Hot summer exterior shots

[Roberto Ditleff]

I will be shooting some hot summer exterior shots on an open location , but will be trying to avoid the hard sun light on the actors, i am planning to use overhead when possible, could anyone give any advice on using overheads

tks

Roberto

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Silks & scrims, silks & scrims

 

:)

[Kim Sargenius]

[...] could anyone give any advice on using overheads

 

 

They're NEVER big enough... :angry:

 

Make sure you have the sturdiest / heaviest stands you can afford and LOADS of shot bags and weight buckets to tie them down - any little hint of wind and you will have to wrangle them like you would a sailing boat, anything bigger than a 6'x6' at least. Having someone on your crew with sailing and/or rigging experience would be very handy.

 

The silent diffusions and fabric based ones are better as they won't be as noisy.

 

Heavy diffusers can look a bit strange - they might cut down and soften the light too much relative to your background, so keep that in mind.

 

 

HTH,

 

 

Kim

[Satsuki Murashige]

Also, make sure the rental house gives you the right size of silk or net for your overhead frame. There's nothing more embarrassing than spending all that time putting together a 20'x20' frame, then realizing that the net is too small to go on it. D'oh!

 

Also, make sure the rental house gives you the right size of silk or net for your overhead frame. There's nothing more embarrassing than spending all that time putting together a 20'x20' frame, then realizing that the net is too small to go on it. D'oh!

[Jim Feldspar]

They're NEVER big enough... :angry:

 

Make sure you have the sturdiest / heaviest stands you can afford and LOADS of shot bags and weight buckets to tie them down - any little hint of wind and you will have to wrangle them like you would a sailing boat, anything bigger than a 6'x6' at least. Having someone on your crew with sailing and/or rigging experience would be very handy.

 

The silent diffusions and fabric based ones are better as they won't be as noisy.

 

Heavy diffusers can look a bit strange - they might cut down and soften the light too much relative to your background, so keep that in mind.

HTH,

Kim

 

What is "silent diffusion"? I know that gels flap and make noise and so does say 216 but on an

overhead wouldn't it be all fabric? Is there a way to make some fabric quieter?

[David Mullen ASC]

Some materials are quieter than others, that's all. The cloth diffusions like silk tend to be quieter than the plastic diffusion, hence why some manufacturers had to make "silent" versions of their plastic diffusers. The material is basically softer and more pliable, stretchier, which makes it less prone to rattling in the wind.

 

My favorite diffusion material outdoors is Half Soft Frost, which has a density similar to Opal. You only lose a 1/2-stop of light under it, which allows you to have a person walk under the material without them dropping off in brightness radically. Of course, that means that there's less softening than a silk, so I still use silks as well.

[Frank DiBugnara]

Standard approach with little time and low budget:

 

It is amazing how good things look when shooting a slower stock and shooting into the sun (subject backlit by the sun) and no silk at all exposing for the shadow (letting highlights blow). Then maybe using various bounces to model the face.

[Dimitrios Koukas]

If you can, schedule your shoot for ''correct'' times of the day, where the sun isn't overhead too much.

Your silks and screens will cover a bigger area. Unless you want to use something big as a football field. :)

Dimitrios Koukas