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Lighting outdoors when it's cloudy.

H

harmonica44

I am going to meet a DP, and will probably get him to shoot a short. But going in, I need to know what I want. The short film takes place outdoors and I was wondering if it's cloudy that day, how do you light for clouds? You can't use reflectors since there is no reflection so do I just use lights that are 'cloudy balanced', if there is such lights?
 
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You have the same lighting options on cloudy days that you have on any other day. It all depends upon what feel you want for the scene. You can shoot on cloudy days and make it look like high noon during the middle of summer on an absolutely cloudless day. You can shoot in full sunlight and make it look like you are shooting at midnight with no moon. You decide how you want the scene to feel and use lighting, scrims, GOBOs, modifiers, camera settings and filters to achieve that look. The flip side to that is to figure out what equipment you have reasonable access to and adjust your shooting plan according to environmental conditions at the time.
 
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Are you a DP? With as little experience as you have, I don't think there's much you can provide to the lighting design that won't sound like you're speaking out of you @$$. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Do yourself a favor and leave the lighting to the DP.

You'd mentioned in an earlier thread that your reputation wasn't very good and that you were having trouble finding cast & crew. Micro-managing departments in which you have zero experience will further tarnish your standing in the film community.

Of course, like all the good advice you've received from other members, I fully expect you to ignore mine.

Thomas
 
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+1 to baoliun.

Cloudy days are some of the softest light imaginable. For the most part the lighting is likely to come out very flat. When you're close, however, you could fly a few flags to cut the light into something a bit more dramatic. Beyond that? Prepare for some power masking in post unless you have one hell of an equipment budget.
 
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Okay thanks. Well I picked the best DP I could find based on their reels. So I will go with what he says. I could rent that equipment from the store, if the store can come through in time, but they are usually booked up. If it's cloudy come shoot time, then that's what I'll get.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. Well I picked the best DP I could find based on their reels. So I will go with what he says. I could rent that equipment from the store, if the store can come through in time, but they are usually booked up. If it's cloudy come shoot time, then that's what I'll get.
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after all your questions to him im sure this will be his reaction.
:seeya:
 
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They keep telling me that other people are constantly renting their equipment and they don't have any left. It's been that way every time I ask which is why I kept relying on my own equipment as a result.
 
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Well they require 90 days notice, which is fine with me but the actors do not want to give that much notice in advance so far. I will have to get it shot sooner. A guy told me he has 6500 K lights though, I can ask to borrow them. Or ask where he got them.
 
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You need powerful lights to combat sunlight - colour temperature alone is not necessarily enough. You need high powered HMIs, LED Creamsource or HIVE Plasma lights to have a hope of battling even cloud cover.
A 6500k on-camera LED placed 6' away is going to have basically 0 effect.

Most rental houses don't require as much as 90 days notice. And realistically, even if they do just ensure that when you're casting you ask people if they're free on the dates you've booked - if they're not, you don't cast them. If they are and you cast them, tell them to lock it in.

Not that difficult.
 
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Or don't use lights.
One problem less to ponder about.
Let it have soft light and low contrast and focus on the story and acting.
No lights will give you more time for the framing and acting.
In post you can add a little contrast if you want to.

Did you watch 'Festen'?
They used no addition lights. The story and acting are amazing.

So... light problem is solved! :-p
 
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baoliun said:
No artificial lighting doesn't mean lighting was not designed or controlled.
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The only thing they did was putting the lights on at night. At night the scenes have a lot of noise, lol.
Exterior shots were shot with daylight only.
It's a Dogma-movie.
Dogma wanted to move away from all the tech-stuff and go back to focus on story and acting.
And that's why H44 needs to watch 'Festen': it was shot on DV-camera's (noisy as hell during night-scenes), lacks all the things we are used to in a movie ('proper lighting', a score, sound effects), but it's brilliant anyway.
 
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WalterB said:
The only thing they did was putting the lights on at night. At night the scenes have a lot of noise, lol.
Exterior shots were shot with daylight only.
It's a Dogma-movie.
Dogma wanted to move away from all the tech-stuff and go back to focus on story and acting.
And that's why H44 needs to watch 'Festen': it was shot on DV-camera's (noisy as hell during night-scenes), lacks all the things we are used to in a movie ('proper lighting', a score, sound effects), but it's brilliant anyway.
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Agreed, Celebration is a fantastic film.

The Idiots is good as well.

H44, here are the Dogme 95 rules.

http://uffilmanalysisfour.pbworks.com/w/page/7284607/Rules for Making a Dogme Film

The whole point of it was to show that gear is great, but story is more important. It was also a movement against productions and studios that cared more about other aspects of the making of a film then story and characters. I think I'll try to make a short this way at some point :)
 
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I haven't seen it,rules seem lol.

But my point was even if you work with all natural light, you can design lighting. i.e don't put your main actress under sunlight at noon, cause death sockets are ugly
 
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