Lighting exteriors with a small budget

[Teresa]

Dear cinematographers.

I'm a beginner and I have hundreds questions for you guys but I start with this one:

I'm going to shoot in super16mm in the countryside, with a really bright sun. Almost all the scenes are -two actors dialogues-, in exterior, both under a porch and under the direct sun.

I find quite hard to light exteriors 'cause I can't control the sun and we don't have a big budget.

1: do you think I can handle it with a big silk, butterflies and a 12k hmi?

2: what happen if we do NOT have the budget to rent HMI? Do you think I can handle it with just the flags, silks, butterflies? Which other kind of light I can get instead of the HMI? Other suggestions to handle the sun changing position during the scene?

My director wants a romanitc old fashioned look.

Thank you!

Teresa

[Guest Christopher Wedding]

Shiny boards are always a good and bright and alot cheaper to rent. The biggest downfall is a cloudy day!

[dee]

hi Teresa,

 

I'm also a beginner.. well actually i'm only a poor student... but here's an idea...

since you are shooting mostly dialog, why dont you use the sun as a backlight (wait till the sun is a little lower, like about 2 - 3 pm or 9-10 am depending on the actor's position) and bounce some light with either diffuse bounce or specular bounce depending on your preference. you can also create some ratio with bounnce cards by setting them in angle...

 

in addition to that, I usualy put the actor against shadowed background, so the rimlight/backlight really2 do its job making the actors stand out.

 

this is my favourite outdoor lighting setup since it's cheap and easy. and it creates a really dreamy, pretty look. plus you can also use some diffuser on your lens to add..

 

-dee-

[Kevin Zanit]

That 12k will help a lot in the porch scenes. If you can't afford the 12k, I would recommend a 4k PAR, which has a good deal of punch for the money.

 

If you are shooting in open daylight, rather than silk you may try grid cloth which cuts a little less light.

 

Shinny boards would be good, although I recommend mirror boards more.

 

Also, look into getting a 12x silver Lemay. This is a very punchy rag, and can be very effective as a fill or key (depending on the lighting conditions).

 

I just did a project where I had two actors run from under a long overhang into broad daylight. In this case you have several options:

 

1. Lower the light levels of the existing daylight to match the overhang.

2. Bring up the light levels under the overhang.

 

I went with a mix of the options. I used a Lemay and a 4k PAR (with opal) to bring up the overhang, and several 12x12 grids to control the daylight.

 

The suggestion to stage your actors against backlight by the sun is very good.

 

If it is not practical to try and keep your actor's in backlight all day, try keeping them so the sun will come from the left side of their face to the right (or the other way around). You can use your 12k and Lemay for fill when the sun is real side-y, and then start using the 12k and Lemay as a side key and silk (or grid) the sun as it gets more overhead.

 

The only problem you may have is when the sun gets real side-y on the other side of the face. You can try and black it out and maintain continuity. I would actually try to cheat the reverse against a different background so that the sun's angle could work for me. This approach assumes that you really need to get this dialogue scene done in a day or so. If it could be stretched out more you would need less cheating.

 

Also, stage your wide shots first and then maintain that light yourself in the closer coverage.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Kevin Zanit]

Reading my post, I realize it was a little confusing. Here are some examples of what I was talking about.

 

This was essentially the look of the lighting (just taken from my digital still camera, not from the actual camera's position).

http://www.kevinzanit.com/projects/Slant/image001.jpg

 

This is a rough picture of the setup: (that is my Gaffer taking Sunnto readings to figure out where the sun will be, it is a very good tool)

http://www.kevinzanit.com/projects/Slant/image017.jpg

Essentially the sun was in a backlight position, and we were just lighting her.

 

Due to wardrobe reasons we had to take a half hour break for her to change. We knew that the sun would no longer be backlighting the trees in the background (in fact they would have almost no light on them at all due to a hill near by). So we essentially turned around completely to where the trees had light on them and shot the rest of our coverage in that position. This cheat only worked because the remaining coverage was very tight and looked up at her. Here is the "cheated" setup:

http://www.kevinzanit.com/projects/Slant/image020.jpg (note she had not changed yet because while she was there we had her stand in for our lighting purposes)

 

Kevin Zanit

[Mike Williamson]

Looks good, Kevin, what kind of lights are you using to light the actress in that set-up?

[Kevin Zanit]

Thanks.

 

I used a 4k PAR with a medium lens (I think) and a 1200 PAR for fill (I think with a double and single wire, but I don?t really remember) with a medium lens (I think). Both units had opal on them. Lucky for me was that this actress's face was able to take hard light very nicely; otherwise I would have a hard time getting away with a PAR with only opal on it.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Teresa]

Hei thank you Chris Dee Mike and especially Zenit. You guys gave me a lot of ideas to work on. I will let you know.

Byez

[Paul Bruening]

Hello Teresa,

 

If you can't afford the lights, foamcore insulation sheets will serve you well. You can get them as 4' x 8' sheets at construction supply stores. They are white, 1" foam core with silver foil on one side. That gives you a white side for near shots and a bright, shiny side for medium shots. The limitation with these is, You have to have as many as two crew members per board on windy days. You also have to block your scenes to accomodate the reflection angles. With these boards going for only $6.00 to $8.00 per sheet you may find their limitations well worth their value to your budget. I use the heck out of them. I run a length of duct tape over the edges. That makes them last a little longer since they can get busted up pretty easily.

 

Good luck,

Paul