature we often powered a 200w hmi with it, enough for an overcast day.

 

good converters should also be able to handle a jokerbug or some other 400w hmi.

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good converters should also be able to handle a jokerbug or some other 400w hmi.

A good converter is the key here. A 12V battery will give a nice even supply, but once you have the car engine running you will get some horrendous spikes. A good converter should iron these out. A cheap one may well cause damage to the circuitry in an HMI. Wouldn't be an issue on incandescent bulbs though.

 

I'd use a converter rated slightly higher than the light you plan to use.

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I've used small LED Litepanels in the past. If you're getting single close-ups or medium shots of either actors you can easily use folded gaffer tape to attach a thin litepanel on the bottom of a sunscreen. This will give you fairly good, soft and filling illumination on the actor's face and will help you keep the background from blowing out. These things can plug into a cigarette lighter. You may need to try and conceal the cables somehow too. Again - if you're getting close-ups then it's a relatively easy, quick and inexpensive option. If you want a 2-shot then you might need to put the car on a low loader or platform. The LED's aren't very bright (although there may be brighter ones available now) but as far as I remember they will give you at least 1 or 1.5 more stops on your incident reading near the face.

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I've yet to see lighter circuit that wasn't fused for at least 20a, that would give 240w before the fuse element begins to warm up. So small Kino(s) would be no problem in an auto interior.

 

Check.....,don't guess.

Edited by JD Hartman
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I'll sometimes use ND gel on any window that is on camera

I did a side cu shot of a driver from the passenger side and the window behind the driver was blown right out

it was mid afternoon which made it really hard

so I put some nd9 on the one window,but I left all the other windows ungelled that where off camera

I was able to exposed for the shadows and the background held up fairly well

especially considering I shot it on a 1/3 chip camera

I didnt use any lights what so ever, oh but I did put a white sheet in the actors lap

he didnt mind:) but that created some good bounce light at times

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had done a night shot and used LED panels taped to the dash board and glove box. Infact, I opened the glove box and taped a led panel inside it and one on the cover of the glove box.

 

If I were to attempt to light the car, I would first check the direction of the car's movement - n/s/e/w. Depending on budget, I would either go in for a towed rig platform or use Kino inside the car and power it up using the car cigar lighter panel...

 

Vivek

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