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Outdoor light setups.

Lowxposure

Lowxposure

I just need some advice on lighting outdoors in a couple of scenarios.

The first, and in my opinion most challenging, Two people in the front of a single cab pickup truck at night... driving of course.

The second is just general lighting during the day (it's supposed to be bright with lots of sunshine). Specifically what would you guys recommend I use to control the light on a sunny day. Particularly things that aren't expensive. I've seen the reflector boards and such, but what do you folks use? I suppose it should also be mentioned that my crew is at a minimum. I may not be able to assign a couple of people to man reflector panels.

If it helps I have a T2I with a 50mm prime and the 18-55 Kit lens.

Any help is appreciated.
 
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The pickup truck one actually isn't to bad. You can light this two ways. If they are in a city environment then there might be some street lights (Not stop lights) that you can take a que off of. Street lights are usually pretty hard lights so you could get away with positioning a bunch of work lights on the side of the road and blasting them into the cab. The trick would be for your gaffer to get them high enough so simulate a street light. If you are lighting on a budget that is what I would go with.

Now if they are out in the country or just a road without any street lights I would go with LEDs. I would use a few LEDs on the dash to simulate dash lights. Make sure they are soft and that they don't look artificial. Again tricky but doable on a budget.

If you were really ambitious you could do both. That way you could make the street lights more spaced out and therefore more natural looking.

Your biggest problem is going to be your F-Stop. With your lens and the sensor in your camera I think your minimum stop is a 4. That means your going to need tons of light. As far as trying to raise your ISO I wouldn't go higher then 1600 also. The T2i sensor just isn't designed to go past that without the footage looking grainy.

On to sunny weather. I would first scout the location to try and put the sun behind the actors for your master shot. This gives them a nice edge and doesn't put harsh light on the face, and most importantly doesn't make the shot look flat. Makes it easier to control also. I would advise completely against any kind of reflector unless you have a lot of diffusion. Reflectors make light super harsh and most of the time fake. Now just because I don't agree with reflectors, doesn't mean you shouldn't be using bounce sources. Look into buy big pieces of foam core, bead board, and celotec. If you have two c-stands then I would look into buying cheap muslin from a fabric store. Try to buy a piece that is about 6X6. All these bounce sources will give you a nice soft key. But don't stop with just a key source. If you purchase some duvatyne or just some black cloth then you can bring up the negative side and shape the light even more. This will give you a nice looking, professional image.

Anyway, just my thoughts. Hopefully it helps.

Brooksy
 
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Hey thanks. I guess I could have given more detail. The truck will be in an abandoned parking lot, there wouldn't be any lights, and the truck is quite old. I suppose then LED's are the way to go. In your opinion, would you prefer to light the the entire cab of the truck or just the subjects? I realize that question might be a matter of taste, but I'm still learning, and I want to go as basic as possible for these first few shorts.

For the sunny weather, would you recommend using the basic 3 point light setup? Using the board as the key, and the sun as a back light? I'm sorry, but you kind of lost me on the "negative side".
 
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I would definitely go with LEDs for lighting your subjects. Don’t worry about lighting the cab so much. Remember that you are trying to emulate the lighting from dash of a car. Age of the truck doesn’t really matter because you are just “fooling” the audiences anyway. Some of that LED is going to spill on the rest of the cab anyway so worry about your subjects for this. To get the best results you may want to grab one of your buddies and start your car up in the dark turning on only the front dash lights. Take a look and see what those lights are doing using just your eye. Then when it is time to film remember what you saw and try to copy it for the camera. Don’t get me wrong it is a difficult effect to do, but try it out. Set up some lights and take a picture. Upload it to the website, we are all here to help.

The trick is going to be making the background to look real. If it is an abandoned parking lot with no other lights around then it is going to look like the truck is in a complete black void. Very fake looking. We are going for realistic here. And in the real world there is light everywhere. I would try getting a couple friends with there cars to drive past in the background. Simulating passing traffic. Since there is no one else in the parking lot they can then circle around behind the camera and keep going. Have another friend rock the truck slightly to make it look like the truck is moving. If done right you could make it look like the truck is driving through traffic. You could play out the whole scene this way. Again I am trying to help out without knowing any of the script or seeing the location. So if this advice doesn’t work then I am sorry. Hopefully it is helping you to start thinking a different way.

For the sunny weather, the 3 point lighting is exactly what I am talking about here. Now with the negative. First off it is good that you told me that I lost you. Your never going to learn anything if you pretend to know everything. So with 3 point lighting you have a Key, Back Light, and Fill light. When the Key and Fill light are the same brightness you get what people call Flat lighting. Flat is boring and very unprofessional. Not that one can’t use flat lighting but learning how to control lighting is very important. So when the Key and Fill lighting are the same brightness then what is done is a big piece of black cloth is brought in on the fill side. We call this black cloth negative. Because it is negating the light on the fill side. This puts a better ratio on the person’s face and makes the shot more interesting. Think of it as turning off the fill light. Make sense. The reason I bring this up is because flat lighting can happen outside a lot if a person doesn’t know how to shape light.

Anyway those are some of the next steps I would take. Hopefully I have helped you and not hurt you.
 
