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Welcome to the jungle...


Michael Reedy

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Yeah, tree trunks cast shadows! :P Seriously, it can be hard to light from the sides without your actors walking through big shadows. It just takes a bit of careful blocking and placement of the lights (not to mention picking a somewhat clear area) to get the action to happen in the light.

 

The natural light in the forest tends to be pretty toppy, so you often want to fill with soft light closer to eye level. Just watch out for the light starting to "burn up" on trees that are closer to the source. If there's hard broken sunlight coming down through the canopy, you've got your work cut out for you. On the one hand that dappled light can look beautiful, but on the other it can be a pain to balance the exposure. Rigging any kind of overheads becomes difficult with trunks and branches everywhere.

 

I think big-budget movies like Predator would pick a clear spot to shoot, and then have a greens crew with portable trees and foliage able to move around to acommodate the photography.

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Thanks Michael, that pretty much sums it up for me. I guess i'm just going to have to get out there and test, test, test!!! I might end up climbing some trees with armed with a few lights and sunguns :P

 

Maybe I should try my hand at some gardening and film in the backyard :huh:

 

michael.

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I'm working with (cutting) material I shot in forrest/jungle in Vietnam.

 

I had no lights, reflectors, or crew.

 

It looks great. 7245. I let Kodak & nature do 75 %, or in this case - 100 % of the work :D

 

(well maybe that's unfair to both my lab timer & colorist I'm working with, I did both film & video dailies for this)

 

-Sam

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" If there's hard broken sunlight coming down through the canopy, you've got your work cut out for you. On the one hand that dappled light can look beautiful, but on the other it can be a pain to balance the exposure. Rigging any kind of overheads becomes difficult with trunks and branches everywhere."

 

OTOH this opens the possibility of doing your fill with broken up, ambiguous sources, a kind of "motivated" fill lighting.

 

-Sam

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