Car Window Reflections

[Dan Witrock]

I'm shooting a short film soon in the desert and am worried about doing hood mount shots. I'm worried about looking straight into the car in order to get a 2-shot of the driver and passengers in the front seats of a truck and not seeing the camera looking right back at us. Any suggestions? The truck isn't going to be towed, so we can't just create a tent over the entire hood.

And I'm afraid a polarizer won't take off much of the reflection being that the camera will be sitting probably in broad daylight or at least hit entirely from the side since we'll be shooting at morning and in the afternoon.

 

I appreciate any suggestions.

[Tom Jensen]

I'm shooting a short film soon in the desert and am worried about doing hood mount shots. I'm worried about looking straight into the car in order to get a 2-shot of the driver and passengers in the front seats of a truck and not seeing the camera looking right back at us. Any suggestions? The truck isn't going to be towed, so we can't just create a tent over the entire hood.

And I'm afraid a polarizer won't take off much of the reflection being that the camera will be sitting probably in broad daylight or at least hit entirely from the side since we'll be shooting at morning and in the afternoon.

 

I appreciate any suggestions.

 

You don't normally see the camera since windshields are angled. You can use a polarizer and dial out as much of the reflections you want.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Don't forget Polas work in relation to angle of the sun, so try to keep your car @ a 90 degree path to it for maximum pola effect.

[Jeff Kolada]

Most vehicles you wouldn't have a problem with reflection of the camera, unless it is a jeep or something where the windshield is fairly flat. You'd probably have to worry about reflection of the sky and clouds more than anything, and a polarizer is your best bet. You'll just have to figure out the angle that works best. And yes, you're right that a pola won't remove 100% of reflections, but when it's sky reflecting, sometimes thats nice to have a little bit of.

 

That is unless you can replace the glass with non-reflective UV-coated glass. It would be much more expensive depending on your budget, but from what I can tell, many feature films do not use stock windshields on cars for shots through windshields. Or they don't use windshields at all.

 

On that note, you may think about having a two-shot across the characters instead of straight on if the reflections become a big problem. (Probably a bit wider than this, but you get the idea)

[Tom Jensen]

That is unless you can replace the glass with non-reflective UV-coated glass. It would be much more expensive depending on your budget, but from what I can tell, many feature films do not use stock windshields on cars for shots through windshields. Or they don't use windshields at all.

 

Most feature films use the windshield that comes with the car. I've never worked on a film that replaced the windshield or taken one out. I have seen the rear view mirror removed which I absolutely hate. You pretty much set the pola and go. Not you don't normally dial out the entire reflection because the reflection looks natural. You just want to be able to see the actors.

[Chris Keth]

If you're on a process trailer, an 8x solid can be tabletopped over the windshield and it will kill sky reflections. You can also use your choice of net to knock those reflections down but not completely kill them.

[Brian Drysdale]

The pola works extremely well on daylight shots, I usually like leaving some reflections, but it does depend on the scene.

 

On side shots you can always wind the door window down, although the sound department mightn't too happy if there is dialogue. Even though the door glass you'll probably be shooting at an angle to the glass rather than straight on, so shouldn't catch the camera reflection.

[Paul Bruening]

You can use that pola creatively, as well. One of my best shots was shooting through glass at two girls. I turned the pola revealing the boyfriend in the reflection, standing outside