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Car rain night


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Hi fellow cinematographers,

Looking for some advice on shooting a car rain sequence in the night..Here are some pointers:

1. What is the ideal way to shoot a night car rain sequence?

2. Is it better to shoot a static car and cheat with moving lights and back lighting the rain? Or rather book a stretch of road and have rain on the entire road, although that would be heavy on budget as the entire road would have have rain? 

3. Green Screen

2a. Is it a heavy VFX thing to do in post?

2b. Will backlighting rain, having moving lights around the car suffice to make it real?

4. Any other way of going about it?

5. Someone can direct me to a well shot sequence of car with rain outside would help.

 

Thanks!!

 

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If you can’t shoot the driving scenes on a process trailer with permits to shut down the road, then your best bet is to shoot it in ‘poor man’s process.’ Meaning, a static car in a dark space, either on a stage or outside at night. Setup and move lights around the car to create the illusion of movement. Have someone push on the car to create realistic road bumps.

If you’re going to do rain effects, don’t shoot green screen. The moving pattern of rain drops on the windows will be a nightmare to key out. Also, the moving water will help you hide the background behind the windows, so it should be easier to fake the scene.

Whether you need to backlight the rain depends on how wide you’ll be. Usually, poor man’s process scenes are shot fairly tight, not seeing outside the frame of the car. So there would be no point to backlighting the rain since the water would be running off the windows of the car in the foreground. The shifting pattern of light from the water on the interior of the car is what you want.

Well shot poor man’s process scenes? Look at ‘Mad Men’, Or any David Fincher movie after ‘Se7en.’ Although in Fincher’s case, he mixes location photography for the wide shots of the car, and usually green screen for the interiors. But I believe he still does poor man’s process from time to time. 

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On Netflix, check out The Other Side of The Wind and then the companion resurrection documentary, They'll love me When I am Dead, for a great night/car/rain/sex scene. Gary Graver shot it poor man style with great results. The scene was shot over several years in different countries. You would never know.  The doc has lots of behind the scenes stuff and shows Orson Welles brilliance in crafting the scene. Very low tech. Garden hoses, PA's moving lights, completely convincing. 

Edited by Chris Burke
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/23/2020 at 2:13 AM, Satsuki Murashige said:

If you can’t shoot the driving scenes on a process trailer with permits to shut down the road, then your best bet is to shoot it in ‘poor man’s process.’ Meaning, a static car in a dark space, either on a stage or outside at night. Setup and move lights around the car to create the illusion of movement. Have someone push on the car to create realistic road bumps.

If you’re going to do rain effects, don’t shoot green screen. The moving pattern of rain drops on the windows will be a nightmare to key out. Also, the moving water will help you hide the background behind the windows, so it should be easier to fake the scene.

Whether you need to backlight the rain depends on how wide you’ll be. Usually, poor man’s process scenes are shot fairly tight, not seeing outside the frame of the car. So there would be no point to backlighting the rain since the water would be running off the windows of the car in the foreground. The shifting pattern of light from the water on the interior of the car is what you want.

Well shot poor man’s process scenes? Look at ‘Mad Men’, Or any David Fincher movie after ‘Se7en.’ Although in Fincher’s case, he mixes location photography for the wide shots of the car, and usually green screen for the interiors. But I believe he still does poor man’s process from time to time. 

Thank you so much for the detailed response! Its going to be tight shots only, close ups and mid close ups.
What do you think about using a projector with moving footage, can be placed at a distance behind the window so its gonna be out of focus, but I don't think its going to be a good bet considering it has to look like rain outside!

Will check out the references! Thanks!

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On 7/23/2020 at 2:26 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

Look at the poor man's night driving shot in the rain for "Frailty" (DP Bill Butler), I think the DVD even has a BTS demo of how he did that.

Thanks David for the reference, I had a look at it!! 

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  • 4 months later...
On 7/24/2020 at 2:51 AM, Chris Burke said:

On Netflix, check out The Other Side of The Wind and then the companion resurrection documentary, They'll love me When I am Dead, for a great night/car/rain/sex scene. Gary Graver shot it poor man style with great results. The scene was shot over several years in different countries. You would never know.  The doc has lots of behind the scenes stuff and shows Orson Welles brilliance in crafting the scene. Very low tech. Garden hoses, PA's moving lights, completely convincing. 

Thanks Chris! Checked out the references!

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