Car headlights - Night - Any ideas?

[Scott Copeland]

Hey people smarter than me,

 

I want to try the affect of car headlights passing a porch. Subject will be seated on the porch and I'm looking to recreate the moving lights that would be thrown on the back wall by a passing car. What are your thoughts on no having the intensity of light be consistent? When I watch the real thing happens, there seems to be a lot of variance due to the cars proximity as it comes and goes.

 

Hope that gives a sense of what we're looking for. Any ideas or photos that might help visually aid in the process?

 

Thanks.

[John David Miller]

Slap a stand with a double baby pin offset (or a wider speedrail version) on a western dolly, add two par cans or whichever units you like. Get a grip to push it from A to B while someone wrangles the cable.

 

Or

 

Have the grips lay a run of dolly track the preferred distance you want to mimmic. Built a platform dolly using a set of dolly troughs and a 4x piece of plywood. Add the stand(s) and lights.

 

Or

 

Rig the lights you want to use to a real car or golf cart and make the move with your lights on and the headlights off.

[David Mullen ASC]

Generally the light gag itself involves a double or triple-headed baby stand extender piece so you can put two lights about three feet apart on one stand, but of course, you could use two stands... but it is easier to pan around the two lights if they are on one stand. You could also create a rig using a c-stand arm and gobo head.

 

The lights themselves are often either 1K PARs (mediums) if you want some punch, or tweenies if you don't need that much exposure. Yes, some people also put them on a doorway dolly a bit of track to move them as well as pan them.

[John David Miller]

I agree with David in that the majority of time this gag is simply done with a single stand, triple baby header, 2 - 1k pars, and a lamp op panning them through the desired area.

 

I have found the larger setup versions are done for reasons that are story driven.

 

Be mindful of the direction you are panning the light through the frame and the correlation it will have with a supposed vehicle.

 

Nothing worse than watching poor mans process that makes a forward driving car look like it's traveling in reverse because the gags were going the wrong way lol.

[Scott Copeland]

Thanks guys,

 

I see where you're headed with it. Supplies are limited in these parts, but we can rig something. Seems simple enough in set up, execution will be the final tester. Thanks for getting my head in the right place. We should be able to go from there.

 

Love this forum.

 

-S.C.