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Working with Haze (and fogged up windows)?


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Hey Guys,

I hope I'm in the right forum to ask these questions, if not, feel free to move the topic!

 

So next week I'm gonna shoot a short film set in a dry cleaner at night and to create a more dense atmosphere I'm planning to work with a hazer and fogged up windows. Now since I'm a student and started shooting 1.5 years ago, I haven't really had the chance yet to work with haze, my plan for using and utilizing it is to put it in the depth of the shots while "paddling" it away from the talents, to maintain them in the picture as clear as possible while the background is subtly hazed up. Is that the right approach or should I put a bit of haze infront of the actors as well?

 

The other question is about fogged up windows. In a few other topics I read that Mr. David Mullen recommends Arrid Extra Dry to put some mist on the windows, which sounds awesome! But now that I live in Germany unfortunately I've never seen Arrid Extra Dry in any shop and I'm not sure if it would arrive on time If I ordered it now from the U.S..

So basically my Question here is: Am i simply looking for a powder-based deospray or are there other ingredients that i need to have in mind when gathering some brands for testing it?

 

Cheers!

Leo

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Don't count on the haze going where you want, if it's proper haze (not fog) it's going to distribute itself pretty uniformly. So count on it being in front of your actors as well and light accordingly. Avoid front lighting your subject as that will just light up the haze. Backlight through haze always looks fantastic, hard to screw that one up. Anything closer to the camera will naturally be less diffused than your background as there is less physical haze separating the two.

 

Something else you'll notice is that haze acts as diffusion. I've found that I can use much harder sources than I normally would and it still looks quite nice. Lastly, have somebody babysitting the ambient haze level so shots cut together.

 

 

Hey Guys,

I hope I'm in the right forum to ask these questions, if not, feel free to move the topic!

 

So next week I'm gonna shoot a short film set in a dry cleaner at night and to create a more dense atmosphere I'm planning to work with a hazer and fogged up windows. Now since I'm a student and started shooting 1.5 years ago, I haven't really had the chance yet to work with haze, my plan for using and utilizing it is to put it in the depth of the shots while "paddling" it away from the talents, to maintain them in the picture as clear as possible while the background is subtly hazed up. Is that the right approach or should I put a bit of haze infront of the actors as well?

 

The other question is about fogged up windows. In a few other topics I read that Mr. David Mullen recommends Arrid Extra Dry to put some mist on the windows, which sounds awesome! But now that I live in Germany unfortunately I've never seen Arrid Extra Dry in any shop and I'm not sure if it would arrive on time If I ordered it now from the U.S..

So basically my Question here is: Am i simply looking for a powder-based deospray or are there other ingredients that i need to have in mind when gathering some brands for testing it?

 

Cheers!

Leo

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Thanks alot Dan!

That was kind of my thought as "real fog" in nature works the same. Good to have that verification! I'll be mostly lighting from the side with a bit of a backlight! Thank you for your tips!

 

Don't count on the haze going where you want, if it's proper haze (not fog) it's going to distribute itself pretty uniformly. So count on it being in front of your actors as well and light accordingly. Avoid front lighting your subject as that will just light up the haze. Backlight through haze always looks fantastic, hard to screw that one up. Anything closer to the camera will naturally be less diffused than your background as there is less physical haze separating the two.

 

Something else you'll notice is that haze acts as diffusion. I've found that I can use much harder sources than I normally would and it still looks quite nice. Lastly, have somebody babysitting the ambient haze level so shots cut together.

 

 

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All good tips. Haze doesn't show up too much in front light unless it's super dense, so it's less of a concern in terms of being in front of your subject. Backlit it will show the direction and shape of sources - your windows in this case. Keeping it even is incredibly difficult, especially because the good haze machines tend to be pretty noisy - so between the time you've hazed the space and let it more-or-less settle evenly, you get about 5-6 minutes in still air where the effect looks good and similar density. Longer than that it starts to thin, before that it may be too dense or have too much motion. David Mullen did some stunning work in Astronaut Farmer with haze.

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