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I really do appreciate the help. I would send you a portion of the script, but I literally just finished it, and it needs some re-tooling before it's ready to show around, and it's far from formatted correctly (I figured I could skip it this time since I'm filming it).

In the scene, two men are driving through an extremely small town to meet their gun trafficker. They stop at the agreed upon meeting place, an abandoned parking lot just off of the highway, and wait for the seller to drive up. There's some brief conversation (including a glance in the mirror) before the guy shows up.

Of course as I'm typing this I suddenly realize I will have to light the parking lot in some way whilst keeping it "dark". Not to mention a trunk filled with guns right off the highway... I think I may have to adjust my script a bit.
 
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Here's a set up I found. DOnt know if you have acces to the lights or not but:

1. From the front of the truck, use a 2K bounce for the ambient/moonlight.

2. Also from the front, A 1K: Will be panned to simulate head lights of oncoming cars

3. From the passenger side: A 500W or 650W mounted high, panning the lenght of the car to simulate street lights

4. From the back: A 1K to simulate following traffic.

That's it in a nutshell. Use them as needed.
 
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I think you are still ok. With them being in a dark parking lot there is actually a lot you can use. I would say for the interior I would still stick with the LEDs for the interior of the cab. When they get out to talk to their seller you can use the cars head lights for lighting. It would look natural, You can get away with some harder light and it would look interesting. Just have to be creative with where your lights are shining and how they are hitting your actors. Actually sounds like a fun scene to film.

As far as your trunk shot goes, you don't need to change anything at all. Remember it only matters what your camera sees. If you want to film your "dark" trunk in your garage with all the lighting control in the world, you can do that. If the lens doesn't need to see anything else. Then film the scene in the parking lot and if you need shots of the trunk go to a place with some electricity and light the trunk. Lots you can still do there, without spending very much at all.
 
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Murdock said:
Here's a set up I found. DOnt know if you have acces to the lights or not but:

1. From the front of the truck, use a 2K bounce for the ambient/moonlight.

2. Also from the front, A 1K: Will be panned to simulate head lights of oncoming cars

3. From the passenger side: A 500W or 650W mounted high, panning the lenght of the car to simulate street lights

4. From the back: A 1K to simulate following traffic.

That's it in a nutshell. Use them as needed.
Click to expand...

Not too sure what you're referring to by a 1k or 2k. lol I'm really flagging my noobness today.
 
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Murdock said:
Here's a set up I found. DOnt know if you have acces to the lights or not but:

1. From the front of the truck, use a 2K bounce for the ambient/moonlight.

2. Also from the front, A 1K: Will be panned to simulate head lights of oncoming cars

3. From the passenger side: A 500W or 650W mounted high, panning the lenght of the car to simulate street lights

4. From the back: A 1K to simulate following traffic.

That's it in a nutshell. Use them as needed.
Click to expand...



Sure with a big budget and big lights you can do a lot. I could give you 20 different ways to light this scene. But if you don't want to spend a ton of money then stick to using what you got. Just get creative with it.
 
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Brooksy said:
I think you are still ok. With them being in a dark parking lot there is actually a lot you can use. I would say for the interior I would still stick with the LEDs for the interior of the cab. When they get out to talk to their seller you can use the cars head lights for lighting. It would look natural, You can get away with some harder light and it would look interesting. Just have to be creative with where your lights are shining and how they are hitting your actors. Actually sounds like a fun scene to film.

As far as your trunk shot goes, you don't need to change anything at all. Remember it only matters what your camera sees. If you want to film your "dark" trunk in your garage with all the lighting control in the world, you can do that. If the lens doesn't need to see anything else. Then film the scene in the parking lot and if you need shots of the trunk go to a place with some electricity and light the trunk. Lots you can still do there, without spending very much at all.
Click to expand...

You're my new hero. I can't thank you enough for your help with this. I'm still a few weeks from actually filming this, but I'll tinker and see what I can get.
 
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Lowxposure said:
Not too sure what you're referring to by a 1k or 2k. lol I'm really flagging my noobness today.
Click to expand...

It just refers to the wattage of the light. A 2K is a 2000watt light.

Brooksy is right. They are expensive. That's why I put the "if you have access to them part" :) You can also rent lights. Might be something to look into.

I'm a noob too. Just been doing a lot of reading on lighting lately.:)
 
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Lowxposure said:
I could, but you know that point where you're counting down the days until payday? I live there lol!

Side note, I'm originally from Lufkin, Texas... just noticed you were from Dallas.
Click to expand...

I know the feeling.:)

I'm actually in Grand Prairie but noone has ever heard of it soooo.:) But the Dallas/GP line is only 2 minutes from my house so I don't feel bad in claiming it.:)

And like Brooksy said, use what you got, or that is cheap. If you want to use a bounce to get your ambient light, you might be able to use a spot light from wal-mart?? And a bounce is where you bounce the light off something else. A cheap reflector is foam core you can get at Home Depot.
 
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I currently have one of those yellow 500w work lamps and two scoops each with 100w bulbs and a variable dimmer. Total setup cost $3o. I'll look into the foam core.

What do you use for stands? Other than actual stands of course lol.
 
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