Outdoor scene

[julien doumenjou]

Hi,

i'm shooting a scene in an outside restaurant next friday. I don't know how sunny it's gonna be, cloudy says the meteo. Anyway, the sun will be hidden by houses so it will be shady. My question is what light can I use to get more light on the faces. Unfortunately I can't afford too much equipment.

 

The scene is a classic shot-reverse shot dialogue, two guys at lunch. I thought using one 1K ARRI (CTB), a white tablecloth as a reflector and an other reflector to fill where needed.

 

Does that sound cheap to you or is it possible to make something ok with that?

 

I'm shooting in super 8, Kodachrome 40 with a beaulieu 4008.

 

Thanks!

[Alessandro Machi]

You might be able to get away with regular lights to supplement the outdoor light. The reason being is it will actually add a little bit of color to the faces. I feel it is harder to add color to faces if they end up washed out, especially in a medium or wider shot. On your close ups, you can probably get away with a bounce card since it is a close up and the bounce card can be placed closer.

 

to match the look of the lights, you might want to consider a bounce board that matches the color temperature of your light.

 

If you want to match the sun's light instead of playing off of it, there are those small portable HMI lights that are powered by batteries. They work best in subdued sunlight, and you will need to try and widen the beam of light so it doesn't look so harsh.

However, if you have depth in your shots, you can probably get away with just backing up the light a bit.

 

These portable HMI lights, called mini-arcs, can probably be gotten from a rental place. I recommend running them off of batteries if you have enough power as it makes them very fast and portable for moving around.