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lighting a car at night


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hey,

 

so I'm shooting my first car spot next week for Toyota. Concept is simple enough: night ext. on a tennis court, two friends playing doubles against unseen partners. One of the partners is blabbering non stop about his car, and the spot basically jump cuts all over the court from close to wide, etc etc. as this guy keep going on. At the end of the spot, we cut to the parking lot where the two friends get their new Toyota (I attached a pic of the location, BG will be the tennis courts), there' s a couple shots of them putting their gear away, getting in the car, driving off.

 

I know for car lighting, you generally want as big a source as possible to maximize on specular reflections. since it's location work outdoors at night, and not a huge budget, there's only so big we can go (probably 20 by's). Is that big enough that if positioned properly could give the specular highlights needed without revealing the source? I'm pushing for a silver or grey color on the car to minimize this (does that make sense? - I've shot with black cars at night outside and it quickly turned into a cluster**(obscenity removed)**). Also, I've seen a couple people use 8 ft. flourescent tubes positioned around the car to bring out metallic reflections.

 

Any advice is more than welcome. thanks in advance!

 

Bobby Shore

DP

mtl/la

 

tennis court.pdf

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hey,

 

so I'm shooting my first car spot next week for Toyota. Concept is simple enough: night ext. on a tennis court, two friends playing doubles against unseen partners. One of the partners is blabbering non stop about his car, and the spot basically jump cuts all over the court from close to wide, etc etc. as this guy keep going on. At the end of the spot, we cut to the parking lot where the two friends get their new Toyota (I attached a pic of the location, BG will be the tennis courts), there' s a couple shots of them putting their gear away, getting in the car, driving off.

 

I know for car lighting, you generally want as big a source as possible to maximize on specular reflections. since it's location work outdoors at night, and not a huge budget, there's only so big we can go (probably 20 by's). Is that big enough that if positioned properly could give the specular highlights needed without revealing the source? I'm pushing for a silver or grey color on the car to minimize this (does that make sense? - I've shot with black cars at night outside and it quickly turned into a cluster**(obscenity removed)**). Also, I've seen a couple people use 8 ft. flourescent tubes positioned around the car to bring out metallic reflections.

 

Any advice is more than welcome. thanks in advance!

 

Bobby Shore

DP

mtl/la

 

tennis court.pdf

 

 

Big chicken coop over head(20x?) with spacelights (don't know your power limitations so can't say what size spacelights, Maybe then augment from the ground using 12x's at least, with some large sources bounced into them in a semi-circle around the car starting from screen left and scriming down as you work your way toward the middle. Then big pieces of foam core on the car's camera side to reflect white into the metal. I'd definitely not use the light from the street light overhead as a source.

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